Climate refugees

Outcomes

How are people to be fed if the world can no longer produce the food they need or when they loose arable land and potable water due to climate change? The answer is that to survive, they will have no alternative but to move to places where the essentials of life are available. "They" are likely to come from the burgeoning populations of Asia.

Where will they seek refuge? Possibly Canada and Russia with warming climate making their vast northern land mass more habitable and better able to produce crops. Certainly Australia with its well watered, sparsely populated north, its warm year-round climate and perceived inability to resist peaceful invasion from the north. Those perceptions are in fact reality.

In Australia it is assumed that massive grain crops will continue to be regularly produced – but will they? A growing number of farmers recognize that drought combined with a heat wave – akin to that experienced in Russia – could decimate the national grain crops, leaving barely enough to feed the local population, leaving nothing for export and forcing up food prices world-wide.

Attitude

Many Australians' regard the arrival by sea of people seeking asylum with concern. It is becoming common knowledge that the vast majority of asylum seekers arrive by air, often claiming the right to remain in Australia as soon as they land. Each of these new arrivals will ultimately be followed by family and relatives, placing an increasing burden on those responsible for providing housing, food and jobs needed by these people.

Why should this be of concern? Because they also know that it is their taxes that must be diverted into providing housing and socio-economic infrastructure for immigrants. Most of the existing population would prefer their taxes were spent on maintaining or improving their own living standards and providing for residents in need of affordable housing. Will that attitude change in the face of a deluge of new arrivals seeking the essentials of life?

The present rate of arrivals by sea, up to 3 boats a week. This permits orderly processing of new arrivals, checking their identity, background and health, then helping them find housing and work. In the case of a very small minority, entry is refused for security reasons and deporting them to a country willing to accept them raises another problem.

But what if the number of arrivals on our northern shores increased to 30 or 50 boats a week? Could we cope with such numbers? Could we slow, let alone control those arriving on our shores in search of refuge from climate wars, food shortages and outright starvation in the countries from which they come? Indeed could Australia maintain sovereignty as a nation-state over its own territory?

What should our attitude be towards those arrivals? At one extreme their arrival could be stopped by armed resistance, killing those who attempt to land but that may prompt them to come armed. We could try dissuading them from coming to Australia by sending them food but could we ever produce enough for them and ourselves? Or we could welcome an influx of refugees, even if unable to provide the assistance they need without reducing our ability to feed ourselves or limit the stream of new arrivals.

Conclusion

Too hypothetical you may argue. However, there is good reason for believing that unless we effectively and promptly address the cause of global warming, people in countries to our north will face catastrophic loss of food and water within 20-30 years.