Many people are still on the fence about climate change. Partly this is due to the steady chorus of doubt coming from those who either out of self-interest or principle prefer to believe that they really do live in a world where climate change is not happening. Another big reason is that climate change is happening in faraway places to the poorest of the poor, not a group we traditionally pay a lot of attention to.
But if you ask those people how it's going, which is what Los Angeles Times reporter Edmund Sanders did, you get a different story.
"I give up," said [Adam Abdi Ibrahim's] father of five as he stood in line recently to register at the camp. After enduring four years of drought and the death of his last 20 animals, Ibrahim, 28, said he has no plans to return.
Asked how he proposed to live, Ibrahim shrugged. "I want to be a refugee."
Africa is already home to one-third of the 42 million people worldwide uprooted by ethnic slaughter, despots and war. But experts say climate change is quietly driving Africa's displacement crisis to new heights. Ibrahim is one of an estimated 10 million people worldwide who have been driven out of their homes by rising seas, failing rain, desertification or other climate-driven factors.
So why should you care? Aside from the human dimension, there are other more mundane reasons that directly and indirectly affect your pocketbook. Here's why.
It's a reminder that behind the science, statistics and debate over global warming, climate change is already having a deep impact on Africa's poverty, security and culture. And a serious global discussion about climate refugees has barely begun, in part over concerns about who will pick up the tab, some experts say.
So far, there's no comprehensive strategy for coping with climate refugees, who are not yet legally recognized and receive no direct funding. As a result, those fleeing drought, flood and other weather changes usually end up in slums or refugee camps that were set up and funded for other purposes.
"If we were a corporation, climate change is what you might call a 'growth area,' " said Andy Needham, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Dadaab.
Think about what was just said. "Climate change is what you might call a growth area." Actually the growth will be felt in civil uprootings and uprisings, the result of famines, drought and disease.
This isn't the future we are talking about. This is here and now. Remember that the next time you read some breezy assurances that global warming is a hoax. Try telling that to the folks out there on the front lines of climate change.
This essay first apeared in PlanetRestart.org
