Hoo boy, government bureaucratic idiocy at its finest. Not only is the original claim bogus, the attempts to disappear it are hilariously inept. Apparently, they’ve never heard of Google Cache at the UN. Rather than simply say “we were wrong”, they’ve now brought even more distrust onto the UN.
Back on April 11th, Gavin Atkins of Asian Correspondent asked this simple question:
What happened to the climate refugees?
It is a valid question, and he backs it up with census numbers. Here’s the first part of his story:
==============================================================
In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.
The UNEP even provided a handy map. The map shows us the places most at risk including the very sensitive low lying islands of the Pacific and Caribbean.
It so happens that just a few of these islands and other places most at risk have since had censuses, so it should be possible for us now to get some idea of the devastating impact climate change is having on their populations. Let’s have a look at the evidence:
Nassau, The Bahamas – The 2010 national statistics recorded that the population growth increased to 353,658 persons in The Bahamas. The population change figure increased by 50,047 persons during the last 10 years.
The island-nation of Saint Lucia recorded an overall household population increase of 5 percent from May 2001 to May 2010 based on estimates derived from a complete enumeration of the population of Saint Lucia during the conduct of the recently completed 2010 Population and Housing Census.
Population 2002, 81755
Population 2010, 88311
The latest Solomon Islands population has surpassed half a million – that’s according to the latest census results.
It’s been a decade since the last census report, and in that time the population has leaped 100,000.
=========================================================
After Asian Correspondent posted the story on April 11th, it was picked up by news outlets around the world such as Investor News, American Spectator and was cited in the Australian newspaper. It was also a report on Fox News.
Since that story appeared, the “handy map” he cites in his original story, which has this URL:
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010
…seems to be gone down the memory hole. This is what you get now, note my yellow highlight:
Only one small problem there UN people, a little annoyance called Google cache, which has that page archived here.
It pulls up this page that had been removed, with the 50 million refugees title, but the map is missing. Click to enlarge.
Fear not dear readers, because as astoundingly smart as those UN people think they are, they forgot one very important yet tiny detail. The map links to a hi-resolution version of the “climate refugee map” and if you delete the page above and the map it contains, you also have to delete the hi-res image it links to.
http://maps.grida.no/library/files/storage/11kap9climat.png
Ooops.
I’m always happy to help the UN in times of “need”, sooooo I’ve recovered it and saved it here on WUWT, because that image link is likely to go down the memory hole on Monday.
Here’s the map at web resolution as it would have appeared in the disappeared web page above.
And here it is in full sized hi-resolution glory, suitable for printing, slides, or coffee mugs…wherever it might be appropriate to show the folly of these boneheads. Click the link for the hi-res image:
11kap9climat.png 3012 x 1699 pixels PNG (577K)
And there you have it folks, another bogus climate claim rubbished by reality, followed by an inept cover up attempt.
Thanks to the reality of census numbers, followed by the UN’s handling of this, we can now safely say that the claim is “climate refugees” is total fantasy. Be sure to leave comments on any website that makes this claim, and link to this and the Asian Correspondent website.
Kudos to Gavin Atkins for asking this simple question after 6 years of this fantasy being used to push an agenda
UPDATE: A couple of commenters asked for the source of the predictions. Happy to oblige. This is what the UNEP web page originally said and the author cited:
| Sources | Norman Myers, ‘Environmental refugees, An emergent security issue’, 13. Economic forum, Prague, OSCE, May 2005 ; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 ; Liser, 2007. |
| Link to web-site | http://www.agassessment.org/ |
| Cartographer/
Designer |
Emmanuelle Bournay |
| Appears in | IAASTD – International assessment of agricultural science and technology for development |
| Published | 2008 |
UPDATE2: The goal posts are already being moved, now it is 2020 instead of 2010, see below.
