Lost...the voice, the cry, the shuffling feet of Climate Refugees

They are not victims of political upheaval or violence, who have access to financial grants, food, tools, shelter, schools and clinics through governments and international organizations. They are environmental refugees. Rising sea levels and catastrophic flooding, expanding deserts and drought...races of people are losing land in which they've lived in all their life. They are a people on the move in search of any piece of life sustaining land.

Lost in the economics of who's going to pay what, and lost in the science of whose at fault, and lost in the technology of can it save us, and lost in the voices babbling of politicians...is the voice, the cry, and the shuffling feet of refugees on the move.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
–William Butler Yeats, from “The Second Coming”

In Copenhagen we've assembled the rich, the powerful, and the brightest. It's my prayer we won't see the best, and worst...and have done nothing.

 

While the disastrous consequences of climate change may seem a ways off for some in the developed world, the International Organization for Migration reported today that it has already driven an estimated 24 million people from their homes--a number, they warned, that could rise to as high a billion people by 2050.

In most cases, these "Climate Refugees" are fleeing rural regions stricken by desertification, water pollution, and famine--problems caused directly or made worse by global warming--and heading into already crowded cities. As these factors become more common with the rise of temperatures in the coming years, the effect of these mass migrations on hard-hit regions will be devastating and eventually become worldwide.

The research sites that the number of people affected by natural disasters has more than doubled in the last 20 years as being a major cause of the migrations. Those impacted most are the poor, who have no means of migrating internationally, which tends to drive internal movement, namely into urban centers--many of which are unequipped to handle the influx.

As time goes on and the situation becomes more dire, these climate refugees may be ending up at the doorstep of the world's wealthier nations, so says the report:

While acknowledging that the impact of climate change on migration is predominantly internal movement, international migration is nevertheless likely to be increasingly important in the future and will necessitate policy and program responses that are currently lacking.

A BILLION people - one in seven people on Earth today - could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years as the effects of climate change worsen an already serious migration crisis, a new report from Christian Aid predicts.

The report, based on the latest United Nations population and climate-change figures, says conflict, large-scale development projects and widespread environmental deterioration will combine to make life unsupportable for hundreds of millions of people, mostly in the Sahara belt, South Asia and the Middle East.

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About 155 million people are known to be displaced now by conflict, natural disaster and development projects. This figure could be augmented by as many as 850 million, as more people are expected to be affected by water shortages, sea level crises, deteriorating pasture land, conflicts and famine, the report says.

I'm baffled that this is not seen as a crisis by the worlds faith communities. All faiths have a profound connection, woven into the very fabric of creation. On the deepest level we are all related, what ever your color, race, or langauge. Like DNA there is a divine strand of something beyond us that connects us. It is a global village in which we are all...neighbors. All God's people...or if you're an atheist we all come from one cosmic bang.

 

I'm rather shocked reading various faith based blogs, and websites for the past week that there has been a great void, a vacuum...lots of church stuff, lots of deep theological rambling and missional musings. But it seems there is no link between the church and creation, no link between theology and creation...and no link between mission and creation.

 

The plight of environmental refugees my friends is a crisis of faith of biblical magnitude.

 

Jeremiah 9:23-24 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.”

 

You can follow the United Nations Climate Change Conference news here on their site.

The research sites that the number of people affected by natural disasters has more than doubled in the last 20 years as being a major cause of the migrations. Those impacted most are the poor, who have no means of migrating internationally, which tends to drive internal movement, namely into urban centers--many of which are unequipped to handle the influx.

As time goes on and the situation becomes more dire, these climate refugees may be ending up at the doorstep of the world's wealthier nations, so says the report:

While acknowledging that the impact of climate change on migration is predominantly internal movement, international migration is nevertheless likely to be increasingly important in the future and will necessitate policy and program responses that are currently lacking.

A BILLION people - one in seven people on Earth today - could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years as the effects of climate change worsen an already serious migration crisis, a new report from Christian Aid predicts.

The report, based on the latest United Nations population and climate-change figures, says conflict, large-scale development projects and widespread environmental deterioration will combine to make life unsupportable for hundreds of millions of people, mostly in the Sahara belt, South Asia and the Middle East.

---

About 155 million people are known to be displaced now by conflict, natural disaster and development projects. This figure could be augmented by as many as 850 million, as more people are expected to be affected by water shortages, sea level crises, deteriorating pasture land, conflicts and famine, the report says.

I'm baffled that this is not seen as a crisis by the worlds faith communities. All faiths have a profound connection, woven into the very fabric of creation. On the deepest level we are all related, what ever your color, race, or langauge. Like DNA there is a divine strand of something beyond us that connects us. It is a global village in which we are all...neighbors. All God's people...or if you're an atheist we all come from one cosmic bang.

 

I'm rather shocked reading various faith based blogs, and websites for the past week that there has been a great void, a vacuum...lots of church stuff, lots of deep theological rambling and missional musings. But it seems there is no link between the church and creation, no link between theology and creation...and no link between mission and creation.

 

The plight of environmental refugees my friends is a crisis of faith of biblical magnitude.

 

Jeremiah 9:23-24 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.”

 

You can follow the United Nations Climate Change Conference news here on their site.