Those who are both against immigration and are climate change deniers may soon find themselves in a tight situation. Stephanie Leutert explains on Lawfare:
A few weeks ago, during a trip along the Mexico-Guatemala border I met a group of climate migrants. The three Hondurans—two brothers and their childhood friend—were all heading north after three years of unusual weather in their community of San José in the Copán district of western Honduras. They explained that the seasonal rains were coming too late and the hot, dry periods were lasting too long, leaving the soil more like dust than fertile land. Without decent crop yields, the families spent down their savings until they finally ran out of money, food, and the capacity to wait for better weather.
To learn more about their story, I called the local government office of Santa Rosa near the brothers’ hometown. Josselyn Hernandez, the administrator who took my call, confirmed that the weather was indeed shifting in the area. But the issue wasn’t just the rainy season’s unpredictability. Severe storms were rocking the region as we spoke, ruining crops and displacing entire families. “It rains every year,” she explained during our call, “but never with this intensity.”
These are not just a few fluke weather years. Studies consistently show that Honduras is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries when it comes to the effects of climate change. The western section of Honduras is particularly vulnerable to reduced precipitation and extreme or unpredictable weather events. Projections estimate a 10 to 20 percent decrease in rain over the next 30 years and a 2-degree Celsius increase in the average temperature.
The sad part, of course, is that by dropping their denial, they could help remedy the other. After all, people, by and large, are homebodies, preferring to stay home when possible, and just make that trip to a foreign country a vacation – or a war. American ancestors left for various reasons – religious intolerance and economic hardships being two of the most popular. As climate change decreases crop yields and makes conditions unlivable in equatorial regions, we may see more migration – not less.
If you don’t like immigrants, building a wall is simple minded. Many issues, including climate change and our agricultural export policies, must be examined in turn with an eye towards how we’re ruining other countries, and therefore enticing their citizens to our country.
And foreign aid may not be enough. We may have to change our behavior, not only with direct regard to the wall, but towards questions of agricultural subsidies designed to help our farmers “win” – and thus ruining the economies of other countries. There are consequences to winning, just as there are to losing, and these need to be assessed in terms of our futures.
