At first I was surprised when you said that not much has been written on migration, but it's hard to track, so yes. The fiction world is a different story with many films and books on the topic from the nitty gritty perspectives of those involved.
Given the amount of secretive movements all the numbers are probably underestimates. Anyway, fascinating essay and very well researched. Thanks for your hard work on the topic!
One very sad thing is that as poorer immigrants arrive in wealthier nations, many of these places are starting in decline as they struggle to provide services to their own citizens, due to the fact that they are being fleeced by capitalism's last gasp as we run low on fossil fuels and are harmed by the many toxic chemicals in our environments. When I go to Ecuador and eat mainly locally grown foods in rural areas I feel healthier than when I am home. When I am in Kenya, same thing. Maybe it's psychological, but I have discouraged my relatively poor Ecuadorian friends from coming to North America. They are all curious and open to the idea. For a while it made sense to discourage leaving such a beautiful nation like Ecuador with wonderful year round conditions for food production and a fairly safe society to come to our winter wasteland nations, especially a violent nation like the USA. Now that the narco-traffic mafia types have set up shop in the big cities of Ecuador, I feel differently. One friend was recently extorted for $5000 and he's just a taxi driving father of 3 in a medium-sized town. He might be better off in the USA, but what an upheaval.
The other people I feel most for, are the ones who come from nations that our US empire has harmed and made unlivable, such as Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine, among others. I am ashamed of our rapacious international behavior, our collaboration on the Israel project that has become dystopian, and we wonder why they committed suicide with airplanes hitting the trade center. Duh...
There are so many injustices it's hard to keep track of them. Good people try to minimize them with varying results over the course of history. I don't see that changing. What has changed hugely is the scale of humanity. It is going to make matters worse for people, if it hasn't already, and without doubt infinitely worse for most other life on Earth. Scale down!
Excellent!! In my opinion all this migration will not end well if taken as a whole both for the host countries and the origin countries, let alone the planet and its wildlife. One critical resource that we’re already running out of is potable water— I think it’s clear that we are in a dystopian situation. It’s reflected in our general sense of instability and conflict. There’s definitely something very rotten in the state of Denmark, so to speak!
In terms of the coming US election, it’s obvious we have to limit or end the chaotic, unvetted pouring across the border that we have seen throughout the Biden administration. The Democrats have definitely sided with unlimited immigration and that is not going to work out well over the long-haul (or even in the short term) for the country or the planet and its wildlife. For example, New York City has added 200,000 migrants to its population, equivalent to a whole new city district being added.
It's nice to see the heartwarming welcome for those guys from Mali. However, the dangerous route they took to get to Spain is in no way ideal. They should be able to migrate through a safe, well-organized immigration system. But the origin country of Mali, with a population of 25 million, has an astounding fertility rate of 5.5%. It's slowly coming down but that's an issue that should not be ignored. Spain can accept some immigrants and keep its population stabilized or allowed to drop. That should be its goal. Spain's level of consumption is not super high but its population, at 48 million, is very substantial.
For me, the main issue is the lack of a U.S. population policy, in particular one that addresses how population growth impacts the environment. Of there were a policy, then immigration would have to be sharply reduced. As far as I can tell, no one in government is even asking what the limits are for both population and consumption. No one ever mentions population stability. It's just so unintelligent, to put it diplomatically.
Just read this info last night—scary! Here are excerpts:
The length of the Earth’s day has been steadily increasing over geological time due to the gravitational drag of the moon on the planet’s oceans and land. However, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets due to human-caused global heating has been redistributing water stored at high latitudes into the world’s oceans, leading to more water in the seas nearer the equator. This makes the Earth more oblate – or fatter – slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day still further.
The planetary impact of humanity was also demonstrated recently by research that showed the redistribution of water had caused the Earth’s axis of rotation – the north and south poles – to move. Other work has revealed that humanity’s carbon emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.
“We can see our impact as humans on the whole Earth system, not just locally, like the rise in temperature, but really fundamentally, altering how it moves in space and rotates,” said Prof Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. “Due to our carbon emissions, we have done this in just 100 or 200 years. Whereas the governing processes previously had been going on for billions of years, and that is striking.”
The stratosphere extends from about 20km to 60km above the Earth’s surface. Below is the troposphere, in which humans live, and here carbon dioxide heats and expands the air. This pushes up the lower boundary of the stratosphere. But, in addition, when CO2 enters the stratosphere it actually cools the air, causing it to contract.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, reached its conclusions using the small set of satellite observations taken since the 1980s in combination with multiple climate models, which included the complex chemical interactions that occur in the atmosphere.
Humanity’s enormous emissions of greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed.
The thickness of the atmospheric layer has contracted by 400 metres since the 1980s, the researchers found, and will thin by about another kilometre by 2080 without major cuts in emissions. The changes have the potential to affect satellite operations, the GPS navigation system and radio communications.
