Millions Of Environmental Refugees In Our Future

[RestoreGore]

We are wrecking environmental terrorism upon our planet, and I fear it will not be believed until such a catastrophe should occur that it will be too late to do anything about it. The repercussions of a mass exodus (Hurricane Katrina and now the island of Lohachara in India succombing to the ocean) are just minor examples of the calamity that awaits us if we continue to sit on our hands and report on these SIGNS without a real outcry! I believe in 2007 we must see such a massive march on Washington DC and throughout this planet unlike any ever seen to DEMAND that people in Congress and particularly that criminal squatting in our White House to do their duty to stop funding war and start funding SUSTINENCE. Where is the MORAL OUTCRY? It is as if we are all sitting here waiting for the big one to come! No wonder so many teens in this country have such a negative viewpoint about this issue... What are we really doing out here to make it a POSITIVE OUTCOME?

I am sick and tired of reading these stories every day now with NO SOLUTIONS being implemented. We are allowing OIL COMPANIES and a bought and sold media and political system to continue to run roughshod over our lives! WHERE is the alternate fuel at my pump today? Where is the alternate energy I as a poor person in this country can use for electricity without paying through the nose for it? Why aren't we seeing aggressive ads about this calamity to warn and INFORM people? Where is the fight against the corporate media? This is not a political issue to be used on a campaign stump to get votes on any side. This is a NON PARTISAN crisis that affects every living human being and every other species. It is a crisis unlike any we have ever seen, and ours and the next generation are going to be tested to our limits.

If we do not find the MORAL fortitude necessary to change OUR ways NOW, we will pass that tipping point, and from news I have been reading the last couple of weeks we may well be there already. It's time to really get serious about this. If there is a march on Washington DC to SAVE THIS PLANET I will be there with bells on and I WILL NOT LEAVE until that mission is accomplished. And it will take more than just Democrats doing the same things like "setting up a fund" that can once again be manipulated. We need evasive action NOW as in drastic cuts or a freeze in CO2 emissions! Norway reportedly wants the U.S. to go up and see the Arctic. Al Gore should go up there and bring back pictures and show them in the Congressional chamber and challenge those who sit on their hands thinking that WAR is the only thing we should be concerned with! It can be stated no other way: WE ARE DESTROYING OURSELVES BY OUR OWN HAND.

Droughts are also affecting almost 40% of this planet now, with that only estimated to rise under current conditions with over FORTY countries in Africa estimated to be WATER SCARCE in just twenty years. WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS?! And this isn't just because of climate change, it is because of WASTE and GLUTTONY and the tremendous amount of pressure we are putting upon this Earth. The poor in our world are now and will be the hardest hit from this crisis and again, just like with any crisis there comes a point of critical mass when just throwing money at it isn't going to solve it unless people find a MORAL COMPASS. The longer we wait to take definitive action on this crisis, the quicker its effects will speed up as we continue to dump 70 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every day we are wasting just talking about it. The media and politicians really DO NOT see the urgency of this crisis, and I fear a large majority of this population doesn't either, even with Al Gore's film. So I suppose it will have to God forbid be that BIG one that finally wakes everyone up.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=970599119419
(This link doesn't seem to now be working.)

http://www.thegreenpages.ca/portal/ca/2006/12/droughts_may_set_off_exodus.html#more

Droughts may set off exodus

West told to prepare for influx of people escaping environmental catastrophes

PETER GORRIE
ENVIRONMENT WRITER

Canada and other wealthy nations should prepare for a flood of environmental refugees, and treat them the same as those who flee political danger, international experts say. The number of people fleeing the spread of deserts or climate-change impacts such as drought and flooding is likely to hit 50 million within a decade and soar to between 135 million and 200 million by 2050, Zafar Adeel, a director of the United Nations University, said in an interview yesterday from Frankfurt, Germany while en route to a conference on the issue in Algiers, Algeria.

"Regardless of what the exact number is," it will swamp the current global total of 19 million refugees from war, genocide and all other threats, said Adeel, who heads the university's International Network on Water, Environment and Health, based in Hamilton. While the problem grows, support for solutions is falling, he said. Funding for the UN's land-degradation program, which is already inadequate, dropped by 15 per cent this year.

The issue will be the focus of the three-day conference, which opens Sunday. The Canadian International Development Agency is a major sponsor of the conference, which also has funding from Belgium, Iceland and several international and UN agencies.The main current problem is the spread of deserts, both because Earth's climate is warming and because impoverished people in dry areas are denuding the land for cooking fuel.

Poverty and climate change impacts feed on each other, Adeel said. For example, once land is cleared of vegetation, it reflects more of the sun's heat into the atmosphere, warming the climate. That, in turn, increases the spread of areas too dry to support vegetation."We have a poor sense of how fast it's happening, but current estimates are that 200 million people now live in desertified areas," Adeel said. Some 2 billion live in dry areas threatened with becoming desert. With every rise of 1 degree Celsius in average temperature, the boundary of such parched areas expands by another 200 kilometres, he said. As well, storms and rising sea level caused by climate change threaten people on low-lying islands and coastlines.

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Still, even with urgent action, "some areas...won't be habitable any more. People will have to leave, and they'll need the same help as political refugees." Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand are likely targets, he said.
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And we aren't nearly ready for this.

[donsu]

1. agree

nt