The Durban ramp-up continues – Climate refugee problem now equated to brain surgery

From the University of Florida , it’s worse than we thought. Moving people around requires brain surgeon like skills, I kid you not.

Then there’s that mighty big if:  “If global temperatures increase by only a few of degrees by 2100…”. I predict that in the not too distant future, there will be a TV show about climate refugees, maybe at the ABC in Australia, which will combine the boat people refugee problem there with climate refugees. We’ll see episode after episode of boat people sailing to a different island each week, fighting the local natives for access and supplies..sort of like the old campy original “Battlestar Galactica” meets “Mad Max”. I’d say a Climate refugees TV show is more plausible than climate refugees in our lifetime.

Gotta love the quotes in the PR:

“Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,”

Huh. I learn something new every day. Maybe they’ll borrow from the Star Trek episode “Spocks Brain” too. First though, what we need are actual climate refugees.

Governments must plan for migration in response to climate change, researchers say

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Governments around the world must be prepared for mass migrations caused by rising global temperatures or face the possibility of calamitous results, say University of Florida scientists on a research team reporting in the Oct. 28 edition of Science

If global temperatures increase by only a few of degrees by 2100, as predicted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, people around the world will be forced to migrate. But transplanting populations from one location to another is a complicated proposition that has left millions of people impoverished in recent years. The researchers say that a word of caution is in order and that governments should take care to understand the ramifications of forced migration.

A consortium of 12 scientists from around the world, including two UF researchers, gathered last year at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center to review 50 years of research related to population resettlement following natural disasters or the installation of infrastructure development projects such as dams and pipelines. The group determined that resettlement efforts in the past have left communities in ruin, and that policy makers need to use lessons from the past to protect people who are forced to relocate because of climate change.

“The effects of climate change are likely to be experienced by as many people as disasters,” UF anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith said. “More people than ever may be moving in response to intense storms, increased flooding and drought that makes living untenable in their current location.”

“Sometimes the problem is simply a lack of regard for the people ostensibly in the way of progress,” said Oliver-Smith, an emeritus professor who has researched issues surrounding forced migration for more than 30 years. But resettlements frequently fail because the complexity of the task is underestimated. “Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,” he said.

“It’s going to be a matter of planning ahead now,” said Burt Singer, a courtesy faculty member at the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute who worked with the research group. He too has studied issues related to population resettlement for decades.

Singer said that regulatory efforts promoted by the International Finance Corporation, the corporate lending arm of the World Bank, are helping to ensure the well-being of resettled communities in some cases. But as more people are relocated — especially very poor people with no resources — financing resettlement operations in the wake of a changing climate could become a real challenge.

Planning and paying for resettlement is only part of the challenge, Oliver-Smith said. “You need informed, capable decision makers to carry out these plans,” he said. A lack of training and information can derail the best-laid plans. He said the World Bank increasingly turns to anthropologists to help them evaluate projects and outcomes of resettlement.

“It is a moral imperative,” Oliver-Smith said. Also, a simple cost-benefit analysis shows that doing resettlement poorly adds to costs in the future. Wasted resources and the costs of malnutrition, declining health, infant and elder mortality, and the destruction of families and social networks should be included in the total cost of a failed resettlement, he said.

Oliver-Smith said the cautionary tales of past failures yield valuable lessons for future policy makers, namely because they point out many of the potential pitfalls than can beset resettlement projects. But they also underscore the fact that there is a heavy price paid by resettled people, even in the best-case scenarios.

In the coming years, he said, many projects such as hydroelectric dams and biofuel plantations will be proposed in the name of climate change, but moving people to accommodate these projects may not be the simple solution that policy makers sometimes assume.

A clear-eyed review of the true costs of forced migration could alert governments to the complexities and risks of resettlement.

“If brain surgeons had the sort of success rate that we have had with resettling populations, very few people would opt for brain surgery,” he said.

###
0 0 votes
Article Rating
83 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Latitude
October 27, 2011 6:36 pm

Credits
Writer
Donna Hesterman, donna.hesterman@ufl.edu, 352-846-2573
Source
Anthony Oliver-Smith, aros@ufl.edu, 352-377-8359
Source
Burton H. Singer, bhsinger@epi.ufl.edu, 352-273-9572

Latitude
October 27, 2011 6:37 pm
Richard Day
October 27, 2011 6:49 pm

I want to be a climate refugee. Right now, AGW is making Toronto winters colder and longer. And don’t get me started on walking the dogs in the morning when it’s pitch black outside. The UN should allocate strategic Caribbean islands for northern refugees (like me) from November to March.

Rick Bradford
October 27, 2011 6:57 pm

I’m still waiting to greet the 50 million climate refugees the UN said would be created by 2010..