The discovery is the latest to show the profound impact of humans on the planet. In April, scientists showed that the climate crisis had shifted the Earth’s axis as the massive melting of glaciers redistributes weight around the globe.
A landslide and mega-tsunami in Greenland in September 2023, triggered by the climate crisis, caused the entire Earth to vibrate for nine days, a scientific investigation has found.
The seismic event was detected by earthquake sensors around the world but was so completely unprecedented that the researchers initially had no idea what had caused it. Having now solved the mystery, the scientists said it showed how global heating was already having planetary-scale impacts and that major landslides were possible in places previously believed to be stable as temperatures rapidly rose.
The collapse of a 1,200-metre-high mountain peak into the remote Dickson fjord happened on 16 September 2023 after the melting glacier below was no longer able to hold up the rock face. It triggered an initial wave 200 metres high and the subsequent sloshing of water back and forth in the twisty fjord sent seismic waves through the planet for more than a week.
The landslide and mega-tsunami were the first recorded in eastern Greenland. Arctic regions are being affected by the most rapid global heating, and similar though seismically smaller events have been seen in western Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Norway and Chile.
Dr Kristian Svennevig from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, the lead author of the report, said: “When we set out on this scientific adventure, everybody was puzzled and no one had the faintest idea what caused this signal. It was far longer and simpler than earthquake signals, which usually last minutes or hours, and was labelled as a USO – an unidentified seismic object.
“It was also an extraordinary event because it is the first giant landslide and tsunami we have recorded in east Greenland at all. It definitely shows east Greenland is coming online when it comes to landslides. The waves destroyed an uninhabited Inuit site at sea level that was at least 200 years old, indicating nothing like this had happened for at least two centuries.
A large number of huts were destroyed at a research station on Ella Island, 70km (45 miles) from the landslide. The site was founded by fur hunters and explorers two centuries ago and is used by scientists and the Danish military, but was empty at the time of the tsunami.
The analysis, published in the journal Science, estimated that 25m cubic metres of rock and ice crashed into the fjord and travelled at least 2,200 metres along it. The direction of the landslide, at 90 degrees to the length of the fjord, along with the inlet’s steep parallel walls and a 90-degree bend 10km down the line all helped to keep much of the landslide’s energy within the fjord and resonating for so long.
Such events will become more common as global temperatures continue to rise. “Even more profoundly, for the first time, we can quite clearly see this event, triggered by climate change, caused a global vibration beneath all of our feet, everywhere around the world,” said Mangeney. “Those vibrations travelled from Greenland to Antarctica in less than an hour. So we’ve seen an impact from climate change impacting the entire world within just an hour.”
Humans’ impact on the planet was also demonstrated recently by studies showing that the reshaping of the Earth by the mass melting of polar ice was making the length of each day longer and causing the north and south poles to shift. Other work has shown that carbon emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.
Excellent article Tony, I agree 100%. We mustn't be afraid of talking about mass migration. As the climate fails mass migration will increase exponentially causing chaos. Most countries are thankfully below replacement fertility rates now. Once we can get every country to reach this the long term future will be better
Thanks, Tony, for a well articulated essay. It's hard to feel optimistic, particularly since so many people and leaders resist listening to common sense (a true oxymoron). I hope this gets to some of those and that they listen and respond.
This topic takes intellectual courage and insight to evaluate, and you have done a great job as usual. Reduce the need to migrate!! This is the key. Intuitively, it seems that most people would prefer to remain with their families in their countries and communities of origin, rather than engage in often dangerous travel to other countries in the hopes of being able to send some cash back to support the ones left behind. Unfortunately, US policies ranging from outright war and proxy wars to economic extortion (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) to "free trade agreements" can make migration a life-or-death necessity. Imagine the poor corn farmers of Mexico when NAFTA and other trade policies made it a de facto requirement to quit their traditional farming methods and adopt monocropping of GMO corn. It is simply not possible for people living traditional lifestyles to compete against today's mega-corporations that have the strength of US hegemony and international "aid" agencies behind them. Thus the need to choose between living a life of greater impoverishment or a desperate and often heart-breaking need to migrate to another country. Rather than building a border wall, we just need to respect the sovereignty of foreign countries and allow people to live as they choose.
The US needs a population stabilization policy that can sort out and address interconnected migration issues, including the ones you mention. Other countries might follow. Understanding and acknowledging limits to growth is the starting point. Unfortunately, we're far from that at this critical point in time. Perhaps as climate grossly destabilizes there'll emerge a serious movement toward degrowth. One never knows.
At first I was surprised when you said that not much has been written on migration, but it's hard to track, so yes. The fiction world is a different story with many films and books on the topic from the nitty gritty perspectives of those involved.
