Even ignoring the current deaths due to the large scale desertification that Climate Change is causing,
What is your source for this? On Wikipedia, there is a distinct lack of references to good quality data, and in the anecdotal evidence (e.g. shrinking of lakes in the Sahel) seem to have other contributing factors than climate change, like increasing irrigation. Elsewhere I find that “[t]he Sahel region is experiencing a phase of population growth unprecedented in any other part of the world”.
At the current rate of fishing, all fish species could be practically extinct by 2050
What is your source for this? While some fisheries are poorly managed, many are in much better shape. There is a lack of knowledge about the status of many stocks, and we can’t model ecosystems very well, but the uncertainty doesn’t mean you can conclude with the most outrageous claim.
estimates ranging from 100 million to 1 billion climate refugees
Again, who is estimating this, and how? Currently we have 70 million refugees from wars and oppression, and probably more fleeing towards better economic prospects (although we don’t usually cause them refugees). I propose we spend our resources towards fixing this, rather than towards some hypothetical refugee situation some time in the future. A side benefit is that rich, peaceful nations tend to be the ones that manage their fisheries well, protect biodiversity and their inhabitants don’t become refugees even when the occasional natural disaster strikes.
The report also states that the way land and water are used for agriculture is part of the problem, it interacts with climate change making both issues worse.
again cover the subject of an abrupt drop in marine biomass and it’s consequences for food security. The second one specifies how over fishing and climate change are again piling up as problems, exacerbating each other consequences.
My specific claim that overfishing would extinguish all fish species by 2050 turned out to not be in my thesis, I mixed up what I heard in a documentary with the statements I was able to prove about risks for a collapse of marine life and risks for food security during my work.
This is referred as the study which that statement I heard was based on, but it states it’s a possibility and there doesn’t seem to be much recent research backing this outcome, so I’d update my expectations to the possible outcomes treated in the studies above, which aren’t at all less worrying.
My statement was from memory and it was incorrect. The most relevant pages for my statement seem to be 38 and 39. IOM states that, in the current literature, predictions of refugees number vary from 25 million to 1 billion because there are a lot of variables.
However at page 39 says that in the previous 5 years over 165 million people were newly displaced, and that climate and weather disasters were involved in 90% of cases, so my guess is that we can throw the most optimistic estimates out of the window. Most of those cases are related to temporary displacement (page 40), but in the same page it’s stated that climate change is expected to shift climate related displacement toward permanent ones.
For current refugees vs future refugees, usually it’s a lot more cost-effective to prevent a problem than to fix it once it happens.
I strongly feel we should fix the current problem as well, and that the two approaches shouldn’t have to compete for the resources we’ll allocate. Currently this kind of problems are seeing only the scraps of what we could allocate, and fixing the future problems spares us economic damages that would be way higher even in the short term alone.
Also, many of the wars currently causing refugees seem to be partly caused by climate change consequences.
Both these studies indicate climate change as one of the causes of recent war, and as likely cause for more armed conflicts in the future.
On a side note: I do have to remember to always post the sources of my claims in advance, so at least I can make less of them. This wasn’t how I planned to spend a good part of my morning, but it would have been really incorrect to not post the sources for claims I already made.
What is your source for this? On Wikipedia, there is a distinct lack of references to good quality data, and in the anecdotal evidence (e.g. shrinking of lakes in the Sahel) seem to have other contributing factors than climate change, like increasing irrigation. Elsewhere I find that “[t]he Sahel region is experiencing a phase of population growth unprecedented in any other part of the world”.
(https://ideas4development.org/en/population-growth-sahel-challenge-generation/)
What is your source for this? While some fisheries are poorly managed, many are in much better shape. There is a lack of knowledge about the status of many stocks, and we can’t model ecosystems very well, but the uncertainty doesn’t mean you can conclude with the most outrageous claim.