Robert
October 27, 2011 6:57 pm

Sad. Very sad. Just plain propaganda dressed up as “science”. I suppose we can expect more of this leading up to Durban. Too bad so many people and politicians actually believe this drivel.

crosspatch
October 27, 2011 7:05 pm

Just because someone prints it doesn’t mean anyone believes it. There has never been a “climate resettlement” nor will there ever be. They make it sound like you go to bed one night and it is normal, wake up the next morning and it is too hot to live there anymore. What is MORE likely to happen is the opposite. Crops will begin to fail in Canada and Northern Russia as temperatures cool causing populations to have to migrate South. Luckily those populations are already small.
Temperatures warming by 1 degree in a century isn’t enough to make anyone move. Temperatures cooling by 1 degree certainly can make people move. Places where a marginal crop could be harvested will become unable to sustain farming and the people will have to move.

P.G. Sharrow
October 27, 2011 7:07 pm

“If brain surgeons had the sort of success rate that we have had with resettling populations, very few people would opt for brain surgery,” said Oliver-Smith, an emeritus professor
Professionals like professor Oliver-Smith are bragging about being being incompetent?
Millions of poor people relocate themselves every year with out “Professional” help. Maybe they are best off not helped by professionals.
Humans have been pushed around by climate change for millions of years. Humans were created by adaption to climate change. It appears to me that climate change is the normal condition and abrupt change is not unusual. pg

Curiousgeorge
October 27, 2011 7:12 pm

I guess that means Genghis Khan was a brain surgeon then ( in a certain sense ). 😉

Dave Worley
October 27, 2011 7:13 pm

Lots of climate refugees migrating to Florida this time of year. They call them snowbirds.

ferd berple
October 27, 2011 7:15 pm

“Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,” he said.
Amazing, America is full of Europeans transplanted by brain surgeons.

Editor
October 27, 2011 7:18 pm

OOOH, I Like It!
Morons. No citations, no links….. I damn well hope that none of these people were sociologists. Most of us may be progressive ideologues, but I’d like to think we’re not that kind of shill.

ferd berple
October 27, 2011 7:21 pm

Oliver-Smith, an emeritus professor who has researched issues surrounding forced migration for more than 30 years. But resettlements frequently fail because the complexity of the task is underestimated. “Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,” he said.
Get a grip. Resettlements fail because people don’t want to be resettled. Ask the North American Indian. Apartheid is Apartheid, be it Indian reservations in the US or Canada, or homelands in South Africa. It is a land grab, all too often at the point of a gun, all dressed up in fine sounding language to save the “poor natives that can’t take care of themselves”.

October 27, 2011 7:23 pm

Florida should have plenty of experiments with climate refugees – their snowbirds arrive every winter, loads and loads of them …

AndyG55
October 27, 2011 7:32 pm

“If brain surgeons had the sort of success rate that we have had with resettling populations, very few people would opt for brain surgery,”
If brain surgeons had the success rate of AGW predictions, nobody in their right mind would go near them, even in the direst emergency !!!

4 eyes
October 27, 2011 7:34 pm

Mr Oliver-Smith is extremely qualified if he can say that “Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery” – because only someone who does brain surgery would know just how complicated it is. Just stick to the anthropology Mr Oliver-Smith because people won’t take you seriously if you say things like that.

October 27, 2011 7:36 pm

“Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,”

The biggest problem is that to move a population (& attendant culture) you first have to move it halfway. Once you’ve done that, you have to move it half of the remaining distance. And then you have to move it half of the remaining half of a half. It gets really complicated after that. Best leave it to the rocket surgeons.

Mooloo
October 27, 2011 7:44 pm

If brain surgeons had the sort of success rate that we have had with resettling populations, very few people would opt for brain surgery
I wasn’t aware a lot of people opted voluntarily for brain surgery. As far as I was aware it was only done as a last resort.
Anyway we already live in a world where most of the population of the countries supposedly needing resettlement would already leave if they could. What will change?

ferd berple
October 27, 2011 7:45 pm

Richard Day says:
October 27, 2011 at 6:49 pm
The UN should allocate strategic Caribbean islands for northern refugees (like me) from November to March.
Don’t wait for the UN. Canada should buy Cuba today! It worked for the US with Alaska. Write Harper! Great weather. Plenty of room for 35 million ‘nucks over Xmas. The deal isn’t going to last once the Castro Bro’s are gone.

Gail Combs
October 27, 2011 7:47 pm

GEE, three out of four of my grandparents relocated with no trouble AND sent all their kids to college in the 1920’s and 1930’s (1/2 female too)
The real refugees we have to worry about is the Aussies fleeing Carbon taxes…..

u.k.(us)
October 27, 2011 7:48 pm

“It is a moral imperative,” Oliver-Smith said.
=============
The moral part is obviously individual.
The imperative part, is where you are really asking for trouble.