And here’s the source of this new goal post, an announcement at the AAAS meeting in February:
Which a compliant media has bloviated all over the net, as if this new bogosity is somehow better than the old one. The professor who made that new 10 years hence claim, UCLA’s Cristina Tirado, has a public web page at UCLA here.
I’ve sent her this message tonight:
Dear Professor Tirado,
It appears that the original claim made by the UN of 50 million climate refugees by 2010 has been proven totally false by a simple census count. UNEP has already removed the claim from their website. See this story: http://wp.me/p7y4l-9T0
At AAAS in Feburary, you made a nearly identical claim, but simply 10 years into the future. On what basis did you make this claim, and in light of the failed prediction and removal by UNEP of the old claim, are you prepared to retract the new 2020 refugee claim you made here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jnW80NlFZ259UCgMAHSd3ekHutiQ?docId=CNG.aa651167cd0af745b3cb395cf1d402e3.c41
Millions of readers await your response at WUWT. Thank you for your consideration.
Anthony Watts
UPDATE3: Reader Andrew30 provides the linkage of this farce to the main body of the UN, not just the UNEP as some have complained.
General Assembly, 8 July 2008
GA/10725
Sixty-second General Assembly
Informal Meeting on Climate Change and Most Vulnerable Countries (AM)
Statements
SRGJAN KERIM, President of the General Assembly, opened the discussion by saying that 11 of the last 12 years had ranked among the 12 warmest since the keeping of global temperature records had begun in 1850. Two points were significant: that climate change was inherently a sustainable-development challenge; and that more efforts than ever before must be exerted to enable poor countries to prepare for impacts because it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.
Panel Discussion
The Assembly then held a panel discussion moderated by author and journalist Eugene Linden. The panellists were Reid Basher, Senior Coordinator at the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; Ian Noble, Senior Climate Change Specialist at the World Bank; and Veerle Vandeweerd, Director of the Environment and Energy Group at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Source: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/ga10725.doc.htm
UPDATE4: In comments, there’s a suggestion that I’m laying claim to “first discovery”. I’m not, nor did I. This path of discovery that I learned today from various bits and pieces in email and posts is helpful.
Gavin Atkins was the first to call attention to the expired UN claim, he also highlighted the Google cache issue saying “However, if you are quick, you may yet be able to download a copy via google cache here.” …which I followed and was able to find and recover the high-res map myself and made my own screen caps. I found out Monday morning that Gatkins got the cache issue from Aaron Worthing here, who got it from his commenter “Carlos” – so it is Carlos who actually deserves credit for first noticing it (the 404 error).
Worthing was upset that I didn’t mention him but did mention Atkins. I’m writing this to correct that unintentional oversight.
I didn’t notice the small link on Atkins post to Worthing’s post (much further down than the Google cache link) because I was already on my way down the rabbit hole from the UNEP link Atkins provided high up in his post, paying attention to Atkins admonition: “However, if you are quick…” to follow the link. I know from experience that sometimes Google cache can last for days, sometimes minutes. When I followed it, the map was already gone as you can see in my own screencaps above.
Today I also found out that apparently I was getting Tweets from Atkins and Worthing last Fri/Sat that I should take notice of the issue…but those got left in the bit bucket because I never follow/read Tweets. I only use Twitter as an announcement service for WUWT. So if anyone expects to reach me via Twitter, please note that it is a lost cause.
I’m always happy to point out who gets credit when I know about it, and now that I know about it, here’s the credit chain: Gavin Atkins was the one to raise the issue, Aaron Worthing was the first to blog about the 404 error here, and his commenter “Carlos” was the first to notice the 404 error. I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.
The most important thing is that the UN issue is well known now and that many many people worked independently to make it happen. – Anthony
The USA, a corporation of the English Crown, is bankrupt, and has been since at least 1788. The Articles of Confederation states in Article 12: “All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed, and debts contracted by, or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed as considered a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States, and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged.”
