Climate Change: It’s Not Just An Environmental Issue; It’s A Human Rights Issue Too

[polly7]

By Steve Trent

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

What does it mean then to be deprived of your roots and home? Losing the security of the place where you sleep can be devastating. Being forced from the place we call home – the place you were born, where your family, friends, habits and culture reside by circumstances over which you have no control and had no part in creating.

EJF’s report, A Nation under Threat, released today, reveals that it is exactly this kind of forced migration that is now emerging on a massive global scale, with millions mainly among our planet’s poorest and most vulnerable being forced to move. These are the new refugees, “climate refugees” driven from their homes by changes in climate, the primary result of the developed world’s inability or refusal to understand the impacts of its development on the global environment and on others far less fortunate.

Climate change is amplifying the intensity of extreme weather events. Its impacts are now being seen in both poorer and developed countries. This year, Hurricane Sandy rendered more than 40,000 people homeless in New York City alone and just last week over 310,000 people lost their homes to Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines. Last year weather-related disasters, mainly floods and storms, displaced 13.8 million people. That’s more than the total number of residents in Illinois. Now, consider for a moment that the entire population of Illinois lost everything: their land, their homes, their possessions, their livelihoods. Where would those people go? To what would they be entitled and where?

These people forced from their homes by environmental insecurity are often referred to as “climate refugees” and “environmental refugees”. However, these terms are neither defined nor recognized by international law. Despite their numbers, these people have neither the recognition nor protections of refugees under international legal definitions and yet they have been forced to migrate because of climate related problems. They are refugees.

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[Warren Religion]

1. It's an EVERYTHING issue!

When you've no food to eat, no water to drink, no clean air to breathe, what else matters?

[Uncle Joe]

2. The corporate media has all but ignored what's going on in the Philippines.

A typhoon (hurricane) hits the southern part of the nation then eventually doubles back to hit the northern section, 300,000 people lose their home and it's as if it didn't happen.

All these talking heads on television talking about the same shit; day after day after day basically the political game, while ignoring real critical news, might as well be Ned the Head Ryerson trying to sell insurance to a dumbed down American People.

Thanks for the thread, polly.