Ray Boorman
October 27, 2011 7:55 pm

Oliver-Smith is a w*****er. I don’t know of many policy makers in Bangladesh able to make & carry out plans to move the population out of the Ganges delta, which is about the only location in the world which might be affected IF the CAGW scenario came true. From his comment, it sounds like he’ll use the Army to move people against their will, simply to satisfy his own belief system. In the real world, where I live in South East Queensland, Australia, there has not been a cyclone come down from the Coral Sea for several decades. When I was born in the 1950’s, through to the 1970’s, cyclones were a regular occurrence. Some seasons we had 3 or 4 come our way. Lots of rain resulted, but very little wind damage, except to banana & sugarcane crops.

Richard Day
October 27, 2011 8:00 pm

@ferd berple. Robert Borden wanted Canada to annex the Turks & Caicos way back in 1917. Every now and then some backbencher raises the topic of them becoming another province but it’s never more than just talk. Idiot politicians. Don’t they know it’s worse than we thought and it may already be too late? Forget carbon credits; we need to put the precautionary principle into action, today. I will voluntarily move there for the winter to see if it is feasible for a mass Canadian climate refugee relocation.

Jeremy
October 27, 2011 8:07 pm

Here’s a refugee from Gainsville, Florida (now lives in Beverly Hills) singing about it.

Ken Methven
October 27, 2011 8:16 pm

OMG. What bollocks.
With any luck this will add to the piles of drivel on CC and people will start to get it – its all alarmist nonsense and we should recognise it is only to push agendas.

dp
October 27, 2011 8:22 pm

I miss the days when climate refugees were known as nomads and were a proud and adaptive people. I wonder what the ghosts of the Anasazi and their descendants think of being called climate refugees. Imagine a world without fences.

Judy F.
October 27, 2011 8:27 pm

Gosh, according to this article, my daughter is a climate refugee tonight. She had to leave her home on the Front Range of Colorado, after the “intense” snowstorm broke tree branches which slightly damaged the house and broke power lines, making her living situation “untenable”.
I thought it was just a bad snowstorm and that my daughter was smart to find another place to stay ( temporarily) where she was safe and warm. It makes it sound so much worse to say she is a climate refugee. I wonder if the World Bank would pay her rent this month?

Glenn
October 27, 2011 8:27 pm

He had brain surgery on his mind.

AnonyMoose
October 27, 2011 8:35 pm

Require that any related grants be available only to licensed and peer-reviewed brain surgeons. That will somewhat reduce the money spent.

u.k.(us)
October 27, 2011 8:42 pm

Planning and paying for resettlement is only part of the challenge, Oliver-Smith said. “You need informed, capable decision makers to carry out these plans,” he said.
======
Sounds like the military to me.
This is what they do, all day, every day.
Plan for any contingency; although i’m not sure they plan for fantastical model runs from unverified climate computers.
I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt, to ask them to allay your fears.
I do wonder if it would be available under the FOI acts though.
Good luck.
FYI, everybody is watching and archiving everything.

crosspatch
October 27, 2011 8:49 pm

There have been huge migrations over the past couple of hundred years. We settled the Western US, Europeans came to the US in droves, people are still migrating from Latin America to the US, hippies are moving to parks all across the country. Not exactly rocket surgery.

Geoff C
October 27, 2011 8:51 pm

Seriously, this scenario could easily happen here in gullible Australia–
Some bureaucrat decides that a valid and positive test of refugee status is that a person is fleeing from unliveable conditions due to climate change.
This will then result in economic refugees like we have now having a new reason to get accepted here.
The bureaucrats and do-gooder lawyers will jump on and promote this and we will have climate refugees, maybe the first in the world.

Ursus Augustus
October 27, 2011 8:57 pm

EUREKA !! THATS IT !! Thats the reason for all the AGW madness. The warmista’s have all had lobotomies!

Jeff D
October 27, 2011 9:02 pm

Geoff C says:
October 27, 2011 at 8:51 pm
The bureaucrats and do-gooder lawyers will jump on and promote this and we will have climate refugees, maybe the first in the world.
__________________________
Sign me up please, cold front pushed into the state last night and I understand the climate there is much better. I need a 3 bedroom with an ocean view. How good is the welfare system there? I will need some money. Is there a chapter of the ows there? I don’t mind protesting if I get paid well.

October 27, 2011 9:14 pm

For those who have followed the boat people to Australia saga, there is an inconsistency about these war refugees. You see, many go on a voyage from Afghanistan or Iraq to various counties including Malaysia. Then on to Indonesia, over the waters to Australia, who wants to send them back to Malaysia. But, having volunteered to go to Malaysia to get away from their fears at home, they do not volunteer to go back to Malaysia to live after interception.
A reasonable person might think that some of these refugees have chosen the country of their dreams and want to come to Paradise.This discredits their war refugee claims. It makes Aussies a bit angry that many of them go onto welfare and start breeding like rabbits. Heck, they can do that in any country on the way from the land they flee.

