Back in 2009, it was 200 million climate refugees according to this article in the NYT:
There could be 200 million of these climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organization for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances.
Now the claim is up to 5 times that by 2050 in the space of five years, at this rate of increase, the entire world population will be ‘climate refugees’ by 2050.
From Smithsonian Magazine by Jerry Adler:
The Reality of a Hotter World is Already Here
As global warming makes sizzling temperatures more common, will human beings be able to keep their cool? New research suggests not
The various environmental effects of greenhouse gases are potentially devastating, as we have often heard. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, made public in March, underscored the danger of widespread hunger, even starvation, resulting from crop failures. Other health threats have been enumerated by Robert Repetto, a United Nations Foundation economist, who says climate change will intensify smog, leading to “increased outbreaks of asthma and allergies,” and “exacerbate vector-borne diseases such as hantavirus, West Nile virus, Lyme disease and dengue fever.” Repetto also worries about the “extreme weather events” that some researchers say climate change will engender. “Biological systems and engineering systems are all designed for a range of climatic conditions,” he says. “Within those limits, we’re OK, …but outside those limits, the damage increases rapidly and becomes catastrophic, and we’re going outside those limits.” Heat waves themselves pose a health risk, especially for young children and the elderly—and world-class athletes. Temperatures at the Australian Open in January reached 104 degrees for four consecutive days, a condition that one tennis player called “inhumane” after competitors collapsed on the court.
(Gosh, it gets hot in Australia in summer? Who knew?)
…
There may be hordes of climate refugees, fleeing homes on islands and coasts made uninhabitable by climate change—anywhere from 25 million to 1 billion people by 2050, according to the International Organization for Migration. Even people who don’t have to move will experience a bewildering sense of dislocation as the environment changes around them—as Northern winters start to be measured in weeks rather than months. Glenn Albrecht, an Australian philosopher, coined the term “solastalgia” for this emotion, a kind of homesickness you can experience without leaving home.
“We will see the emergence of novel climates, environments we’ve not seen before in human times, and the extinction of others, around the Arctic and in high Alpine regions,” says Laurence C. Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA and author of The World in 2050. Smith says cities, industry and agriculture may benefit in places such as Canada and Scandinavia, though at some cost in psychological and cultural disruption. “Very bitterly cold winters will be less common in some places,” he says, “but instead of a nice blanket of white snow, they will have slush.” And people who move north for the weather, or for jobs that may open up as the Arctic melts, will discover that climate change doesn’t make the winter nights any shorter.
Funny! The Auatralian Open is held in the middle of a very large city, in a stadium that resembles a tin, with high sides and a semi-covered roof exposing the central courts sorrounded with lots of steel, concrete, asphault and buildings to soak up all that sunlight during our, typically, hot summers. Yup! When it gets to 104F, in summer, I too don’t play tennis!
“…as Northern winters start to be measured in weeks rather than months.”
—
They say that like it’s a bad thing. Where can I sign up?
I was on the Global Cooling Team before I knew there was one. I would go with 1 Billion Dead and if someone measure the number of farm animals in a ratio to that, they will be dead or dying.
Global cooling of the proportion we Are going to see is bring world wide drought and severe longer winters which is creating a shortage of crops for humans and feed for animals. California and the Dakota Ranchers have had to let cattle go to Market less they die in the fields. Add to that a lost of over 20,000 head of cattle in South Dakota on 4 October 2014 to a snow blizzard which I personally experience.
Paul
The vast bulk of the world’s population live in the hotter latitudes.
http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/08/world-pop-latitude.png
So if the world warms, much more of it will be in the temperature range that is currently most favoured. Even if a warming did trigger migration – and there is absolutely no sign of it long after its predicted start date – there would be much larger comfortable areas of Earth for them to move into. IOW, in spite of the disruption, the warming would be remarkably beneficial. A cooling, on the other hand, would shrink the comfortable zone, and could get very nasty indeed.
Of course 2050 is a ‘usefully’ long time away , so by ‘lucky chance ‘ they can claim that although there is no sign of it happing now, it ‘will in the future’ knowing that they will not be around to be reminded of their BS claims when time runs out.
Normal pratice for climate ‘science ‘
Temperatures at the Australian Open in January reached 104 degrees [40C] for four consecutive days …
========================================
‘The hottest temperature ever recorded was a sweltering 45.6 degrees [114F] centigrade in January ’39, during a 4-day heat wave’: http://australian.open-tennis.com/melbourne-tennis-australian-open/
The International Organization for Migration has become very, very grant-worthy.
it’s global warming smut, giving a whole new meaning to “Deep Climate”
Same old, same old. They’ve just upped the numbers and write with even more fake certainty.
Let’s not forget the UN’s false claim from 2005, when they said there would be 50m climate refugees by 2010.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/15/the-un-disappears-50-million-climate-refugees-then-botches-the-disappearing-attempt/
Even people who don’t have to move will experience a bewildering sense of dislocation as the environment changes around them—as Northern winters start to be measured in weeks rather than months.
Oh, does that mean children won’t know what snow is? <.<
This Jerry Adler doesn't seem to realize people travel to warmer climes to escape winter. There's even a whole tourist industry enabling the phenomenon. What a maroon. /Bugs Bunny
Throws dart. “Wow. 1 Billion”
Sorry, my BS meter imploded back there. Something to do with the “unprecedented” over-use of “could” I reckon.
