As everyone continues to concern themselves with how we are going to prevent future climate catastrophes, an important part of our future needs to be recognized: there will be climate refugees without homes. Whatever precautions we take to reduce the intensity of climate disasters, we can know that there will be some loss in homes. These people need to be cared for and a well thought out plan for post-disaster temporary housing needs to be addressed. Given FEMA's job concerning temporary housing, we may have a lot of ground to make up.
People all over the world are losing their homes and we can safely expect that as we keep losing land to desertification, as sea levels continue to encroach, as arable land loses productivity, and clean water disappears this trend will only continue. As people's homes are lost or their communities destroyed, it is often the case that those affected lack the means necessary to get themselves back on their feet and into a new home. Temporary housing gives them the security to find themselves again, but current approaches to temporary housing may not be the the most effective and certainly not the most environmentally friendly.
Some people are working on generating models that can help us quickly assess a situation and dispatch an appropriate response to a given crisis. Models like these are going to be indispensable in the future. Some forecasts estimate tens of millions of climate refugees, with so many displaced people it certainly behooves us to be able to easily map and model what our requirements for helping them will be.
Others are working on constructing sustainable temporary housing. If we're already losing people to climate catastrophe and finding them temporary homes it makes sense to keep our problem from getting worse. Current temporary housing is certainly not LEED certified construction, but reducing their environmental impact will go a long way towards cutting costs (economically and environmentally).
I believe that by combining scientific models for handling housing crises and developing sustainable techniques for temporary housing we can really scale down the problem at hand. Makeshift communities organized in the carnage after a flood or piecemeal-ed together slowly as homes erode away because of poor economics driven by environmental problems are obviously poor ways of handling temporary housing. These methods (as we might see in Katrina) often lack anything temporary. Educated planning, evidence-based discussion, and clean, sustainable housing are the keys to ensuring that we can adapt to our new world without homes.
I'm glad you wrote on this topic because I honestly had not thought that far ahead when thinking about climate adaptation. It is an important issue we need to face because, like you said, it is going to happen. There seems to be many solutions that have been researched and planned out. You mentioned Katrina, do you think U.S. citizens will open up their homes to refugees like they did in this case? It seems that we were mostly sympathetic to these people because they were from our own country. With the frustrations and concerns around immigration, do you think Americans will be as welcoming?
ReplyDeleteThe United Nations reports that over 50 million people are displaced from their homes in any given year by natural disasters. As one of the biggest perpetrators of fossil fuel emissions, the United States should be doing more. The amount of energy we as a country produce can cause natural disasters around the world. In 2009, the U.S. provided around 15% of the UN budget. Some would say this number is significant; however, I believe we should be doing more. As global citizens, it is our responsibility to care for those who have been displaced.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there should be limits and restrictions as the where new homes can be built, not allowing for homes to be built in areas known to be in danger of flooding to be specific. I know that in some cases this land can be less desirable and therefore people with lesser income find it some of the few areas that they can live, but there has to be a solution. these areas that will in the future be destroyed by the sea levels rising should be redesigned in attempt to mitigate flood destruction.
ReplyDeleteImplementing regulations on the number of new homes built in high risk areas as well as providing and implementing new designs for homes for refugees would provide the best response for the growing concern.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt is unbelievable to what extent global warming is affecting us. It is a whole loop. We created the problem and it is coming right back to attack us. How much longer can we ignore it? For the first time, the Pentagon now considers climate change a national security risk and the term climate wars is being talked about in war-room like environments in Washington D.C." To what extent are we willing to sacrifice for luxury?
ReplyDelete