~FR
October 27, 2011 9:16 pm

… review 50 years of research related to population resettlement following natural disasters or the installation of infrastructure development projects such as dams and pipelines.
But these listed situations happen suddenly. Has there ever been a real change in the *climate* of a place (causing a real alteration in flora + fauna) that has occurred in less than 100 years?

F. Ross
October 27, 2011 9:16 pm

It is almost beyond belief that the taxpayers actually support these guys to sit in their ivory towers and produce – to put it politely – “garbage” like this.
Go figure.

Mike Bromley the Kurd
October 27, 2011 9:35 pm

I have that sinking feeling again. Like a lonely Pacific guyot, stripped of its population by a model disguised as a neurologist. I mean, uh, unbelievable.

October 27, 2011 9:42 pm

The idea of having a plan in place for mass migration isn’t a bad one. There could be any number of reasons why large volumes of people might suddenly get up and go. We already have an enormous number coming into Canada and the United States every year. If this increased by only 100%, we’d have very serious problems.
Not only should there be plans in place for mass migrations, but those plans should also include various options according to the reason for the migrations. Certainly we would not deal with millions of refugees from an atomic devastation in the same way we’d deal with millions of refugees from an epidemic (and by “epidemic” I’m referring to the old meaning of epidemic: “Holy crap! Look at all the dead people!”)
Plans are good. We should have had at least some of these plans in place already. It’s just sad that, of all the probable scenarios there are for mass migrations, they had to pick the one that Kevin Costner rejected in favour Waterworld as being too improbable.

Editor
October 27, 2011 9:59 pm

My very favorite part was this:

“It’s going to be a matter of planning ahead now,” said Burt Singer, a courtesy faculty member at the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute who worked with the research group. He too has studied issues related to population resettlement for decades.

A “courtesy” faculty member? At the “Emerging Pathogens Institute”? Who studies population resettlement?
That’s the most bizarre set of credentials I’ve seen in a while.
w.

October 27, 2011 10:04 pm

And I just put on a clean white shirt, that I have to roll up and get dirty, OK.. where’s this going down? I can probably make it in a fue days, hang in there.

Greg Cavanagh
October 27, 2011 10:23 pm

Willis;
Even stranger than Burt’s position, is the fact that some manager made the position available, filled the position with a body, and pays for someone to do that all day. I can’t guess what outcomes they were expecting from it.

CRS, Dr.P.H.
October 27, 2011 10:26 pm

On the other hand, the US military & security apparatus take this stuff seriously:
http://www.trumanproject.org/files/nsm/NSM_2010_Climate_Change.pdf
….just sayin’….

Paul Marko
October 27, 2011 10:28 pm

Once upon a time long, long ago, the brain surgeons on the Asian continent saw an opportunity to cross the land bridge to Alaska and establish a new clinic ahead of the migrating hoards. All went well until ….

Peter Wilson
October 27, 2011 10:34 pm

“Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,”
Moving a population isn’t complicated. Its coercive and usually violent. Deciding a population should be moved is the act of a dictator, the implementation is invariably inhumane, and those being “relocated” never want to go – otherwise they would have gone already.

Neil Jones
October 27, 2011 10:42 pm

“Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process”
Sounds like somebody had an attack of the “MultiCulties”

October 27, 2011 10:43 pm

Surly they mean climate policy maker refugee or makers of policy. Call spade a spade or even tell an Irishman “there’s two shovels now take your pick “. the thing is if you actually said that to an Irish man you’d either be walking home with two picks and a shovel stuck in your head or you caved in and bought a fue rounds (work that one out).
OT Who’s round is it, that freaking American president and his missus came over here and drunk the bleeding world dry, have you ever seen the likes of it in your life?

Al Gored
October 27, 2011 10:45 pm

“I predict that in the not too distant future, there will be a TV show about climate refugees”
Can hardly wait! Maybe a contest show called ‘Climate Survivor.’ Or a comedy called ‘Flee.’
The real mystery is why some purported do-gooder global ‘charity’ is not already running TV ads showing cute kids with big eyes and flies on their faces and claiming they are climate refugees. Too much competition from the WWF’s sponsor a polar bear business?

Alexander K
October 27, 2011 11:50 pm

Another exhalation of meaningless puffery by rent-seeking oxygen thieves.
The UK is replete with hundreds of thousands of individuals and groups who moved there from some other colder/hotter/wetter/dryer country. Most of them would argue that they got there with totally untrained and often illiterate individuals assisting them and the entire process wasn’t too complicated or difficult, but it was expensive. Brain surgery it was not!

October 28, 2011 12:06 am

I’m not the least bit worried about climate refugees from Canada. Most Americans would love to hear a certain word function as a punctuation mark at the end of sentences, eh.

Stacey
October 28, 2011 12:34 am

Come on leave them alone, if Researchers say something is true it must be correct and that’s a no brainer:-/

Ulrich Elkmann
October 28, 2011 1:57 am

They should ask the Russians to do the job. After 1945, they proved to be quite skillful brain surgeons.