… and … gasp … cats will mate with dogs ….
I’m working with a PhD candidate on this topic so I decided to trace the claim.
Adler in the Smithsonian cites the International Organization for Migration (IOM), presumably their 2009 paper that indeed has the numbers given.
IOM (2009) cites four papers: Jacobson (1988), Myers (1997, 2002) and Stern (2006).
Stern cites a presentation by Myers around 2002. Myers (2002) cites Myers (1997).
Myers (1997) does not estimate the number of climate refugees. Instead, he estimates the number of people at risk from sea level rise, without additional coastal protection (~160 million in 2050), and the number of people at risk of drought, again without adaptation (~50 mln in 2050).
Jacobson (1998) also does not estimate the number of climate refugees. Instead, she estimate the number of people at risk from sea level rise, without additional coastal protection; she does not give a number for 2050; she does give a number for 1 metre sea level rise: 50 mln.
In other words, IOM padded their reference list with duplicate estimates, reinterpreted the estimates, and multiplied the highest by five.
A more likely headline: “Up to 1 billion empirically falsified climate change conjectures by 2050”
Smithsonian…that’s where the dinosaurs come to life and run around the corridors at night…right?
“As global warming makes sizzling temperatures more common … ”
There hasn’t been any for something like 17 years. I live in a place that is hot, but it has not been as hot since the turn of the century. The 90s were hotter. But maybe these people are so convinced that its hotter that they are succeeding in elevating their own temperature, eg engineering some sort of psychosomatic fever? Is there a name for this disorder?
I may have witnessed someone suffering from this, going on about “isn’t it hot” when it was a balmy 34C and 50% RH.
I am working on a paper “Up to 5 billion climate refugees by 2030” (If you can’t beat them.. join them.)
“…as Northern winters start to be measured in weeks rather than months.”
Bring it on – Its the end of April and my heating is still running !
The hottest temperature ecorded in Melbourne so far was 45.6 degrees C (114R) in January 1939. It too was a 4-day heat wave and there was a mass migration of Melbournians to the beaches where they all had a great day and cooled off in the water
I am sure all those people up there in Alaska are just waiting to get their hands a bit of this proffered Global Warming (if only there was any!!)
Yesterday night in (barely) subtropical Hervey Bay, the fall night time temperature crashed down to 70F. It was freezing cold, we had to close a window.
When shall we have to move, because of global warming?
Richard Tol
… In other words, IOM padded their reference list with duplicate estimates, reinterpreted the estimates, and multiplied the highest by five.
Chinese whispers… 🙂
Richard Tol : “In other words, IOM padded their reference list with duplicate estimates, reinterpreted the estimates, and multiplied the highest by five.”
Wow. Looks like someone should do a psychology paper about global warming “ideation”.
Ha! Up in the tropics of Oz it will drop to 14 C this week at night. It’s not even close to winter yet, either. I’m very glad I left frigid Sydney behind. It will get as low as 10 C this week.
“Even people who don’t have to move will experience a bewildering sense of dislocation as the environment changes around them—as Northern winters start to be measured in weeks rather than months. ”
Yeah, right. And next year we’ll be reading NH winters (may be ) COULD BE (perhaps) as short a few days “as the world continues to warm” (like it has (or not, perhaps) in the last decade and a half).
We must act NOW.
Seriously this sort of stupid BS is becoming a pathology.
Richard Tol said
‘…reinterpreted the estimates’
Lots of other ‘re’ words also come to mind as regards to some of these reports.
Revise. Re-evaluate. Revamp.
However proper’ re-search’ is not one of them
tonyb
I have to say that when I hear these things nowadays, I get sad. All these great institutions are beginning to look like mediaeval priests sounding the whip och inquisition. Chastise the heretics and scarring the rest with the fire of hell on earth.
I’m not a believer myself but by the looks of it, a lot of the so called liberals out there are clearly craving for whatever religion they can get their hands on as long as they can point a finger at anybody and let the the thin air of the high moral ground let their heads spin.
the folks from Brighton, England might prefer to be CAGW refugees than to live under the Greens!
note: butties/butty is english slang for sandwiches/sandwich:
26 April: UK Daily Mail: Ian Birrell: Lunacy of the town that turned green: A ban on bacon butties. Traffic-calming sheep. Transgender toilets. Sounds like a send-up? In fact, it’s the all-too-real story of how Britain’s loopiest party took over Brighton…
Brighton Pavilion is the Green Party’s only seat in Parliament
Idealism and environmental improvements have gone down well
Other stunts like Meat-free Monday and transgender toilets, not so much
In addition, the party’s inexperience in power has left them struggling
A rising tide of splits, stunts, U-turns, gaffes and divisive industrial disputes has alienated voters and angered businesses here in a city better known for its bohemian tolerance, while outlandish proposals for a ban on bacon butties and plans to use sheep for traffic calming have earned only derision.
The serious side of politics has suffered, too – a demonstration of the dangers that await when protest parties win power. A doomed attempt to impose the biggest council tax rise in the country ended with humiliating warnings that Whitehall could be forced to take over the Town Hall.