The “Founding Fathers,” as constitutors, acknowledged and reorganized the debt in the U.S. Constitution 1787, Article VI, hence “constitution.” Bankruptcy occurred on January 1, 1788 based on 21 loans that the United States of America received from the King of
England dating from February 28, 1778, through July 5, 1782, the repayment of which had been ratified by Congress on January 22, 1783. The United States Bank, created in 1791, was a private bank, with 18,000 of 25,000 shares owned by England.
http://www.stopthepirates.blogspot.com
rp says:
April 16, 2011 at 4:53 pm
A semi-delirious, run-on sentence, frothing at the mouth rant is the always the best way to win an argument.
This very story is currently the leader in ‘Der Spiegel Online’: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,757556,00.html
and there is a forum opened too!
Nice to see this story go mainstream in a serious way!
Anthony, reader Ike informed me that you are quoted in Der Spiegel:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,757556,00.html
FYI – The part of interest in German:
And in English:
It bit of contempt for bloggers, there. But overall rather balanced considering it’s Der Spiegel,
You are all totally wrong. There are easily 50 million climate refugees but the reason you can’t see these in the census figures is that the rising sea level has completely submerged their countries so there can’t be a census held there any more.
Incidentally this also explains the rising population in other countries as this is entirely down to the hoards of devastated refugees settling in places like St Lucia.
And the reason that you don’t hear about the lost countries is an American cover up.
[Not sure if there is any need for Sarc tags – it should be obvious but the excuses that some Climate Change Deniers (like Michael Mann – who’s hockey stick denies natural climate change) come up with I’m not so sure!]
i’m sure they can cook up some phony reasons and describe the influx over the southern U.S. border as “climate change refugees”
It’s 20.33 Sunday evening and this story is still top leader in the Spiegel Online mag (2 hours now!). Note that it’s LEADER, not stuffed into a little corner somewhere. And that also means that it’s likely it’ll stay in the front page some time whilst its moved down along with the other main stories of the day. So… lots of Germans will be reading about this!
Here is the google translate link: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fnatur%2F0%2C1518%2C757556%2C00.html
Les Johnson:
“Rising sea levels, increasing desertification, weather-induced flooding, and more frequent natural disasters have, and will increasingly become, a major cause of population displacement in several parts of the world,” the statement said.”
Could be worded better. Some of those things have been a major cause of population displacements in several parts of the world, while others such as sea level will increasingly become a cause of population displacement. But it says nothing about 2010.
This passage isn’t even on the page with the map.
The map was cited a prediction for 2010. If the map wasn’t the concern, but that passage then why were you citing the map. This article is based on the map being a prediction for 2010. It isn’t. I await your correction. Read the report beneath the map too.
“Citing a report from the UN University, UNEP said that there were now more than 19 million people officially recognized as “persons of concern” – people who are likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. UNEP said that figure is expected to grow to about 50 million by the end of 2010.”
Environmental disasters such as the Pakistan floods, and various droughts.
Nothing here about sea level….yet.
Of course the UN never actually defines who they consider to be a “Climate Refugee” anyway.
But, by definition, “natural disasters” and “environmental degradation” cannot count unless those disasters and degradation can specifically be shown to be caused by changes in the Climate.
And we all know (their rules, not ours) that changes have to be demonstrable over periods of at least 30 years, otherwise the are “just weather”. (c.f. the last three unusually cold winters. But also the 2003 heatwave in France and last year’s heatwave near Moscow – which are regularly trotted out as “proof” of Global Warming.)
There is ample evidence that there is no significant trends with hurricanes, cyclones, volcanoes, floods, droughts and the rest.
Rising temperatures? Well, there is the C.20th rise of 0.7ºC, allegedly due to CO2 but very likely at least half of this is due to changes in land use and long term fluctuations in ocean currents. And climbing up from the Little Ice Age. And most of this rise seems to be high Latitudes, increased MINIMUM temperatures during Winter nights.
It seems unlikely that anyone got out of bed for even the whole 0.7ºC, never mind uprooted the family and became a refugee.