Mat
October 28, 2011 2:04 am

“I wonder if the World Bank would pay her rent this month?”
Nice idea Judy lol!
Mind the bit that worry’s me is given the useless morons that infect most legal systems, this idea of ‘Climate refugees ‘ will get picked up and you will never be able to deport anyone as all they have to do is get a model of a freelancing gia-ist like Hansen to prove their country will be under water , on fire and raked by famine volcanoes maybe even migrating kelp and you won’t be able to get rid of them ! well unless we can prove we are on fire and drowning that might work ???

H.R.
October 28, 2011 2:29 am

My first reaction was jaw-dropping disbelief at the sheer magnitude of the “if, if, if'” by some date w-a-a-a-y in the future, then we’ve got a big messy problem and we have to act NOW. Target-rich for mockery, as many have discovered.
Then I decided, “Let’s go through it again carefully and look for the good, the positive, the hidden jewel.” So I did…
.
.
.
.
..
I got nuttin’.

Bloke down the pub
October 28, 2011 2:36 am

The UK has seen mass immigration for years. It is predicted that the population here will soon exceed that of both France and Germany. I wonder what those migrants saw so attractive in this often cold and damp little island? It must have been our high percentage of brain surgeons.

Colin Porter
October 28, 2011 3:35 am

Apart from migrations due to the onset of the next Ice Age, the only climate migrations will be be as a consequence of Green Policies.
“In the coming years, he said, many projects such as hydroelectric dams and biofuel plantations will be proposed in the name of climate change, but moving people to accommodate these projects may not be the simple solution that policy makers sometimes assume.”
This is already happening and all in the name of helping to save the planet from climate change.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/armed-troops-burn-down-homes-kill-children-to-evict-ugandans-in-name-of-global-warming.html
And HSBC is my bank which is helping to fund this horror, where a child was burned to death as climate thugs destroyed her village in order to plant a carbon offset forest scheme.
Is this what they mean by “Ethical Investments”

Garry
October 28, 2011 3:52 am

Otzi the Iceman was a brain surgeon, so this is no surprise.

Steve in SC
October 28, 2011 3:55 am

Historically, a migration of people has required a war without exception.

October 28, 2011 4:02 am

14 million Bangkok residents may need emergency accommodation for about a year or so while flood damage to Bangkok is repaired.
Glad to see the WattsUpWithThat bloggers are ready to transplant 14 million Climate Refugees to Australia for 12 months.
Geoff C says: Seriously, this scenario could easily happen here in gullible Australia–
Some bureaucrat decides that a valid and positive test of refugee status is that a person is fleeing from unliveable conditions due to climate change.
(Geoff, Bangkok is likely to be unliveable for about a year (or longer))
and
Rick Bradford says:
I’m still waiting to greet the 50 million climate refugees the UN said would be created by 2010..
(Rick, 14 million Bangkok residents is a reasonably start. Glad to hear you have been waiting to greet them… How many can you billet at your house?)

Garry
October 28, 2011 4:15 am

Ulrich Elkmann says at 1:57 am “They should ask the Russians to do the job. After 1945,”
And let us not forget those other famous brain surgeons Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh, both of whom presided over sophisticated mass “migrations.”

Colin Porter
October 28, 2011 4:20 am

Colin says
“14 million Bangkok residents may need emergency accommodation for about a year or so while flood damage to Bangkok is repaired.
Glad to see the WattsUpWithThat bloggers are ready to transplant 14 million Climate Refugees to Australia for 12 months.”
Another one who does not know the difference between climate and weather. And another alarmist who has astounding abliities in hyperbolic exaggerations.
And I thought that all people with the name Colin were so intelligent!
Colin Porter

Garry
October 28, 2011 4:25 am

Judy F. says at 8:27 pm: “my daughter is a climate refugee tonight. She had to leave her home on the Front Range of Colorado”
Funny, yesterday a work colleague and now-refugee was migrating back to his home in Colorado, where his wife reported he’ll have to contend with 18 inches of climate change destruction. Fortunately he is certified in brain surgery so shoveling the driveway and removing some downed tree branches shouldn’t pose a great challenge.

Glenn
October 28, 2011 4:35 am

Colin says:
October 28, 2011 at 4:02 am
I don’t know what you’re on about with Australia, but you seem to have some problem.
This flood isn’t the result of climate change, half of Thailand is a major flood plain, and gets flooded all the time. The increase in population and infrastructure has exasterbated the situation in recent years. Do you know anything of Thailand other than what you google up and see in the news about this flood? Ever been there? These disasters happen, and people like you always pop up and make fools of themselves.
As far as where refugees could go, there is a large part of Thailand that is not in floodplain, and would not be considered as unliveable.

Luther Wu
October 28, 2011 4:58 am

Colin has an agenda… he sells ‘energy efficient’ devices. Gotta stick to the meme.