Welcome to the Green Republic of Brighton and Hove…
At last month’s council meeting, a Green member accused a former Tory leader of wearing a swastika. She wasn’t. It turned out to be a traditional Irish emblem on her necklace…
Graham Cox, a Tory councillor and former head of Sussex CID, said the Green council promoted an image of Brighton as a place of protest and alternative lifestyles that welcomed the homeless.
‘They don’t care about things like cutting the grass and keeping flower-beds tidy, so our town is getting scruffier. They are basically ***hippies who don’t give a damn about such things.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2613905/Lunacy-town-turned-green-A-ban-bacon-butties-Traffic-calming-sheep-Transgender-toilets-Sounds-like-send-In-fact-real-story-Britains-loopiest-party-took-Brighton.html
I’m amazed that they’re basically saying that evolution doesn’t exist and that all humans are essentially stupid and can’t adapt to anything.
The homo sapiens has adapted to this non-linear, chaotic system called “climate” for almost 200,000 years. Successfully so. There are humans everywhere. In every single climate zone.
And before the homo sapiens the early hominids have done the same. They have adapted. Not to mention all life on the planet. Life has gone through extinction phases were almost all of it was wiped out, yet, a few lifeforms always prevailed and survived. They adapted.
I wonder what life on this planet will do with “global warming”. Hmm… It can’t be that humans, other animals and plants will adapt, right? I mean, that’s not possible, right? The whole thing of how hominids survived the Ice Age is a myth, correct?
I’m seeing more and more similarities between the AGW crowd and creationists.
Perhaps it will be like a ‘staycation’. The whole world will be climate migrants, we’ll just do it at home.
let’s see– 50m – low ball figures, add 25% – multiply by the numbers of papers (4).
Voila 250 million affected.
So, we should expect climate refugees from hot places.
And, we know that areas around the Sahara are greening due to increased CO2. (and other arid regions around the planet as well of course)
So I thought, can we already see this in agricultural yields. There’s little data about that; gapminder unfortunately has no time series of average yields per country.
But I found this from Algeria, which is one of the bigger countries in the area.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/algeria/cereal-yield-kg-per-hectare-wb-data.html
Big fluctuations, and a short series, only 8 years, but doesn’t look bad at all.
So the climate refugees, are they running away from big harvests?
@richard Tol (@richardTol) on April 30, 2014 at 1:01 am
Thank you for the valuable detective work! It’s fascinating to see these kinds of claims traced back to source and learn how they can be distorted and bolstered by outright fabrication. It’s also sad that regardless of the truth about CAGW, once the shrill alarmism dies down, any reputation for reliability in large areas of science (particularly climate related) will have been left in tatters, having allowed themselves to be co-opted by special interest groups interested only in furthering a political agenda (be it humanitarian or selfish). It’s heartening to see a tiny minority like you risk a beating and take a stand against this.
JB
“As global warming makes sizzling temperatures more common,…”. How’s that going then?
My family are climate refugees – generally to Florida – for two weeks every year. The rest of the time we put up with what we’re given and get on with it.
I’m really worried about the world class athletes, having to compete for millions of dollars of prizemoney and sponsorships in tennis centres with multi million dollar roofs and free water coolers. How can they cope?
They are all wrong. It’s even worse than that.
Although the refugee numbers are admittedly very low in this (very) modeled scenario.
“Temperatures at the Australian Open in January reached 104 degrees for four consecutive days, a condition that one tennis player called “inhumane” after competitors collapsed on the court.”
In December of 1962 I went to take the second level of high school public examinations (Leaving, it was called in those far-off days) in the Wayville show grounds in Adelaide. This meant sitting in huge, steel roofed, agricultural exhibition buildings for several hours, several days in a row. No air conditioning, of course. You could get a drink of water, if you asked. Most of the time the temp was over 100F. One day it reached 111F. So don’t come whining to me about your measly 104.
“There may be hordes of climate refugees, fleeing homes on islands and coasts made uninhabitable by climate change—”
Then again, there may not.
I used this graphic in a story I did on what the Smithsonian is pushing in K-12 ed. http://www.smithsonianconference.org/shout/vgf-global-competence/
It’s now a captured institution driven by a desire to alter beliefs and perceptions about how the world works, not conduct research into what actually is. It’s hyping on AGW and its effects is just an excuse to bring in the behavioral scientists for social engineering.
“And people who move north for the weather, or for jobs that may open up as the Arctic melts, will discover that climate change doesn’t make the winter nights any shorter.”
Well, at least there’s one thing that ‘climate change’ doesn’t affect….
This article is laughable. a range of 25 million to 1 billion says they have NO idea what is going to happen.
Smithosian article
“His method had the elegance of all great science: He recruited a volunteer to stop her car at a green light and he counted the seconds until the driver behind honked the horn. He did this once a week from April to August, on days when the high temperature ranged from 84 degrees to 108, and he found that the thermometer accurately predicted how soon, and how many times, thwarted drivers would protest before the light changed”
Even on a winters day in London this happens.
I am looking for funding. My research objective is to confirm that 9 billion people will be climate weirding refugees by 2050. I will need a 2 million dollar grant to do my research as I will be making trips around the world on evil airplanes that use dirty oil. I plan on dropping historical temperatures by 5 degrees to make the current temps even worse than we thought. I just need a few million in grants to pay for my data adjustments so that they fit more inline with CO2. This will be a robust research campaign by me.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/03/dennis-jensen-mp-calls-for-audit-on-the-bom-and-csiro-data/
The Australian temperature records are not what they appear to be.
