
'People are dying': how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US - ciconia
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jul/29/guatemala-climate-crisis-migration-drought-famine
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stirkac
I feel bad just reading this, we failed as civilisation so badly. Apart from
short term help, I think these people need education - how could both growing
up hungry, living in famine and having children at 13 seem like a good idea is
beyond me.

~~~
chrbarrol
Afaik it makes perfect sense in a third-world country: There is no social
security net so your only security is your children taking care of you when
you get old / become unable to work. Probably there is a high chance some of
these children will either not grow up to take care of them, or not grow up at
all. Solution: hedge your bet by having as many children as possible.

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bryanlarsen
"Despite popular believe I don't think voting matters. "

In the end, voting is the only thing that matters. Individual choices by a
small minority of the population are going to be completely ineffectual
without governments setting policy so that doing the right thing is also doing
the most profitable thing.

But despite you being wrong in your core point, in my opinion, you're
absolutely right about the method.

The reason that voting is useless is because voters don't care about the
environment. Climate change is #11 in the list of top priorities for
voters.[1]. Fix that, and then voting might make a difference. And you do that
by making it clearly visible that it's important to you, and by convincing
others that it's important to them.

1: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/244367/top-issues-voters-
health...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/244367/top-issues-voters-healthcare-
economy-immigration.aspx)

[edit: sorry, this was supposed to be a reply to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20552145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20552145)]

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dpau
In my more paranoid moments I wonder- Despite the appearance of ineptitude and
racist undertones, is the US government's push to build a Wall actually part
of a long-term strategy put in place by the true strategists in the US
government, intelligent people who accept the science and understand the
tremendous challenge of climate change. Have they already evaluated the
projections and concluded that the only way for the US itself to survive is to
create a barrier?

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SiempreViernes
Sixty points in two hours and rank 500? I guess someone doesn't like the
title?

~~~
bryanlarsen
HN readers quickly flag stories that are political or tend to produce heated
discussions. Climate change stories are both, yet for a brief time there were
3 of them on the front page. Strong evidence that climate change actually is
important to HN readers.

~~~
SiempreViernes
Likewise the flagging is strong evidence that plenty of high karma users
object to taking it very seriously.

It's not like stories about blocking online ads get flagged down very often,
despite generating a lot of controversy too.

~~~
bryanlarsen
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20551615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20551615)
has been on front for 10 hours, yet has # comments exceeding # points, which
usually buries a story quick.

