The US Department of Defense is one of the only organizations that takes a strategic look at the effects of climate change, and they are flat-out in a tizzy about it. (Side-glance to KB, for links to evidence...)
I fully expect, that before I die - sometime in the next 40 years - that I will have fortified my home, and will have strangers living in my yard.
They may be people from Phoenix, or Nevada, or Mexico, or Central American countries. But they will be there, because their homes became uninhabitable due to drought, weather, food, dust-bowl conditions, etc. They had to leave, to survive.
The migrant caravans will move north, ignoring borders and laws. Because when millions of people come walking into your town, the police are going to be entirely powerless against them. (CUT TO: scene of Walking Dead zombies shambling towards the camera)
Phoenix has no plan for when it runs out of water, in a couple of years.
LA's power infrastructure can't support sustained periods of 113 degrees, like they had this year.
Normal people cannot survive without the support of a fully-functioning city... flushing toilets, on-demand water from the tap, police and health services, food, etc. So the Climate Migrants won't be moving to the Sierra Nevadas and national parks and setting up Little House On The Prairie-kinds of existences, because they don't have the skills.
They will move to the big cities. Who are already taxed to the limit, and can't sustain an influx of hundreds of thousands of people. So a few will stay (couple of million), and the rest will continue on the road.
The Great American Migrant Caravan.
In my lifetime. I'll bet on it.
Well let's talk about this.
As far as conflict, nowaypablo probably has hella better knowledge about doctrine at this point considering he's at West Point learning how to win wars and influence geopolitics'n'shit. Here's a useful link, and a lengthy discussion, we had years ago:
As far as water, nobody read this for some dumb reason and it's poignant as hell:
Because here's the thing: it's not like the Ogalala makes a giant slurping sound and six weeks later we're settling scores in Thunderdome. What happens is food gets more expensive, land in the Southwest gets cheaper, quality of life goes down and people of means leave. People without means mostly die.
The Syrian Civil War was precipitated by a drought. By extension, the Syrian refugee crisis was precipitated by climate change. And while there are definitely far-right populist parties arguing about the horrors of "(CUT TO: scene of Walking Dead zombies shambling towards the camera)", the fact of the matter is Europe absorbed a million refugees without major shocks to the system.
I met maybe a dozen people from New Orleans in 2006. They had nowhere to go back to so they packed up and left. One day they had a home, the next day they didn't. And really, that was orderly. The Mojavification of the Southwest is going to be more stark than New Orleans being destroyed but it's also going to be slower. It's going to be gradual. And it's going to be a case of straws and camels and people shedding northward in dribs and drabs until what's left in Castaic will be a lot like what's left in the Salton Sea.
You're not gonna have strangers in your yard. You're gonna have motor homes on your street. But shit, you might already.
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There are two books about this future you might enjoy. The better one is Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife. It is not a great book, but it could have been. The worse one is Clare Vaye Watkin's Gold Fame Citrus. It is a terrible book and would never have been any other. Bacigalupi builds up a world where water ceases to be available. It is a rich universe. Watkin builds up a world where water is suddenly gone. It is fucking stupid.
I resent getting pinged for this thread, but since the journalists have already molested the data and told their readers that it's ok to start predicting which generation is going to send us into Mad Max mode:
- The migrant caravans will move north, ignoring borders and laws. Because when millions of people come walking into your town, the police are going to be entirely powerless against them. (CUT TO: scene of Walking Dead zombies shambling towards the camera)
Yyyyes they can. State and Federal agencies can 100% keep as many people as they want out of any town they want. We just don't like to imagine the United States govt taking that kind of action against its own citizens. But if you're talking apocalyptic migration scenarios, it wouldn't even require anything near apocalyptic weapons systems. I hate that I wrote this.
I'm an undergrad in my 20's but I also need to take it easy. Today a close friend of mine asked about the Army getting deployed to separate more families on the Mexican border and I had to respond while maintaining a lighthearted tone over a crushing disappointment/rage.
It wouldn’t be a terrible deployment to go on. You are state side, and you won’t be killing civilians or aiding terrible dictators. Probably just marking targets and building out fencing. No worse than training. The only thing that would really suck is that rules of engagement would most likely not allow you to shoot back at any cartels that might be shooting at you, but that’s not new there are a lot of shitholes in Africa where that happens. Doubt you would have anything to do with actual migrants at worst you might have to escort an agent in to do the arrests and paperwork
The units assigned to the border are sustainment/logistics, engineers (construction), and military police replicating the 2010 National Guard deployment of ~2000 or so. They are not shooting at anybody.
- The only thing that would really suck is that rules of engagement would most likely not allow you to shoot back at any cartels that might be shooting at you, but that’s not new there are a lot of shitholes in Africa where that happens.
I’m having a hard time connecting UN peacekeeping missions with American border patrol, how did you get here ?