The BOM who controls, alters and substitute them flatly refuses to open them up to an independant audit.
Why?
Jo Nova and a hell of a lot of others has been on their case for years to hand them over.
So far with zero success.
The latest is a parliamentary request by mp dr Jenson.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/boms-new-data-set-acorn-so-bad-it-should-be-withdrawn-954-min-temps-larger-than-the-max/
I knew one of the founding writers for the Smithsonian. He used to write many of the science articles then took on, “Around the Mall and Beyond” which was a regular piece he did until he died. He was an ex WW2 pilot who married an Aussie. I don’t think Teddy would have been very impressed with this bit of writing at all, as he was a stickler for back up figures How silly for the Smithsonian to get caught into the global warming group political think. Really, I used to believe the Smithsonian was the bees knees as far as accurate popular science went too. Oh dear ,another great icon hits the dust.
“25 million to 1 billion people by 2050”
In 2050 there are supposed to be 9 billion people in the world. So that is a range of .28% to 11% of the population. That’s a 40 fold range. Pretty big range.
Methinks this study lacks a bit of academic rigor. Lol!
The Smithsonian is much better than this, and will be again. At the moment Apocalyptic FeverTM has temporarily taken hold of scientific institutions. But it is only temporary.
“And people who move north for the weather, or for jobs that may open up as the Arctic melts, will discover that climate change doesn’t make the winter nights any shorter.”
Bitch, please! There’s NOTHING that global warming / climate change / airborne plant food doesn’t do, or can’t be blamed for, or hasn’t been speculated as a contributor to.
changes in the political climate will cause more dislocation then the real climate
As soon as I start reading I see this. The world’s surface hasn’t hotted up in 17 years. Are sizzling temperatures more common NOW or not? I maybe very wrong here but I thought that Homo sapiens are from tropical Africa and that most of the ‘global warming’ would take place at higher latitudes and towards the poles.
klem says:
April 30, 2014 at 3:44 am
“25 million to 1 billion people by 2050″
In 2050 there are supposed to be 9 billion people in the world. So that is a range of .28% to 11% of the population. That’s a 40 fold range. Pretty big range.
Methinks this study lacks a bit of academic rigor. Lol!
—————————————————————————————————————-
My thoughts are the same. “25 million to 1 billion” is a spread of 975 million. With accuracy like that, how could anyone doubt the rest of the story.
Speculative, one-sided drivel. So the old won’t benefit from warmer winters? Crop growing seasons won’t be longer? We KNOW that the greening Earth ‘danger’ is already here.
Abstract
Carlos Jaramillo et. al – Science – 12 November 2010
Effects of Rapid Global Warming at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary on Neotropical Vegetation
Temperatures in tropical regions are estimated to have increased by 3° to 5°C, compared with Late Paleocene values, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 56.3 million years ago) event. We investigated the tropical forest response to this rapid warming by evaluating the palynological record of three stratigraphic sections in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela. We observed a rapid and distinct increase in plant diversity and origination rates, with a set of new taxa, mostly angiosperms, added to the existing stock of low-diversity Paleocene flora. There is no evidence for enhanced aridity in the northern Neotropics. The tropical rainforest was able to persist under elevated temperatures and high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast to speculations that tropical ecosystems were severely compromised by heat stress.
doi: 10.1126/science.1193833
—————-
Abstract
Carlos Jaramillo & Andrés Cárdenas – Annual Reviews – May 2013
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Global Warming and Neotropical Rainforests: A Historical Perspective
There is concern over the future of the tropical rainforest (TRF) in the face of global warming. Will TRFs collapse? The fossil record can inform us about that. Our compilation of 5,998 empirical estimates of temperature over the past 120 Ma indicates that tropics have warmed as much as 7°C during both the mid-Cretaceous and the Paleogene. We analyzed the paleobotanical record of South America during the Paleogene and found that the TRF did not expand toward temperate latitudes during global warm events, even though temperatures were appropriate for doing so, suggesting that solar insolation can be a constraint on the distribution of the tropical biome. Rather, a novel biome, adapted to temperate latitudes with warm winters, developed south of the tropical zone. The TRF did not collapse during past warmings; on the contrary, its diversity increased. The increase in temperature seems to be a major driver in promoting diversity.
doi: 10.1146/annurev-earth-042711-105403
—————-
Abstract
PNAS – David R. Vieites – 2007
Rapid diversification and dispersal during periods of global warming by plethodontid salamanders
…Salamanders underwent rapid episodes of diversification and dispersal that coincided with major global warming events during the late Cretaceous and again during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal optimum. The major clades of plethodontids were established during these episodes, contemporaneously with similar phenomena in angiosperms, arthropods, birds, and mammals. Periods of global warming may have promoted diversification and both inter- and transcontinental dispersal in northern hemisphere salamanders…
—————-
Abstract
ZHAO Yu-long et al – Advances in Earth Science – 2007
The impacts of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM)event on earth surface cycles and its trigger mechanism
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event is an abrupt climate change event that occurred at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. The event led to a sudden reversal in ocean overturning along with an abrupt rise in sea surface salinity (SSSs) and atmospheric humidity. An unusual proliferation of biodiversity and productivity during the PETM is indicative of massive fertility increasing in both oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems. Global warming enabled the dispersal of low-latitude populations into mid-and high-latitude. Biological evolution also exhibited a dramatic pulse of change, including the first appearance of many important groups of ” modern” mammals (such as primates, artiodactyls, and perissodactyls) and the mass extinction of benlhic foraminifera…..