Billy Liar
October 28, 2011 5:03 am

Bloke down the pub says:
October 28, 2011 at 2:36 am
Don’t you know it’s called Treasure Island?

RoyFOMR
October 28, 2011 6:49 am

I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than have a frontal lobotomy. What were these guys drinking?

Colin Porter
October 28, 2011 6:56 am

Luther Wu says
“Colin has an agenda… he sells ‘energy efficient’ devices. Gotta stick to the meme.”
I noticed that also, though I would hardly call them ‘energy efficient’ as you point out. It looks as if the main business is in PV solar, which in England at least, attracts a feed in tarrif of 46p/kw or about 15 times the generation costs of natural gas, the whole of which extra cost is levied onto consumers.
If our useless Green obsessed government continues with their bankrupt policy of supporting such grossly inequitable schemes, I too will become a climate refugee as I wiil not be able to pay the costs of ever increasing fuel costs during ever harsher winters. I will be forced to emigrate to Australia (sorry Geoff C) to live with my daughter. Yes I know that Gillard is more loony than Cameron, but heating costs are a much smaller proportion of the household budget in Australia.
So Colin the PV salesman, how about that for turning an argument on its head. I now add PV Solar to the reasons for being a climate refugee. Shame on you! Go and get a proper job in a power station, or working down a pit or fracking gas deposits, before coming here to moralise.
Colin (not the PV Salesman) Porter

October 28, 2011 7:38 am

Notes from cranial surgery on one of the twelve “scientists”: Brain surgery indicated, Anesthetized patient. Opened cranium with crosscut saw. Attempted to access brain but same could not be located..

October 28, 2011 7:53 am

In the mid-400’s the Rhine froze over just prior to Christmas and the Barbarians crossed. They started the decline of the Roman Empire, thus started the dark ages. It was cold that allowed the crossing and it was the hungar caused by cold that drove them to move. Climate change can cause migration but not the way these people think. By the way who would have thought that the Barbarians were the equal of modern day brain surgeons.

October 28, 2011 7:54 am

I remember a few years back guitarist Eddie Van Halen was quoted as saying “Playing guitar is not like brain surgery.” Implying, of course, that playing guitar is easier. Then I read a retort from some brain surgeon in Boston, who also played guitar. He said playing guitar was way more difficult than brain surgery. In brain surgery you simply stick to established procedures; no improvisation.
So I offer that climate refugees migrating will be as difficult for governments as playing “Running with the Devil”
(I used to have the 8-track.)

Gail Combs
October 28, 2011 8:00 am

u.k.(us) says:
October 27, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Planning and paying for resettlement is only part of the challenge, Oliver-Smith said. “You need informed, capable decision makers to carry out these plans,” he said.
======
Sounds like the military to me.”
____________________________________________
Actually it sounds like FEMA and we all know what an absolute muck-up they made of Katrina.
It is very very simple a bureaucrat’s main goal in life is covering his butt. The more bureaucrats and the more area covered the worse the muck-up. We should have learned the lesson from the United Nations/European Union Handling of the UK’s 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease insanity (I recommend reading it as a preview of what a one world government will be like for the little guy.)
During Katrina, the goal of FEMA was not to rescue people, but to control them. Their directive was to relocate families and businesses, confiscate property, commandeer goods, direct labor and services, and establish martial law. This is what they did. The goal was never to carry out an effective rescue operation it was to protect the government from chaos and establish martial law. THAT is what governments (and bureaucracies) always do, they protect themselves first last and always.
As can be seen the help was there during Katrina but FEMA PREVENTED the help and helpers from reaching those in need because their pirority was CONTROL not RESCUE. It was also why the US government rejected the offer of four dutch ships with oil skimmers after the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill.
KATRINA EXAMPLES:
BERLIN — A German military plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of Hurricane Katrina was sent back by U.S. authorities, officials said Saturday.
Doctor Says FEMA Ordered Him To Stop Treating Hurricane Victims
…crews for three U.S. Customs Blackhawk helicopters stationed at Crestview Airport in Florida are “livid” because they have not been directed to provide full-time support for the ongoing hurricane-relief
Emergency crews turned back by FEMA: They lacked “the required paperwork”
Homeland Security won’t let Red Cross deliver food
Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded
FEMA orders Firefighters assembled from all over the USA to hand out propaganda instead of deploying them as emergency workers.
Mayor Richard Daley ‘shocked’ at federal snub of offers to help.
FEMA: First Responders Urged Not To Respond To Hurricane Impact Areas Unless Dispatched By Authorities
And the list goes on and on.
Yes it really DOES takes brain surgery for this type of muck-up, first they must remove your brain before you are qualified to be a bureaucrat!

October 28, 2011 8:11 am

Everywhere on Earth,(the land part, that is.)except Antarctica, has been spontaneously inhabited by humans. People move in and adapt. Generally they do not move out.

