
The Great Climate Migration Has Begun - edward
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html
======
9nGQluzmnq3M
> _In Southeast Asia, where increasingly unpredictable monsoon rainfall and
> drought have made farming more difficult, the World Bank points to more than
> eight million people who have moved toward the Middle East, Europe and North
> America._

Citation needed: as far as I can tell the linked report (below, a giant 260
page, 64MB PDF) says nothing at all about Southeast Asia?

[https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/2...](https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29461/WBG_ClimateChange_Final.pdf)

The vast majority of Southeast Asia is very consistently wet and humid, which
makes it an unlikely candidate to become unlivably hot. The sole major
exporter of workers in the region is the Philippines, but that's mostly due to
overpopulation encouraged by Catholic dogma, and there's "only" around 2M
overseas workers. Where are the other 6M?

Personally, I think India is going to be largest challenge by far. It's soon
the largest country in the world, it has massive water and pollution problems,
and anybody who has experienced Delhi in May will agree that large parts of it
are already virtually uninhabitably hot.

~~~
orwin
> The vast majority of Southeast Asia is very consistently wet and humid,
> which makes it an unlikely candidate to become unlivably hot.

unlivealy hot and wet [0]. Some people indeed think that the high humidity
combined with a >33C temperature will soon be the leading cause of death in SE
Asia, SE india, tropical africa as well as Florida, coastal georgia and SC[1].
I' disagree (or rather, i'm not quite as pestimistic) but the ;ortality in
some area indeed get higher with humidity in summer

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-
bulb_temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature)
[1][https://kevinhester.live/2016/05/21/wet-bulb-temperature-
soo...](https://kevinhester.live/2016/05/21/wet-bulb-temperature-soon-to-
become-the-leading-cause-of-death/) (i found a way better map some time ago
but i can't find it, sorry)

------
seesawtron
A similar discussion from half a year ago on HN [0]. Everytime I see
concerning articles like these on drastic impact of climate change, it is
always followed by a discussion on how disheartening and worrisome it is.

However, what I would really like to see is a discussion on what we, as
engineers or skilled professionals or converned citizens of the only liveable
planet, do to make an impactful difference. I am sure a lot of us do our part
by making little changes in our everyday life such as reducing consumption,
choosing public transportation, being aware of the source of the goods we
consume, so on and so forth. But there is very little hope that these small
changes will get us where we need to be.

I found this [1] firm that aims to match you to organizations doing impactful
work on a larger scale, in case it is interesting for anyone. Hoping to see
more such resources or strategies.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057576)

[1] [https://www.splashwithdolphin.com/](https://www.splashwithdolphin.com/)

~~~
perfunctory
Unfortunately, I believe there is nothing special we as engineers can do. The
best thing we can do is what any other concerned citizen can do. Join climate
activists on the streets. Rebel against the status quo. Yes, it's much less
comfortable than sitting in front of a screen all day, but it's the most
efficient way.

~~~
minerjoe
> Nothing special we as engieers can do?

Truly you can bring more imagination to the table?

We have almost the entire world connected. Partial solutions to many of todays
problems have already been discovered, they just haven't been communicated to
the rest. As engineers, we are in a good spot to address this issue.

Amost everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket, networked with the rest.
There has to be some way to use this to help enable people to get out of
destructive extractive system, and to create new, aligned with nature,
systems.

~~~
perfunctory
> There has to be some way to use this to help enable people to ...

This is what I used to think too. Over the years though (decades really) my
belief in pure technological solutions has waned significantly. As the world
interconnectedness increases, so do the global GHG emissions. As the number of
supercomputers in our pockets increase so does the e-waist and micro-plastic
pollution. It looks like no matter what we do (EVs, solar, smart-grids, you
name it), somehow, almost inexplicably, the GHG emissions just keep rising.
Year after year.

Don't get me wrong. I am not anti technology or something. It's just that it's
not a bottleneck anymore. There is no lack of technological solutions, there
is a lack of moral courage to implement them.

------
roenxi
Global population is increasing at a rate of >1% per year. We crossed 6
billion in 1999 and 7 billion in 2011. We're now much closer to 8 billion than
7 billion too.

It is hard to imagine scenarios where this magnitude of growth ends well and
wedging 'climate' into everything really is making people miss the real
problem. The problem is human population growth - it seems quite likely that
the future contains seas of blood and withering famines with or without
climate change.

Handing out condoms and the pill will do more to help than curtailing fossil
fuel usage (which realistically will just bring the suffering on faster). A
world of 1 billion people would be a very comfortable world compared to what
people put up with now - about a third of them could have a US-level lifestyle
and the rest could put up with European standards of living.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Fertility rates are already plummeting across the planet, and most developed
countries already need a steady influx of migrants just to keep their
populations steady. The issue is that a baby born today will live for 70-ish
years, so there's a large "hump" of overpopulation to deal with before world
population growth goes into reverse around 2100.

~~~
ur-whale
That "hump going into reverse" theory is predicated on there being no large-
scale disaster (war, famine, etc...).

The way things are going, that predicate is rather unlikely.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
War or famine would likely speed up reaching that point, not slow it down.
Nevertheless, grim Malthusian predictions have been made since the 1700s, and
have yet to come to pass.