22(4) 341-349 DOI: ISSN: 1001-8166 CN: 62-1091/P
—————-
Abstract
Systematics and Biodiversity – Volume 8, Issue 1, 2010
Kathy J. Willis et al
4 °C and beyond: what did this mean for biodiversity in the past?
How do the predicted climatic changes (IPCC, 2007) for the next century compare in magnitude and rate to those that Earth has previously encountered? Are there comparable intervals of rapid rates of temperature change, sea-level rise and levels of atmospheric CO2 that can be used as analogues to assess possible biotic responses to future change? Or are we stepping into the great unknown? This perspective article focuses on intervals in time in the fossil record when atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased up to 1200 ppmv, temperatures in mid- to high-latitudes increased by greater than 4 °C within 60 years, and sea levels rose by up to 3 m higher than present. For these intervals in time, case studies of past biotic responses are presented to demonstrate the scale and impact of the magnitude and rate of such climate changes on biodiversity. We argue that although the underlying mechanisms responsible for these past changes in climate were very different (i.e. natural processes rather than anthropogenic), the rates and magnitude of climate change are similar to those predicted for the future and therefore potentially relevant to understanding future biotic response. What emerges from these past records is evidence for rapid community turnover, migrations, development of novel ecosystems and thresholds from one stable ecosystem state to another, but there is very little evidence for broad-scale extinctions due to a warming world. Based on this evidence from the fossil record, we make four recommendations for future climate-change integrated conservation strategies.
DOI: 10.1080/14772000903495833
Utter garbage. A couple of classic liberal misconceptions very evident in this article :
1) misunderstanding around the concept of time …. These doom-mongers always overlay time frames that are incompatible. Climate changes over decades and centuries. Individuals get stressed out with things that happen in hours, days, weeks and possibly months. No one is going to get depressed because they pine for a time of longer winters.
2) misunderstanding about the nature of change. These left wing liberal idiots always assume that out utopian world is one absolutely static situation. It isn’t! We adapt and change all the time. Change is one of the few constants in the universe.
So, their estimate covers 97.5%? form 2.5% to 100%? There’s that 97 again!
A nice blanket of white snow vs slush. Where do they get these people and why do they have to?
=================
klem says:
April 30, 2014 at 3:44 am
“25 million to 1 billion people by 2050″
In 2050 there are supposed to be 9 billion people in the world. So that is a range of .28% to 11% of the population. That’s a 40 fold range. Pretty big range.
My thought as well.
Here in Florida, I suppose we now have a few million “climate refugees” who have moved here for the warmer weather. Not so many moving north to get away from the heat, either, although there are some.
If us Florida climate refugees, and similar situations, are included in that figure, then hitting that 25 million mark will be easy.
🙂
Jumping the shark is too mild a term for what the Smithsonian is doing.
The Australian Open is held in Melbourne in the Austral summer. Below is a picture of a court with high sides.
http://www.mailintalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/court.jpg
Why pick the Australian Open as an example of extreme weather or climate change when you only have to go to the nearest countryside and feel the difference?
Just wait the warmers of US temperature records will do what the Australian global warming dreamers did and fiddle with averages to smear desert temperatures here, to claim its hotter than hell!! And of course to help this along your tree hut “warmbangers” will activate that new High Temperature spot they found in Death Valley to achieve a really, really, really, fair dinkum new hot, highest evah!! temperature and then smear this by averaging over the whole Continental USA and some people and the media will fall for the B.S.
Not bragging, but here in Melbourne (keep up with your facts Smithsonian) we have adapted by building a tennis stadium with a retractable roof. I might say it is used mostly to keep out the rain that we were told was never going to fall again by Professor Tim Flannery, ex government climate spokesman. By the way, has anyone noticed how no one talks about taking off a layer of clothing or turning on an air conditioner to “adapt” to warming. Instead we migrate, yep we pack our bags and jump the nearest boat to go to another country legally or not because of a 2 or 3 degree temperature change? Ha, ha, ha!
‘Glenn Albrecht, an Australian philosopher, coined the term “solastalgia” for this emotion, a kind of homesickness you can experience without leaving home.’
I am just a philosopher wannabe (probably a good thing) but I have coined the term ‘bullastalgia’ for an emotion, a kind of bullsicknessof one can experience without leaving one. (P.S. The above indicates I’m either just as good a wordsmith as Glenn Albrecht, or just as bad)
‘“We will see the emergence of novel climates, environments we’ve not seen before in human times, and the extinction of others, around the Arctic and in high Alpine regions,” says Laurence C. Smith, a professor …’
One quick question, ‘How do you make a climate go extinct for chrissake?’
Seems to be the current sky is falling chant is… if it isn’t scary enough, make it much bigger, higher, devestation, etc., truth and facts don’t matter.
Apart from forgetting to mention the projected plagues of frogs and locusts, I thought Jerry Adler’s brilliant parody ticked every box (nice touch to mention that less bitter winters mean less nice snow and more yucky slush) and was an absolutely spot-on piece of text-book alarmism. Just brilliant.
It was a parody, right?