RHS
October 28, 2011 8:21 am

I think Sam Kineson (sp?) said it best, if you want to help the starving people, don’t just send them food, send them u-hauls, help them get out of the desert. Once you get them out, then you worry about assimilation. Kind of like our migratory ancestors. They couldn’t care about a culture fit because they were too busy not starving! /rant

Olen
October 28, 2011 8:29 am

Mass migration is happening now from the third world to the first and it is not complicated. All that is needed is for government to ignore immigration laws that were passed in the interest of its citizens, pass laws limiting the free expression of its citizens and a flow of tax dollars and to make the migration successful.
This reads like a plan for a world dictatorship to exercise total control over people by moving them to places most beneficial to their needs and the word forced indicates the tactic to be used, much like a farmer or rancher would move his livestock from one grazing pasture to another. And the justification is based on a highly promoted fraud.
The mentality in the idea that it is desirable and needed to move people and cultures at the will of governments is reducing humans to the level of livestock and or at least slaves.

Gail Combs
October 28, 2011 8:39 am

Geoff C says:
October 27, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Seriously, this scenario could easily happen here in gullible Australia–
_____________________________
ERRRRRrrrrr, US farmers thought you Aussies DID have “weather refugees” (Yeah, we do talk to each other.)
Animal ID in Australia: expensive chaos
“John Carter of Australia recently told a group of independent U.S. cattlemen that there are a myriad of problems with the Aussie’s National Livestock Identification System…
The result is “expensive chaos,” Carter said.
…… His personal herd records on the national system is full of errors. For instance, cattle are listed as dead that are alive.
The radio frequency tags can be easily cut out and substituted, he said. After severe floods in Queensland, police and owners relied on firebrands to identify thousands of stock that drifted to other ranches….
“NLIS couldn’t track a bleeding elephant through a snowfield,” he said. “
http://www.northplattebulletin.com/index.asp?show=news&action=readStory&storyID=14144&pageID=29
A note found on a blog:
“….As Queensland, Australian ranchers are working day and night to save their cattle from the worst flood disaster in dozens of years the government enforcers quickly publish rules of how to handle cattle with electronic ear pins. Never before have ranchers been forced to not only ride and swim high water, but carry an electronic scanner for NLIS compliance.
One recommendation by NLIS principal officer, Michael Lancaster is to identify “untagged” cattle by brands. Surely the ranchers will appreciate that clever recommendation to continue with a process they have used since the first cattle landed in Australia. No batteries needed for reading a brand — how convenient?
Queensland ranchers work at an exhausting pace yet government enforcers caution them of the exact methods of returning and reporting cattle with or without electronic devices. As highly paid government employees answer the phones and develop protocol from high and dry office buildings a safe distance from the fray, the ranchers work-on day and night. Never has a weather problem of this nature been compounded by extra NLIS rules and potential fines up to $17,000 for non compliance. Compliance or not, the good thing is that the enforcers will not be getting in the water and mud to slow down the rescue efforts. Say a kind word of prayer for the Australian ranchers, and also, that the enforcers will let them care for their cattle without fines and burdensome additional flood ID legislation…..”
http://nonais.org/2011/01/01/bulletin-board-201101/
Another example of expensive bureaucratic bumbling at its finest!
(If you think I hate idiotic bureaucrats you might just be correct)

More Soylent Green!
October 28, 2011 8:49 am

crosspatch says:
October 27, 2011 at 7:05 pm
Just because someone prints it doesn’t mean anyone believes it. There has never been a “climate resettlement” nor will there ever be. They make it sound like you go to bed one night and it is normal, wake up the next morning and it is too hot to live there anymore. What is MORE likely to happen is the opposite. Crops will begin to fail in Canada and Northern Russia as temperatures cool causing populations to have to migrate South. Luckily those populations are already small.
Temperatures warming by 1 degree in a century isn’t enough to make anyone move. Temperatures cooling by 1 degree certainly can make people move. Places where a marginal crop could be harvested will become unable to sustain farming and the people will have to move.

During the Medieval Warm Period, the Vikings flourished and became the scourge of Europe. The French region of Normandy is named for the Scandinavian invaders who came, saw, conquered and stayed.
Viking colonies were also established in Greenland, and lasted until the Little Ice Age suddenly struck. The climate helped to remove the Viking scourge from northern and western Europe, and allowed the Renaissance to spread into those areas.
Interestingly enough, this was the exact opposite of what is predicted for the 21st century if</b< it warms a fee degrees. Instead of refugees fleeing from the warm areas, the warm areas were overrun by then thriving barbarians from the north.
Oh wait, never mind! The hockey stick tells us that never happened!