Again, who is estimating this, and how? Currently we have 70 million refugees from wars and oppression, and probably more fleeing towards better economic prospects (although we don’t usually cause them refugees). I propose we spend our resources towards fixing this, rather than towards some hypothetical refugee situation some time in the future. A side benefit is that rich, peaceful nations tend to be the ones that manage their fisheries well, protect biodiversity and their inhabitants don’t become refugees even when the occasional natural disaster strikes.
My master thesis treated the impacts of climate change, here are the sources I used for these claims:
Desertification: https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/76618/2/SRCCL-Full-Report-Compiled-191128.pdf If you’d rather know precisely where to look for my claims, since it’s a 874 pages long report, I’d suggest the Summary for Policy Maker part, from page 5 to 9, Chapter 1.2.1, from page 88 to page 91, and chapter 5 executive summary, pages 439-440.
The report also states that the way land and water are used for agriculture is part of the problem, it interacts with climate change making both issues worse.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/3/2019/11/03_SROCC_SPM_FINAL.pdf For this I suggest reading the Summary for Policy Makers B, from page 17 to 28. B7 is the most relevant point for desertification, B8 for fish losing most of it’s biomass and putting at risk food security.
These two:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/2/024007/pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337888219_Impacts_of_ocean_deoxygenation_on_fisheries_In_%27Laffoley_D_Baxter_JM_eds_2019_Ocean_deoxygenation_Everyone%27s_problem_-_Causes_impacts_consequences_and_solutions_Gland_Switzerland_IUCN_xxii562pp
again cover the subject of an abrupt drop in marine biomass and it’s consequences for food security. The second one specifies how over fishing and climate change are again piling up as problems, exacerbating each other consequences.
My specific claim that overfishing would extinguish all fish species by 2050 turned out to not be in my thesis, I mixed up what I heard in a documentary with the statements I was able to prove about risks for a collapse of marine life and risks for food security during my work.
This is referred as the study which that statement I heard was based on, but it states it’s a possibility and there doesn’t seem to be much recent research backing this outcome, so I’d update my expectations to the possible outcomes treated in the studies above, which aren’t at all less worrying.
Edit: I forgot to actually paste the link: https://www3.epa.gov/region1/npdes/schillerstation/pdfs/AR-024.pdf
For refugees:
https://xpda.com/junkmail/junk219/environmental%20refugees%2014851.pdf this indicates 200 million climate refugees by 2050 as the most common estimate.
https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mecc_outlook.pdf this was the resource I used from 100 million to 1 billion.
My statement was from memory and it was incorrect. The most relevant pages for my statement seem to be 38 and 39. IOM states that, in the current literature, predictions of refugees number vary from 25 million to 1 billion because there are a lot of variables.
However at page 39 says that in the previous 5 years over 165 million people were newly displaced, and that climate and weather disasters were involved in 90% of cases, so my guess is that we can throw the most optimistic estimates out of the window. Most of those cases are related to temporary displacement (page 40), but in the same page it’s stated that climate change is expected to shift climate related displacement toward permanent ones.
For current refugees vs future refugees, usually it’s a lot more cost-effective to prevent a problem than to fix it once it happens.
I strongly feel we should fix the current problem as well, and that the two approaches shouldn’t have to compete for the resources we’ll allocate. Currently this kind of problems are seeing only the scraps of what we could allocate, and fixing the future problems spares us economic damages that would be way higher even in the short term alone.
Also, many of the wars currently causing refugees seem to be partly caused by climate change consequences.
https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/134710/1/Mach_2019_accepted_manuscript.pdf
(here is the published version of the same article, I’m not sure if you have access to this resource though, I have it through my university https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1300-6 )
https://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf
Both these studies indicate climate change as one of the causes of recent war, and as likely cause for more armed conflicts in the future.
On a side note: I do have to remember to always post the sources of my claims in advance, so at least I can make less of them. This wasn’t how I planned to spend a good part of my morning, but it would have been really incorrect to not post the sources for claims I already made.