1 Billion will be a small number compared to the Billions who will be refugees from the evil results to come from tax and spend political hacks who tax and spend at the demand of nut job Earth First radicals who want higer and higer taxes to be spent on wind mills and other solar pannel graft based on the fraud of Hockey Stick climate change.
Right. After this winter I do feel like fleeing to a warmer climate.
What a load of crap. Bring on the heat!
“1 billion climate refugees”
– Name one.
‘up to 1 billion climate refugees by 2050′ sounds about right. These will be the people fleeing countries to get away from Climate taxation.
“Up to…” — Technically, if there was more than 3 climate refuges anywhere, that’s within the estimate, isn’t it?
Umm. There are loads of people fleeing California and New York State to relocate in…TEXAS! Haven’t they heard of the summers down here? Maybe they are fleeing the trend toward colder weather up there…or maybe the tax and regulate philosophy.
Climate, Environment, and the IMF
March 18, 2014
“Earlier IMF papers lay out core principles of green tax design and focus on case studies for Chile and Mauritius. And an IMF report (to be published in summer 2014 and covering over 150 countries) provides estimates for taxes on fossil fuel products to reflect pollution and other environmental impacts associated with energy use and underscores the large environmental, health, and fiscal benefits from tax reform.”
Read More: https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/enviro.htm
…Chile and Mauritius?
It is time for the “B” Ark spaceship to be prepared. Mass evacuation.
Every winter AND summer there are millions upon millions of northern hemisphere climate refugees sitting in passenger craft heading nearer the equator. If heat was so stressful then why oh why do they do this??? For that matter why the saunas?
Smithsonian has jumped the shark and I’m not buying.
Here’s a search-results page of WUWT articles that mention “refugees”:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=refugees
Anthony: There ought to be a WUWT “category” for “climate refugees”.
Why have a billion climate refugees . . . when we can have TRILLIONS ?!?!
If you are going to make up a number, make up a big one!
“Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says:
“April 30, 2014 at 1:01 am
“I’m working with a PhD candidate on this topic so I decided to trace the claim.
“Adler in the Smithsonian cites the International Organization for Migration (IOM), presumably their 2009 paper that indeed has the numbers given.
“IOM (2009) cites four papers: Jacobson (1988), Myers (1997, 2002) and Stern (2006).
“Stern cites a presentation by Myers around 2002. Myers (2002) cites Myers (1997).
“Myers (1997) does not estimate the number of climate refugees. Instead, he estimates the number of people at risk from sea level rise, without additional coastal protection (~160 million in 2050), and the number of people at risk of drought, again without adaptation (~50 mln in 2050).
“Jacobson (1998) also does not estimate the number of climate refugees. Instead, she estimate the number of people at risk from sea level rise, without additional coastal protection; she does not give a number for 2050; she does give a number for 1 metre sea level rise: 50 mln.
“In other words, IOM padded their reference list with duplicate estimates, reinterpreted the estimates, and multiplied the highest by five.”
*****
Bottom Line:
(1) Mr. Adler’s writings cannot be trusted.
(2) As a person now in my 70s, this is not the Smithsonian Institution my college chemistry and physics professors told us about.
Climate change adaptation is a natural thing. Look at folks in the UK and Scandinavia with central heating. A little extra warmth WON’T result in any of them, or other Europeans for that matter, moving anywhere.
The only people that MIGHT move are people on low lying islands. Sometimes it’s not due to rising sea levels by themselves.
Low lying Island degradation.
Sand mining and gravel extraction for the construction industry
Explosive blasting to construct boat channels
Impacts of recreational divers
Unsustainable over-extraction of fresh water from the lens
Siltation from dredging for island harbour construction
Water pollution
For that matter who is the world’s first climate refugee. Here are a few contenders for the throne.
There are many examples of Holocene climate changes occurring before 1850, when some groups of people would have been forced to move from their geographic locations. One example is the desertification of a large part of North Africa.
We already have climate refugees. they are called snowbirds. they fly south for the winter to escape the cold. immigration laws force them to fly north in the summer.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/no-more-escaping-this-year-s-canadian-winter-for-some-snowbirds-1.1751762
Jimbo says:
April 30, 2014 at 7:03 am
…
Mauritius is an 787 sq. mile island with a population of about 1.3M (about 1,650 / sq. mile). Looks like tourism is a big part of their GDP.
Good points regarding Low lying Island degradation.
There is a famous quote by the german Nazi Goebbels (or someone) it went something like, “Just tell the people that they are under attack and they will go fight for you and die, just tell them that there is an enemy at the door and they will do anything that you tell them to do.” Something like that, not an exact quote, but it is very similar to climate alarmism, tell the people that the climate/weather is attacking them and they will obey you and give you their money.
Leo Norekens says:
April 30, 2014 at 6:14 am
“1 billion climate refugees”
– Name one.
You get my vote for the best comment; it’s actually quite to the point. The global warming alarmists have been at this for about 35 years now (1980-today), so we’ve got another 36 years to go 2014-2050. In other words, we’re already nearly halfway along in the devastating warming they predict. Certainly some humans would already be being forced to adapt by now.
So, as you asked: Name one of those “1 billion climate refugees.” Just one……..(sound of crickets as we wait).
On the other hand, I could name several million who have already been forced to adapt to the escalating electricity, gasoline, and heating oil prices that have been directly caused by the policies encouraged those same alarmists over the past 35 years. Just haul out a British, Australian, or particularly, California phone book and start reading.
