The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😉
Main Topic: Current State Of Climate Refugee Numbers
Dear Diary. Today I would like all reading to think about some of the real world ramifications of the climate crisis. When climate change related weather gets so bad that residents of affected areas have to evacuate at least temporarily, they become what is known as climate refugees. So far, most of these poor people live in the deep tropics. In the United States those affected by Hurricane Maria across Puerto Rico in 2017 come to mind. Two CAT 4 systems (Eta and Iota) slammed into Honduras last year spurring more migrants to attempt to enter the United States to this very day.
As most of these refugees move north into safer areas they can cause destabilization of traditional society, Just ask residents if Europe taking in more people from the Middle East experiencing friction between cultures. As stated on yesterday’s diary, the Syrian Civil War was most likely sparked by an unusual five year drought. Many souls felt like that had no choice but to abandon Syria and move to Europe from the 2010s, going now into the early 2020s.
One family having to abandon their home due to weather worsened by carbon pollution is too many in my book. Think about the heartbreak and suffering in your own family if you suddenly needed to abandon your home and leave for parts nearly unknown. Thousands of climate refugees becoming millions is a true human tragedy in this climate war. To get a good idea of how many people in the last several years are being displaced here is a new Reuters report:
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2B90Z8
WED MAR 17, 2021 / 8:22 AM EDT
Over 10 million displaced by climate disasters in six months: report
(Reuters) – About 10.3 million people were displaced by climate change-induced events such as flooding and droughts in the last six months, the majority of them in Asia, a humanitarian organisation said on Wednesday.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said about 2.3 million others were displaced by conflict in the same period, indicating the vast majority of internal displacements are now triggered by climate change.
Though the figures cover only a six-month period from September 2020 to February 2021, they highlight an accelerating global trend of climate-related displacement, said Helen Brunt, Asia Pacific Migration and Displacement Coordinator for the IFRC.
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows a residential area affected by floods, which damaged the embankment of the Citarum river following the heavy rains, in Bekasi, West Java province, Indonesia, February 22, 2021
“Things are getting worse as climate change aggravates existing factors like poverty, conflict, and political instability,” Brunt said. “The compounded impact makes recovery longer and more difficult: people barely have time to recover and they’re slammed with another disaster.”
Some 60% of climate-IDPs (internally displaced persons) in the last six months were in Asia, according to IFRC’s report.
McKinsey & Co consulting firm has said that Asia “stands out as being more exposed to physical climate risks than other parts of the world in the absence of adaptation and mitigation”.
Statistics from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) show that on average 22.7 million people are displaced every year. The figure includes displacements caused by geophysical phenomenon such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but the vast majority are displaced by weather-related events.
Globally, 17.2 million people were displaced in 2018 and 24.9 million in 2019. Full-year figures are not yet available for 2020, but IDMC’s mid-year report showed there were 9.8 million displacements because of natural disasters in the first half of last year.
More than 1 billion people are expected to face forced migration by 2050 due to conflict and ecological factors, a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace found last year. [reut.rs/3cyvw3i]
(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Here are some “ET” reports from Monday:
Here is more climate and weather news from Monday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”