OPINION: The bell of climate refugees it tolls for thee

By: Corey Savard

 

Sept. 9, 2015 – Roszke, Hungary – Syrian immigrants crossing the Hungarian-Serbian border near the refugee center in Roszke, Hungary. (Credit Image: © FORUM via ZUMA Press)

The oceans are rising, but humanity’s ship is not sinking evenly. The poorest nations are already suffering from the effects of climate change while the West ignores an impending future of unprecendented international humanitarian crises.

The Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu’s highest point is 2 metres (6.6 ft) above sea level and will be the first country to be destroyed by a rise of 1 ft. by 2050 and that’s only if humanity can limit global warming to a 2C increase. Despite efforts agreed upon at the 2015 G8 Summit to cut greenhouse admissions, Tuvalu and it’s just over 10,000 citizens pale in comparison to the on-going Syrian Refugee Crisis, but is indicative of a mass migration trend that will come to define the 21st century.

It’s not until the millions of people living in southeast Asia and east Asia begin to flee to the safety of wealthier nations in Europe and North America will the governments of the world act, but not in good faith as the United States and most of the European Union have been reluctant to accept Middle Eastern refugees, standards based in unadulterated bigotism that highlights humanity’s complete incompetence to rule the planet.

Syrian refugees jump the border into Turkey. (photo via Yahoo News)

Radical religious fundamentalists in the Middle East and the threat of terror attacks resulting from the immigration of Muslims has provided the platform issue for the paranoid to justify their xenophobia and hatred that echoes in the senates of the West. It has catapulted presidential elections and is pushing the dismantling of the E.U., that would send Europe back to its days of putting up border walls to divide the political ideologies of the 20th century, in reality they may now rise up once again to undo the progress the free world won with two world wars.

Global economic inequality is universally understood at family dinner tables when your mom repeats the mantra “You won’t eat your vegetables, while there are starving kids in Africa!” but it’s a reality we can no longer be removed from. When the disadvantaged nations in Africa and Asia, continents that have been devastated by flood, drought, war, and famine show up at your door asking you to answer their cry for saviour from disasters we in the global North have played a hand in facilitating.

The illusion of the mono-cultural society is fading, but has never been a reality in North America because it’s greatest accomplishments in railroads, civil rights, and technology would not exist without Asian immigration and the enslavement of Africans. Climate change is not only reshaping the map of the world, it’s reshaping demographics. Germany has made an agreement to accept  1.1 million refugees from Syria and Iraq, but over half of the world’s population (over 4 billion) stands in the path of natural disasters.

Wealthy countries are in denial of climate change and keep a pragmatic agenda that can’t even save the historically profound cities of Venice and Amsterdam, cities that gave way to modern banking and commerce will be under water by 2050, due in part to the greed the neoliberal and unhinged capitalism it thrives on. Not even the planet is safe from short-term fiscal gains.

Fortunately for big money, it’s influence will fight till it’s last flicker of power and this why the equally vulnerable financial capitals of New York, London, and Tokyo can afford take out a lease on time through a monumental investment in complex levees, with each city having to create a new marvel in human engineering.

Despite the 2,325 billionaires on earth (as of 2014), they will never accrue the debt humanity owes to nature. When in crisis, we seek the necessities of life and who are we the richest nations to trample over this planet without repercussions? Who are we to violate our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution, and Magna Carta to deny the most poverty and environmentally-stricken people the opportunity of freedom in our privileged dream. A middle-class dream built on the yearning of refugees and the tireless spirits of history.

We will never save nature, but we can still save our soul in reforming our response to the impending refugee crises of this century caused by the irresponsible over-stepping of the U.S. government’s foreign policy and the environmental degradation of coastal nations because “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee” – John Donne.