The second comment worth a star or two was the one pointing out that we all need a religion and, lacking faith in any other, Leftists have seized on the religion of global warming. And who wouldn’t want 25 million to 1 billion potential acolytes?
I think these guys really understand “lie and exaggerate”. Don’t tell a little lie, tell a whopper.
By the year 2050 the people who profit off such scare-mongering will definitely be feeling the heat, if a certain version of the afterlife proves true.
Jim Brock says:
April 30, 2014 at 6:32 am
“….or maybe the tax and regulate philosophy.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is how the liberal disease is spread. They vote for all those freebies and why they get taxed to death for them (because they are never free) they leave the feces hole they created to where they can breath again but then they start over demanding more of the same.. They never stop to think that it was their own behavior that caused the mess in the first place.
Keeping up with the constant stream of BS propaganda is becoming very tiring.
I suspect that’s the intent…
Bill H says:
This is how the liberal disease is spread. They vote for all those freebies and why they get taxed to death for them (because they are never free) they leave the feces hole they created to where they can breath again but then they start over demanding more of the same.. They never stop to think that it was their own behavior that caused the mess in the first place.
I see this here in NC, and in other places that have a lot of people moving in from NY and CA. The people move here often to get away from the high taxes & cost of living of the places they leave, then proceed to try to make it just like where they left, with no clue that what they want to do is the exact reason those other places have become the hellholes they left.
Never could understand people.
Wealth redistribution can happen in several ways. One way is to tax wealthy countries and send the money to poor countries. Another way is to bring people from the poor countries through immigration and redistribute them in wealthy countries. I don’t think it is too big of a stretch to think that there are people who will use “climate refugee status” as a manufactured reason to increase third world migration to more developed countries. Is the one billion figure a prediction or a goal?
Smithsonian is a museum publication. As such they exhibit excellent HINDsight. A little ‘near-sightedness’ might help them view the recent history of climate refugee forecasts (i.e. Vanuatu is not yet uninhabited).
I will be a “climate refugee” much earlier than 2050, if this unscientific climate science continues to capture more and more politicians, newspapers, organisations and normal enterprises in my home country.
I always like reading the comments on these wacky articles at the original article. Of course, you can tell when they do not “want to hear” what the readers have to say when the comments are off. Such as this story at the NYT. The original writers also know when their articles are garbage because the comments are off so no one can refute.
Yep, those Aussie summers, like the two great killers 1895-6 and 1938-9. That second one was a La Nina! It’s amazing what climate could do before it had all those fancy forcings. And don’t get me started on the “extremes” of 1895 in my region. If you want to know how to turn a nice coastal strip into a tinderbox by late winter…just check out Northern NSW in 1895. Deluges then four months of desert conditions. Just add some inland westerlies by winter’s end. And they tried to tell you our spring fires last year were unique!
By the way, leaving aside the 1908 heatwave in Melbourne, someone did a reading down there of 177 degrees F during Feb 1851. Hard to know for sure what the exact temps were at the time. People had their minds on other things – since the greatest known inferno in world history was going on across Victoria.
Presumably all achieved without “forcings”.
Er, I meant 117 degrees. Not even Flannery could go to 177. Although…
Doooom and glooooom. Here is a small sample of the other side. The less poverty, the more resilience. Global fertility rate is plunging, the biosphere has been greening in recent decades, people enjoy higher standards of living today. What is the problem with these fools?
“homes on islands and coasts made uninhabitable by climate change“.
“Uninhabitable coasts”? As if.. Humans have always inhabited the coasts and we always shall.
The Smithsonian Institition, like NASA, NOAA are US Government entities. These organizatios and others have been hijacked by those espousing “Progressive” political idealism. CAGW is their avenue to power.
The persons in control of these organizations have falsified(adjusted) historic temperature data and they’ve promulgated fear..
They lie right to us,
“Climate Change” is a means to an end
Trash this crap
Yes this is bs propaganda and you can find more bs propaganda by reviewing other articles tagged as climatology & glowbull warming. They do have some additional non propaganda articles tagged under weather & climate change etc if you look around.
Smithsonian has some good content though, I don’t know if you saw this…
Explore Every Tornado Across the United States Since 1980 Through This Interactive Map | Science | Smithsonian
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/explore-every-tornado-across-united-states-1980-through-interactive-map-180950243/
Jimbo says:
April 30, 2014 at 7:07 am
Jimbo, you are a treasure — that was fun!
Thanks to Richard Tol for his factual contribution which puts the fantasy claims of this magazine into their proper perspective.
Martin Clark up-thread mentioned someone
going on about “isn’t it hot” when the temperature was 34 deg.
C. and the RH 50%.
That person should try the stewpot climate of Houston in the
summertime. Afternoon relative humidity is typically 60%,
and afternoon high temperatures frequently exceed 40 deg.
centigrade.
While it’s not true that steamy, sticky summertime Washington, D.C.
was once considered a “hardship post” by the British diplomatic
service, that was true for Houston. Embassy personnel
got extra compensation, and a special allowance to purchase
appropriate clothing for the climate.
One hopes that the author of the Smithsonian article thoroughly washed his conclusions before sharing them considering from whence he pulled them,
Read it here…. before it gets scrubbed…..