There are a lot of missions where US troops are training up local militias and friendly forces. We’re not really officially deployed there so if someone gets shot and shoots back it creates an incident. I’ve heard some stories from people ive casually had beers with of those going bad and not being able to shoot back at the hostile.
The border patrol mission would likely be too political to allow for an incident to occur.
jesus.
Yeah I spent much of my early '20s fighting the urge to enlist and then as soon as they started stop-lossing people for the Iraq War I found myself going there but for the grace of God go I.
The United States has an unhealthy relationship with its armed forces. Between the out-of-sight/out-of-mind nature of Empire and the unquestioning hero worship of anyone who has ever worn a uniform we as a nation do not know what to do with the military.
The Dust Bowl took two years of "hey this is a drought", before people started dying and were forced to migrate - penniless - to simply survive. They were not welcomed by their neighboring states, and there were only 250,000 of them. (Phoenix alone has 1.6m.)
Weather events are already completely off the scale, and becoming ever harder to predict. Knock-on effects of increased bad weather - like the disappearing beaches in the southeast - take us by surprise. (How many city blocks deep of South Carolina's coast have to vanish in a storm, before people start abandoning the coastal area, and moving somewhere inland?)
Something is going to snap. An edge will be reached. It won't be gradual, is my bet.
- The Dust Bowl took two years of "hey this is a drought", before people started dying and were forced to migrate - penniless - to simply survive.
That's not accurate. What happened is that the Great American Desert got rebranded as the "Great Plains" and a whole bunch of people were encouraged to come out, tear up the buffalo grass and plant wheat. Then the bottom fell out of wheat, Hoover refused to prop it up, and all the people who came out and carved up 640 acres of free land left, thereby leaving a bunch of denuded dirt that did nothing to forestall further desertification. The '20s were abnormally wet; the '30s were abnormally dry and a bunch of rootless pioneers with less than 5 years working the land had no impetus to stick around as their farmsteads literally took to the air.
What we're taught of the Dust Bowl is that "zomg it was a terrible drought" when in fact it's "zomg the land husbandry of the American West has been appalling." The effects had even been predicted. And while I recognize that in some ways this supports your argument, it's important to note that the Dust Bowl was the result of a decade or two of rapacious agriculture while the current problems we're facing are the end-stage for a century of farming practices.
It's not going to be good. It's not going to be pretty. But it's also not going to be fast.
I don't doubt this is going to happen, too. But my concern is what if there are those who keep the migrants from crossing the border to prevent further damage in? What if they keep them out because they would fear these people will bring illnesses to the locals? I hope you're wrong but as days go by, and judging by the way climate is changing these days, it's sad to admit you could be right.
I'm 50, so probably not going to make a big effort to learn. I used to surf a little bit, and skimboard a lot, when I was in my 20s. Swam in the Mediterranean (Greek Islands), which is MUCH easier, due to the salinity. Otherwise I just sink. Also got a boat license and used to run power boats fairly often, but haven't done that in a decade or two.
While the ocean is very important to me, it is mostly as a soothing/calming agent. I sit and watch the waves. Feel the pulse of nature. And it feeds my soul. But I have little interest in going in. So learning to swim is not high on my list of priorities right now... maybe as I get older (70s?) I'll find it a good low-impact form of exercise, and finally learn which arm movements go with which leg movements. (Apparently I combine the wrong arm stroke with the wrong kick, and that's why I sink. Or so someone told me.)
Thanks for asking! The diet thing is now just a lifestyle thing. I eat way fewer carbs, and way more leafy greens and fats. I feel amazing.
My wife went to our doctor yesterday, and she asked how I was doing. My wife showed her a photo of me from last week - all dressed up for a conference - and my doctor was amazed. From 270 down to 228 in about 4-5 months, and sustained for 11 months so far.
So I think it is safe to say that I am no longer on a "diet", I have just altered my way of eating.
Very happy! Thanks for asking!
We can build new power plants, and you're talking about the types of water usage that are going to be cut last.
Agriculture actually takes up the vast majority of water usage, and there are lots of types of farming that use more water than others. This is also ignoring the fact that in many areas there will be increased precipitation and a larger number of growing days per year, meaning more potential food can be grown.
Climate change will cause major problems, but I just don't see your scenario happening.
The climate zone is moving north. Rapidly. In as little as 10 years, there may be no crops south of Colorado.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930's only took two years to get from, "Hey... this drought sucks" to a quarter million people being driven out or killed by black sand accumulation.
And that was a localized drought. Not a global change in climate temperatures spanning the Equator, and hundreds of millions of people who are not in a really robust financial or food-safety position right now.
As those temperate zones move away from the Equator, people living in equatorial climates will have to leave. For food. For work. And, eventually, for water. Where do you think they will go?