Caleb
October 28, 2011 11:18 am

.”Transplanting a population and its culture….” Culture? What do these idealists care for culture? They think culture leads to patriotism which leads to bigotry. They want to rid the world of “culture,” and replace it with a vast generic blandness called “internationalism.”
Whenever these idealists talk about “transplanting culture” I think of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and the Highland Clearances. Or Stalin’s efforts to create a “melting pot” effect by moving nationalities such as Lithuanians to Siberia, so he wouldn’t need to worry about people wanting a land of their own. Heck, to this sort of idealist even family-values are a sort of racism, because you are caring more for your own kids than a strangers, which is nepotism and bigotry. (Of course, they themselves often have no kids.)
When they want a nice “Wildlife Corridor” to reintroduce the extinct Eastern Woodland Buffalo, and your home and neighborhood lie in the way, there will be all sorts of talk about how Climate Change makes it necessary to relocate a population and its culture.
In case you haven’t noticed, I trust these idealists less than I trust rabid dogs.

Sun Spot
October 28, 2011 11:21 am

“Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,”
————————————————————————————-
Transplanting real science into “a cult of Consensus CAGW post normal science” has been a complex process and has been un-successful (except within the cult), costing allot more than any brain surgery.

Dr A Burns
October 28, 2011 12:10 pm

The half trillion dollars in carbon taxes that the Australian Labor government will collect should produce a global cooling of 0.007 degrees by 2050. We will all have to move 400 metres North to compensate.

Gail Combs
October 28, 2011 5:49 pm

Olen says:
October 28, 2011 at 8:29 am
……………The mentality in the idea that it is desirable and needed to move people and cultures at the will of governments is reducing humans to the level of livestock and or at least slaves.
_________________
That is exactly what is happening and it is nothing new. (see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/26/occupy-london-righteous-until-it-gets-too-cold-ir-camera-reveals-they-leave-to-a-warm-bed-at-night/#comment-779632 )

Gary Pate
October 28, 2011 10:54 pm

Look at this paragraph in the article:
Singer said that regulatory efforts promoted by the International Finance Corporation, the corporate lending arm of the World Bank, are helping to ensure the well-being of resettled communities in some cases. But as more people are relocated — especially very poor people with no resources — financing resettlement operations in the wake of a changing climate could become a real challenge.
First we have the benevolent World Bank “regulating” us. Then they go on to imply that people are already migrating due to climate change & it is increasing!
If this brain stem has actually been “studying” issues related to population resettlement for decades, wouldn’t he know that there have been no climate refugees to date?
BTW: living in a Thai flood plain does not count as being a “climate refugee” (Same with New Orleans, Bangladesh, etc)

johanna
October 29, 2011 2:19 am

I love that they don’t see the irony of forcibly moving people to enable ‘green power’ and then needing teams of ‘experts’ (I wonder who they have in mind?) to manage the process. The notion of not forcibly moving people to enable politically correct power doesn’t seem to have crossed what passes for their collective mind. Not does the notion of forcible movement of populations (AKA ethnic cleansing) seem to bother them in the slightest.
As for transplanting cultures – here’s a tip. It doesn’t work, ever. Moving to a new location means changing your culture, and certainly your children’s culture. They might perhaps have asked a few of the tens of millions of migrants, voluntary or otherwise, around the world about this. It would have been cheaper, and they might even have come up with the right answer.

October 30, 2011 9:41 am

Colin,
Nice try, but your assumptions are baseless….
– I hope Climate Scientists verify their facts – unlike you…
———————–
Colin Porter says:
October 28, 2011 at 6:56 am
Luther Wu says
“Colin has an agenda… he sells ‘energy efficient’ devices. Gotta stick to the meme.”
(Sorry Colin Porter-Porkies, I don’t sell any green products or services…)
“It looks as if the main business is in PV solar…”
(Sorry Colin Porter-Porkies, I don’t have a main business solar PV…)
“So Colin the PV salesman,…”
(Sorry Colin Porter-Porkies, I’m not a PV salesman either…)
(That’s 3 wrong, unverified assumptions already. Facts aren’t your strong suite, are they?)
“Before coming here to moralise….”
(Sorry Colin Porter-Porkies, I’m not here to moralise…)
Colin Porter also says:
October 28, 2011 at 4:20 am
Colin says
” “…need emergency accommodation for about a year or so while flood damage is repaired..” ”
“Another one who does not know the difference between climate and weather. And another alarmist who has astounding abilities in hyperbolic exaggerations.”
——–
So,
Colin Porter-Porkies, lets see if I understand how you use (or waste) your intelligence –
1. Climate change models – I bet you assume these are worthless.
2. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – I bet you assume this has no impact on climate.
3.You mentioned above that you assume weather events are unrelated to climate too.
What facts , if any, could possibly be adequate to convince you that climate change is taking place?
(Looks like you can assume away and deny all possible awareness of climate change.
It must be of great comfort to face the future with your eyes and your mind so firmly shut.
I hope I didn’t cause too much alarm.
Those of us who like a challenge will fix the things that are too scary for you to face.
Dont’ worry. Be happy.

October 30, 2011 11:09 am

Tell me again about how this climate change crap is about science and not about increasing government power and intrusiveness.