Given the amount of secretive movements all the numbers are probably underestimates. Anyway, fascinating essay and very well researched. Thanks for your hard work on the topic!
One very sad thing is that as poorer immigrants arrive in wealthier nations, many of these places are starting in decline as they struggle to provide services to their own citizens, due to the fact that they are being fleeced by capitalism's last gasp as we run low on fossil fuels and are harmed by the many toxic chemicals in our environments. When I go to Ecuador and eat mainly locally grown foods in rural areas I feel healthier than when I am home. When I am in Kenya, same thing. Maybe it's psychological, but I have discouraged my relatively poor Ecuadorian friends from coming to North America. They are all curious and open to the idea. For a while it made sense to discourage leaving such a beautiful nation like Ecuador with wonderful year round conditions for food production and a fairly safe society to come to our winter wasteland nations, especially a violent nation like the USA. Now that the narco-traffic mafia types have set up shop in the big cities of Ecuador, I feel differently. One friend was recently extorted for $5000 and he's just a taxi driving father of 3 in a medium-sized town. He might be better off in the USA, but what an upheaval.
The other people I feel most for, are the ones who come from nations that our US empire has harmed and made unlivable, such as Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine, among others. I am ashamed of our rapacious international behavior, our collaboration on the Israel project that has become dystopian, and we wonder why they committed suicide with airplanes hitting the trade center. Duh...
There are so many injustices it's hard to keep track of them. Good people try to minimize them with varying results over the course of history. I don't see that changing. What has changed hugely is the scale of humanity. It is going to make matters worse for people, if it hasn't already, and without doubt infinitely worse for most other life on Earth. Scale down!
Excellent!! In my opinion all this migration will not end well if taken as a whole both for the host countries and the origin countries, let alone the planet and its wildlife. One critical resource that we’re already running out of is potable water— I think it’s clear that we are in a dystopian situation. It’s reflected in our general sense of instability and conflict. There’s definitely something very rotten in the state of Denmark, so to speak!
In terms of the coming US election, it’s obvious we have to limit or end the chaotic, unvetted pouring across the border that we have seen throughout the Biden administration. The Democrats have definitely sided with unlimited immigration and that is not going to work out well over the long-haul (or even in the short term) for the country or the planet and its wildlife. For example, New York City has added 200,000 migrants to its population, equivalent to a whole new city district being added.
Just saw this article about immigration that seems to model how it should be done: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/13/theyre-setting-an-example-for-us-the-small-spanish-town-welcoming-refugees
It's nice to see the heartwarming welcome for those guys from Mali. However, the dangerous route they took to get to Spain is in no way ideal. They should be able to migrate through a safe, well-organized immigration system. But the origin country of Mali, with a population of 25 million, has an astounding fertility rate of 5.5%. It's slowly coming down but that's an issue that should not be ignored. Spain can accept some immigrants and keep its population stabilized or allowed to drop. That should be its goal. Spain's level of consumption is not super high but its population, at 48 million, is very substantial.
For me, the main issue is the lack of a U.S. population policy, in particular one that addresses how population growth impacts the environment. Of there were a policy, then immigration would have to be sharply reduced. As far as I can tell, no one in government is even asking what the limits are for both population and consumption. No one ever mentions population stability. It's just so unintelligent, to put it diplomatically.
Just read this info last night—scary! Here are excerpts:
The length of the Earth’s day has been steadily increasing over geological time due to the gravitational drag of the moon on the planet’s oceans and land. However, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets due to human-caused global heating has been redistributing water stored at high latitudes into the world’s oceans, leading to more water in the seas nearer the equator. This makes the Earth more oblate – or fatter – slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day still further.
The planetary impact of humanity was also demonstrated recently by research that showed the redistribution of water had caused the Earth’s axis of rotation – the north and south poles – to move. Other work has revealed that humanity’s carbon emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.
“We can see our impact as humans on the whole Earth system, not just locally, like the rise in temperature, but really fundamentally, altering how it moves in space and rotates,” said Prof Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. “Due to our carbon emissions, we have done this in just 100 or 200 years. Whereas the governing processes previously had been going on for billions of years, and that is striking.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/15/climate-crisis-making-days-longer-study
The stratosphere extends from about 20km to 60km above the Earth’s surface. Below is the troposphere, in which humans live, and here carbon dioxide heats and expands the air. This pushes up the lower boundary of the stratosphere. But, in addition, when CO2 enters the stratosphere it actually cools the air, causing it to contract.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, reached its conclusions using the small set of satellite observations taken since the 1980s in combination with multiple climate models, which included the complex chemical interactions that occur in the atmosphere.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/emissions-shrinking-the-stratosphere-scientists-find
Humanity’s enormous emissions of greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed.
The thickness of the atmospheric layer has contracted by 400 metres since the 1980s, the researchers found, and will thin by about another kilometre by 2080 without major cuts in emissions. The changes have the potential to affect satellite operations, the GPS navigation system and radio communications.