Sea level rise is another complete non-event. Only possible problem seems to be the Carteret Islands (which are most likely sinking! Wikipedia try their utmost but can only find some unconvincingly equivocal weasel words to keep this particular scam afloat.)
My hunch is that the last genuine “Climate Refugees” were probably the Viking farmers who had to leave Greenland when their settlements were overrun by ice. Slightly higher temperatures and a few inches of sea level are easier to manage with adaptation than becoming a refugee. Being buried under a glacier? More difficult.
Any other ideas?
Once we’ve agreed that, we can start throwing in the “anthropogenic” bit and see how many “Climate Refugees” we have left.
My guess? Not enough for a poker game.
James S says:
April 17, 2011 at 11:09 am
“You are all totally wrong. There are easily 50 million climate refugees but the reason you can’t see these in the census figures is that the rising sea level has completely submerged their countries so there can’t be a census held there any more.”
Lemuria, Atlantis and Mu-Mu-Land, yeah, heard about them. 😉
Martin Brumby says:
April 17, 2011 at 1:47 pm
“[…] Once we’ve agreed that, we can start throwing in the “anthropogenic” bit and see how many “Climate Refugees” we have left.
My guess? Not enough for a poker game.”
And my guess? Not enough for a game of solitaire.
This article clearly demonstrates what’s wrong with science reporting. If the UN had released a report claiming 50 million global warming refugees by 2010, there would be dozens of news articles on it. The supposed incriminating evidence is a Google Cache page with this map [grida.no] that doesn’t itself say anything about refugees, but does highlight areas most susceptible to sea level rise. The “50 million climate refugees by 2010 [googleusercontent.com]” statement is not referenced anywhere in any UN report, it’s a six words on one defunct graphic that was part of a larger report on world agriculture [grida.no] by the UN University. This 50 million by 2010 figure comes from Dr. Bogardi at the UN University in Bonn [guardian.co.uk], NOT the United Nations.
The problem with this prediction being made by any scientist is that keeping track of how many refugees there are is difficult (current estimate by the UN is 1 million a year [unep.org], a figure that the Red Cross lends support to with the statement that environmental disasters are displacing more people than war now) and the causes are debatable. The epic flooding in Pakistan created 10 million refugees [reuters.com], Hurricane Katrina added a quarter of a million refugees [www.cbc.ca], and desertification in Africa is displacing millions. Can we blame these events on Global Warming? Hurricanes and floods happen without a warming world, but a warming world increases the chances of such disasters happening.
Then there are the refugees that no one realizes. In the small coastal town where I live in North Carolina, houses have been falling into the swamp one by one for decades, but the residents blame it on people building their homes in flood zones, not realizing that sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast [sciencedaily.com]. People didn’t build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built, but nobody realizes this because of landscape amnesia [wikipedia.org].
You can read all about the various estimates concerning environmental refugees on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. It took the author of this untruth less than an hour to post their nonsense and the deniers flooded the Internet with it quickly. It took me two hours to research and write this response, because I wanted to know what I was talking about, and I will only reach a very small audience in comparison. This is why I despair when considering how science could possibly stand a chance against the overwhelming confidence ignorance brings the unscientific masses.
by ideonexus
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2087672&cid=35847588
@PersonOfInterest says: April 17, 2011 at 10:28 pm
“If the UN had released a report claiming 50 million global warming refugees by 2010, there would be dozens of news articles on it.”
Hang on! They did. And there were.
You think the Millenium Bug destroyed my memory?
Floods in Pakistan? Yeah, that hasn’t happened before in Pakistan. But unfortunately for you it happened before when it was still part of India. Even the British Press said that this was the worst flooding for 70 years. How much development has there been in flood plains? How much spent on flood alleviation schemes?
It’s a pity you couldn’t come up with even one sensible example of Climate Refugees after two hour’s work.
Try harder.
