Monday, February 23, 2009

Ecomigration - the next Climate Change Impact?

It's not often that real consequences from Climate Change get real press coverage. Today's Washington Post story about ecomigrants is the exception, rather then the rule. That said, it's an important story.

As I see it, ecomigration has the potential to seriously undermine economic recovery. Our economy (and our stimulus attempts) are built on the assumption that the economy needs to go back into a shpae or systems that looks like it did a few years ago. The problem is, if there are more Dust Bowl like migrations in the next decade, that assumption will likely fall apart. You can't for instance, stimulate an economy when large numbers of workers are on the move between regions. Major manufacturing plants for things like cars don't just up and walk from Tennessee to NorthD akota in search of more hospitable climates.

And finally, what is the world to do about places like Kiribati? As highlghted in the article, this island nation of 100,000 is facing a real threat from sea level rise. These people deseve the world's help -but I fear they won't get it because then we'd have to admit something is really wrong.

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