The discovery is the latest to show the profound impact of humans on the planet. In April, scientists showed that the climate crisis had shifted the Earth’s axis as the massive melting of glaciers redistributes weight around the globe.
A landslide and mega-tsunami in Greenland in September 2023, triggered by the climate crisis, caused the entire Earth to vibrate for nine days, a scientific investigation has found.
The seismic event was detected by earthquake sensors around the world but was so completely unprecedented that the researchers initially had no idea what had caused it. Having now solved the mystery, the scientists said it showed how global heating was already having planetary-scale impacts and that major landslides were possible in places previously believed to be stable as temperatures rapidly rose.
The collapse of a 1,200-metre-high mountain peak into the remote Dickson fjord happened on 16 September 2023 after the melting glacier below was no longer able to hold up the rock face. It triggered an initial wave 200 metres high and the subsequent sloshing of water back and forth in the twisty fjord sent seismic waves through the planet for more than a week.
The landslide and mega-tsunami were the first recorded in eastern Greenland. Arctic regions are being affected by the most rapid global heating, and similar though seismically smaller events have been seen in western Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Norway and Chile.
Dr Kristian Svennevig from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, the lead author of the report, said: “When we set out on this scientific adventure, everybody was puzzled and no one had the faintest idea what caused this signal. It was far longer and simpler than earthquake signals, which usually last minutes or hours, and was labelled as a USO – an unidentified seismic object.
“It was also an extraordinary event because it is the first giant landslide and tsunami we have recorded in east Greenland at all. It definitely shows east Greenland is coming online when it comes to landslides. The waves destroyed an uninhabited Inuit site at sea level that was at least 200 years old, indicating nothing like this had happened for at least two centuries.
A large number of huts were destroyed at a research station on Ella Island, 70km (45 miles) from the landslide. The site was founded by fur hunters and explorers two centuries ago and is used by scientists and the Danish military, but was empty at the time of the tsunami.
The analysis, published in the journal Science, estimated that 25m cubic metres of rock and ice crashed into the fjord and travelled at least 2,200 metres along it. The direction of the landslide, at 90 degrees to the length of the fjord, along with the inlet’s steep parallel walls and a 90-degree bend 10km down the line all helped to keep much of the landslide’s energy within the fjord and resonating for so long.
Such events will become more common as global temperatures continue to rise. “Even more profoundly, for the first time, we can quite clearly see this event, triggered by climate change, caused a global vibration beneath all of our feet, everywhere around the world,” said Mangeney. “Those vibrations travelled from Greenland to Antarctica in less than an hour. So we’ve seen an impact from climate change impacting the entire world within just an hour.”
Humans’ impact on the planet was also demonstrated recently by studies showing that the reshaping of the Earth by the mass melting of polar ice was making the length of each day longer and causing the north and south poles to shift. Other work has shown that carbon emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/12/entire-earth-vibrated-climate-triggered-mega-tsunami
Crazy stuff happening! Humanity is way overgrown.
Excellent article Tony, I agree 100%. We mustn't be afraid of talking about mass migration. As the climate fails mass migration will increase exponentially causing chaos. Most countries are thankfully below replacement fertility rates now. Once we can get every country to reach this the long term future will be better
Good thought provoking post. As always, the really big picture is where true facts reside.
Thanks, Tony, for a well articulated essay. It's hard to feel optimistic, particularly since so many people and leaders resist listening to common sense (a true oxymoron). I hope this gets to some of those and that they listen and respond.
Eric Holle response:
This topic takes intellectual courage and insight to evaluate, and you have done a great job as usual. Reduce the need to migrate!! This is the key. Intuitively, it seems that most people would prefer to remain with their families in their countries and communities of origin, rather than engage in often dangerous travel to other countries in the hopes of being able to send some cash back to support the ones left behind. Unfortunately, US policies ranging from outright war and proxy wars to economic extortion (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) to "free trade agreements" can make migration a life-or-death necessity. Imagine the poor corn farmers of Mexico when NAFTA and other trade policies made it a de facto requirement to quit their traditional farming methods and adopt monocropping of GMO corn. It is simply not possible for people living traditional lifestyles to compete against today's mega-corporations that have the strength of US hegemony and international "aid" agencies behind them. Thus the need to choose between living a life of greater impoverishment or a desperate and often heart-breaking need to migrate to another country. Rather than building a border wall, we just need to respect the sovereignty of foreign countries and allow people to live as they choose.
The US needs a population stabilization policy that can sort out and address interconnected migration issues, including the ones you mention. Other countries might follow. Understanding and acknowledging limits to growth is the starting point. Unfortunately, we're far from that at this critical point in time. Perhaps as climate grossly destabilizes there'll emerge a serious movement toward degrowth. One never knows.