PersonOfInterest says:
April 17, 2011 at 10:28 pm
I’m not going to even both as the comments on your link seem to sum up quite nicely.
Wouldn’t you be better defending your comments where you made them [snip ~ac]
Just to back up Person of Interest: everyone seems to have got “climate” and “environmental” mixed up. It happens again above with the “2020” article: the headline says ‘environmental’, but in Watts’ letter, he uses ‘climate’. They’re completely different – if you link to / go and read the original reports this is based on, you would have seen that. To save you time I’ve quoted extensively from it here and provide links to the originals.
Measuring the actual numbers, as Person of Interest points out, is hard. Census data from four tropical islands? Not relevant.
At the moment in the UK we have a nice benign anticyclone sitting over us and northern Europe – so those monuments to ‘renewables’, wind farms, are idling round producing around 0.5% of electricity demand. Such good value for the taxpayer, don’t you know…
What I am waiting for is for some climate change disciple to come out with: ‘Climate change is causing less wind..’
At which time I will be found with tears of laughter streaming down my face…
onion: pay attention now.
I am not citing the map. I am citing UNEP, who had stated that there would 50 million climate refugees by 2010.
As for sea level? 2400 people in Papua New Guinea in 2008, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. Umm. That is it.
“I am citing UNEP, who had stated that there would 50 million climate refugees by 2010.”
Where have they done this? I can’t find a reference anywhere. I’ve seen some things on *environmental* refugees: this is completely different from “climate refugees” – it’s a much larger set of issues. From the original 1995 report, the full range of environmental factors examined are: food and agriculture; water shortages; deforestation; desertification; population pressure; urbanization and mega-cities; unemployment; poverty; extreme weather events.
I swear I saw this on Slashdot this morning before work. Went to find it to show somebody and nada. What’s funny is that their overview had the “never heard of Google cache” line. It’s a great techie site, but they do tend a little to the left.
Oops. Just found the story again on Slashdot. I thought they had disappeared it, but I was mistaken. My bad.
Sorry to be so late with this remark. It occurred to me immediately but…..
I do not believe there have been 50 milliion “climate” refugees. It was just another easily produced and easily swallowed (by the gullible) piece of AGW scaremongering propaganda.
HOWEVER, referring to census data (unless that also includes data on in and out migration) is not a killer refutation of the claim. It is quite possible for populations to grow AND ALSO that there be “climate” refugees from the same country. This could certainly be the case for countries with very high birth rates.
Sorry.
You attribute Gavin correctly for catching the missing refugees story in the first place, but you don’t mention that someone else caught their attempt to “disappear” that story first.
Come to patterico’s and take a look. I also sent you a tweet, too.
REPLY: I don’t follow tweets, I only broadcast them from my blog for the convenience of thos who do, so it went into the bit bucket. But I’ll be happy to make a mention that you also found the same thing when you visited the UNEP URL – Anthony
danolner: your
Where have they done this? I can’t find a reference anywhere.
I have given the reference here, and at Gavin’s. I give it again, with the money quote. Note that the UNEP source cites “climate change” several times. It also has at the bottom, the same name as a person, who, on Gavin’s site, denied the UNEP had ever made those claims.
“Rising sea levels, increasing desertification, weather-induced flooding, and more frequent natural disasters have, and will increasingly become, a major cause of population displacement in several parts of the world,” the statement said.
Citing a report from the UN University, UNEP said that there were now more than 19 million people officially recognized as “persons of concern” – people who are likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. UNEP said that figure is expected to grow to about 50 million by the end of 2010.
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=538&ArticleID=5842&l=en
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27094&Cr=refugee&Cr1
MarcH says:
Global warming will make climates disappear
The Australian March 29, 2007
“IF trends in global warming continue, South Australia’s climate would vanish by 2010,
Seems to me that this is a good thing. If climate disappears, then we don’t have to worry about it changing anymore…
Did my comment disappear into the filter?
[Rescued from the spam folder & posted. ~dbs, mod.]