From The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s exhibit, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, online tour at “Room 8”
(here: http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/start.html):
“When Erik the Red settled in a land to the west of Iceland, he named it Greenland, … Recent environmental research has shown that the climate was warmer 1000 years ago.
Here the Vikings tried to maintain their hunting and livestock-raising lifestyle, though as the temperature became colder in the 13th century, hunting became more of a necessity … .”
{emphasis mine}
**************************************************
GREAT WORK, JIMBO! Thank you!
And SUPER great comments from so MANY above. Amazing what a little logic and common sense (and some excellent research, too) can do to a pile of junk like that article.
Funniest line of that article (as others have noted):
“25 million to 1 billion.” LOL.
Two college dudes planning a party —
FB1: So, like, dude. How many kegs should I order?
FB2: Dude. I do not know. How about…. a lot! {laugh, laugh, laugh}
FB1: Seriously, dude. How many people do you think will come?
FB2: Oh, …… somewhere between 25 and 1,000.
FB1: So, like…. you have no idea.
Oh, but, “climate experts believe the next ice age is on its way”… . “According to recent evidence… .”
“According to some climatologists, within a lifetime we might be living in the next ice age.”
Thus, spake Spock (with weasel words galore… same ol’ same ol’).
Well. Here we are. 37 years later.
Sometimes, it’s hot.
Sometimes, it’s cold.
When there is nothing else you can talk about………. talk about the weather.
I’m sorry, but Winters will still be measured from Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox in 2050. And the Smithsonian is the magazine of what organization? Something to do with science…
Yeah just fancy, in late January, the hottest part of the Australian summer, it sometimes gets very hot on the centre court at Rod Laver Arena during the Australian Open. The event is normally played with the roof open (the Open is an outdoor tournament) in this all masonry amphitheatre, where not a breath of wind can penetrate. Give us a break!
We had a warm summer this year irrespective of whether you believe the BOM’s hype. But then during the same time other parts of the planet had extremely cold winters, so what?
Yeah just fancy, in late January, the hottest part of the Australian summer, it sometimes gets very hot on the centre court at Rod Laver Arena during the Australian Open. The event is normally played with the roof open (the Open is an outdoor tournament) in this all masonry amphitheatre, where not a breath of wind can penetrate. Give us a break!
We had a warm summer this year irrespective of whether you accept the BOM’s hype. But then during the same time other parts of the planet had extremely cold winters, so what?
I quit reading when it states it was based on the IPCC….CACA
“it ‘will in the future’ knowing that they will not be around to be reminded of their BS claims when time runs out.
Normal pratice for climate ‘science ”
Now I have something to live for…….. To EXPOSE THEM!
Sick. Delusional. Hateful.
How low so many once respectable science magazines have sunk. How the mighty are fallen.
“Leo Norekens says: April 30, 2014 at 6:14 am
“1 billion climate refugees”
– Name one.’
Well, er, me actually. I fled back to Australia after years of living in the UK climate.
Wow! At this rate we will all be predicted climate refugees in 2050 by the time the 2020 estimates come around! In 2021 we will have to start importing beings from outer-space in order to be able to keep increasing our ridiculous claims to higher levels of obsurdity. [/sarc ]
The only explanation for the utter stupidity of the current situation is the Asch Conformity Experiment. As I go through life I can see that it actually explains very much of the stupidity that we see in the world in all fields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
I feel for the migratory birds … what will they do? The ever shortening winters will have them flying in ever diminishing circles, like the African Plains Vukrwe bird. Could it be that the catastropharians have already reached the zenith of their ever diminishing circle.
Yes, this is why people are moving away from Arizona, Texas, & Florida in droves. Right now Vermont is literally overflowing with climate refugees: there is a mile-high stack of them at the border & they just tumble off the pile, rolling southward, where they incinerate instantly from the horrible Global Warming. It’s just basic physics, guys.
(This post has been awarded three Moshers for Excellence in Physics. The first is for proper use of “literally” in a figurative or allegorical sense, the second is for explaining how gravity pulls things southward, the third is for being able to count to three when making a list.)
It is hardly credible that any serious institution can publish such crap AD 2014. This is the last line in the Smithsonian article:
“That honking sound you hear? It may be the climate apocalypse, right behind you.”
That’s the chilling (sic) conclusion after having described how Vancouver will not be a haven for heat-struck Arizonians in the future; this Canadian gem will be be hit by rising sea levels and anyway has had a heat record this year.
“It’s global warming! It’s right behind us! It’s coming the other way!” I would prescribe compulsory watching of the glorious South Park episode “Two Days before the Day after Tomorrow” for these doomsayers.
“Smith says cities, industry and agriculture may benefit in places such as Canada and Scandinavia, though at some cost in psychological and cultural disruption. ”
The Vikings will suffer: “We just used to club’em, y’know, and leave them outside the hall nicely stacked in the all-year freezing winter-summer. That way, everyone could easily check how many enemies you had slain. But now, they thaw and they stink to Valhalla and we have to dig the un-frozen earth to remove them, and even old Leif The Legless boasts of being a fearsome warrior. Our culture is getting weaker than a Saxon kingdom! I guess we shouldn’t have killed all those mastodonts and monks and such, the sagas warned us that their final farts would bring on Ragnarok. I guess we just didn’t listen. We didn’t listen!”