To think climate change will force a complete rethinking about immigration?

[OneMoreBanana]

I'm not sure how many people, on the ground or in government policy making, have connected the dots here.

The climate crisis disproportionately affects the global south, where average temperatures are hotter, infrastructure less developed and available economic resources for mitigation lower. This is already making life in some areas, that have previously supported human communities for thousands of years, near impossible. There is talk of whole cities having to be abandoned.

The same crisis is primarily created by the industrialised countries of the global north, whose per capita emissions far outweigh those of less industrialised countries.

So if/when the large scale exodus of millions of people from no-longer-habitable environments becomes inevitable, two questions arise: Is it MORAL to disallow those people asylum in countries like the UK? And is it PRACTICABLE to do so - when the "small boats" issue becomes an increasingly large number of increasingly large boats, do we literally just view it as warfare and gun them down, or what?

These questions apply regardless of how you feel about immigration currently. If you are a hardline Brexiteer or otherwise strongly for controlling and reducing immigration, can you see a point in the future where it will no longer be tenable, either morally or practically, to maintain that position? And if you are liberal on immigration, can you see a point where having to be even more liberal will mean letting go altogether of many aspects of the UK's (and other countries') "identity"?

Interested in a range of perspectives - I think there's a whole bunch of sacred cows that may end up slaughtered by this. However if you believe that climate change either isn't happening or isn't due to human activity, please just jog on past and grow a brain cell or two. Life is too short.

Yes we are axing food shortages given likely poor harvests . Yet UK population overtook that of France earlier this year.
France has around twice the land area.

So don’t borrow money?

Imagine a world without interest - lol sounds wonderful. I don’t have enough money to have spare earning interest. It does effect my mortgage though - a lot.

And growth - it doesn’t have to continue to grow if the population is falling. Maintaining the current economic size with a falling population would make us individually richer.

Having lost faith in our ability/willingness to really do much to prevent climate change I am living in hope that necessity will drive technological advancement that mitigates its brutal effects. And ideally, given our disproportionate responsibility for this crisis, richer countries would roll this technology out to poorer countries to prevent such extreme mass migration. But then again maybe we’ll just use the cash we could’ve used on that to build giant walls and install machine guns all along them because we are led by complete psychopaths… 🫤

I personally think migration is inevitable and increasingly so. So for me the only option is to make immigration, as far as possible, beneficial. Because you can't stop it entirely, plus falling birth rates mean we need more people to uphold an ageing population which will result in fewer people in work and less tax income.

Water collected in Wales has been piped out since the late 19th century to places such as Liverpool and Birmingham. Have you never seen the aqueducts?

People who are sympathetic to asylum seekers will be accommodating to those forced to leave their homes due to climate change. Racists and xenophobes won't care what reason a displaced person has, they won't welcome them in. And there are fewer people coming in small boats, not more.

Not a single migrant is entering the EU to get out of the weather. What an odd premise.

The powers that be want to replace the ageing C1/C2 lower middle class, most of whom are white, own a modest house and are or are going to be living off the state pension plus a bit extra.

I've been thinking exactly the same recently about the effects on food security and also the movement northwards of desperate populations. I remembered a dramatised tv programme on the BBC maybe in the 90"s and the refugees were stating "we want what you've got" ... I can't remember the name of the programme. But why wouldn't it happen?

There’ll be lower tax income anyway as AI picks up work, unless we tax that instead.

But where do you see the population over the next few decades in the U.K., does it just keep going up?

You imply that we are responsible for climate change and are therefore duty-bound to have our society and identity ruined.

China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. While we are consumed by masochism and hand-wringing and self-loathing, they are building coal-fired power plants. In fact, India alone emits more than the whole of Europe. Even Indonesia emits more than the UK.

Neither are we responsible for overpopulation. Africa has the highest birth rate in the world, and the African population is going to double. That's not my fault. That's their responsibility. I would have far more sympathy with Africans if they had fewer children. In parts of Africa, women still have five or six kids on average!

As for my identity, that is long gone anyway. Immigration has destroyed any sense of living in a nation with a shared culture and shared history. I have had a new, multicultural identity IMPOSED on me by smug, bullying liberal fascists.

Blaming China is sooo simplistic. They aren't that high if you factor in for population size, and that they're making Temu tat that the UK buys. And deflects responsibility that we ourselves have.

This is a really interesting article about global emissions -

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics

OP - personally I think hard borders followed by war is the most likely outcome, unfortunately. Personally I support forms of rationing.

The ECMWF / Copernicus collect data for the whole planet, not just Europe.

The complete data set can be downloaded from Google Earth … so anybody is free to check.

Sometimes I just think what has the EU ever done for us ?

This is terrifying and yet logical / understandable at the same time.

Well chaps looks like climate change is really going to hit the poor in Africa and India hard
Ah well, fewer mouths to feed, can’t be helped

I don’t think so. The moral case hasn’t stopped mass consumption among the people of the richest countries. So why would it influence policy of the governments of said countries? And, no, I’d suggest it wouldn’t have a moral duty anyway, as a government’s primary and overwhelming moral duty is to its own citizens.

Another problem, the skilled migrants want to bring their extended families with them. So that negates any tax advantages of having them.

Sensible.

As usual: it's the mega rich who need to resolve this. Remember when that billionaire was going to offer his private island for asylum seekers. Did that happen in the end? I didn't keep up. Maybe all the wealthy hoarding resources need to be forced to give them up. No one should ever own an entire bloody island anyway. If you can't be easily monitored by police (e.g. if accused / investigated) then you're too isolated - never mind the impact on us of removing vast quantities of land from circulation.

They need to start planning ahead now. Whatever the solution is: they need to implement it now. But we're still shutting down schools on hot days instead of installing suitable aircon systems, so.. yeah, not gonna happen, is it.

^ Eventually this.

This ignores a now rather obvious fact, that one of the areas experiencing major issues with global heating is…Europe. The grass here will not be greener, it’s a patched and brittle yellow. Harvests are being severely affected as is water supply, and there are increasing numbers of major wildfires.
We won’t be in a position to take in more people.

But we are an island.

The actual bottom line is that there's too much consumption, since that's what causes climate change. Reducing the number of people is one possible way to reduce consumption, although it may not be the most effective or most possible one, and would depend on which people you reduce.

Most of North Africa is already almost uninhabitable (the Sahara)… I don’t see climate change as being a major driver for that region. Yes, it will be hotter by a couple of degrees in North African cities, but a 36c when it would otherwise be 34c isn’t enough to make people migrate!

I sincerely hope I'm never part of a society where we countenance gunning people down in the sea.

Global temperatures are measured by satellite. You don’t need lots of weather stations… so I don’t believe you’re correct.