Human Migration Due To Climate Change - Essay Example

Human Migration Due To Climate Change Today, people can predict the effects of climate change on human migration byexploring the effects of environmental problems on migration in recent years, thus; people can choose to adapt to the problems, and do nothing, stay in the place, and mitigate the problem or migrating from the area. Climate refugees are humans forced to leave their hometowns or country because of climatic effects on their lives, which includes, global warming. Climate change occurs naturally such as volcano eruptions, hurricanes, and tornado. However, human activities also influence climate change. The most recent type of climate change is global warming, mainly caused by human activities such as burning of fossil fuels, cutting down of trees among other activities. When human beings burn fossil fuels, greenhouse gases such as carbon, sulphur among other gases are emitted. When released, greenhouse gases retain heat in the atmosphere, which causes rising temperatures that in turn results to glaciers and ice caps to melt. When glaciers and ice caps melt, sea level rises and flooding among other effects follows. A recent study by the International Red Cross indicates that recently, most refugees are due to environmental factor rather than, political factors. On the other hand, the United Nations High Commission for refugees (UNHCR) stated that, in 2009approximately thirty-six million people were displaced due to natural disaster, for example, tsunamis and volcanoes (NatGeo 6). Bangladesh is an Asian country that suffers from climatic refugees, especially due to floods. In 2007, Bangladesh reported having flood victims that suffered loss of property and turned to the Government and humanitarian assistance for relief food in Gangachara center. Apart from loss of property from the floods and cyclone, four thousand five hundred people lost their lives and approximately two million people were left homeless. The rate of migration is very high as reported by the Friendship NGO executive director, Runa Khan. He also stated that most of the migration is internal, that is, from the affected areas to the riparian islands covering at least 3.5 million climate migrants (Karim 20-22). Fig 1: Worst affected areas by cyclone by dogsanddoubles.com This map shows the most affected place in Bangladesh. This country suffers from frequent tropical cyclones due to its unique funnel shape and location. Khulna is one of the most cyclone-affected areas in the country, especially due to its location near the northern part of the Bay of Bengal. This specific part in Bangladesh affects thousands of people when cyclones and tides strike. However, the government and local people have prepared themselves in case of a future disaster by constructing cyclone shelters in the area extending to the coastal regions. The flooding situation in Bangladesh is threatening to swallow up the better part of the country. For this reason, people are migrating from the flooded areas of the islands and schools are being built on boats because they are safer than on land. This initiative was started by an NGO, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangtha meaning self-reliance that plan to equip the schools with solar lamps, computers, and libraries (NatGeo 1). Scientists predict that, within the next 50 years, millions of people will be homeless and lose their properties if, the sea level rises one meter. Additionally, crops and livestock will also be affected if the saline water paves its way inland and gets to domestic water supplies. Figure 2 prices of coarse Rice: May 21 2007 to March 19, 2008 by Devarajan This graph explains the rise in world food prices has affected countries in South Asia including Bangladesh. This followed the twin floods of July to August and later the November Cyclone. Therefore, Bangladesh opts to import rice from neighboring nations, which are threatening to ban the exportation of rice or increase the prices of rice. The Government of Bangladesh and several NGOs have helped climate-affected people, but, it is uncertain how they will feed, supply clean water and food to the 140 million citizens if, the county faces a major flooding in future. A top official in the government economic sector, Mohammad Aminul reported that, $ 4 billion is needed to build safer flood and cyclone houses, roads among other infrastructure in the next fifteen years to eliminate the threat (Karim 30). According to annual flood report, page 66, people choose to migrate from the climate affected areas, mostly involuntarily because the catastrophic climatic effects, forces them to almost run for their lives. On the other hand, people choose to migrate if the net benefit (total benefit minus total cost) of migrating is greater than that of not migrating. Standard migration is caused by some type of forces; network, pull and push forces. Network forces are those that cause people to move from one location to another, for example, from Khulna to Dhaka. Pull forces are those that attract people to the lesser climatic affected places while the push forces are the push people to leave the climatic affected places. In the case of Bangladesh, problems that push people out of the cyclone affected areas are extreme weather events (Flood report 69). This event causes illness such as water borne related diseases among the local people, especially in the flooded areas. Apart from illness, lives are lost in the flooded places and this is enough reason for people to migrate out of the flood-affected regions. Millions worth of property are destroyed by floods and this affects the economic status of those that live in the flooded regions. Nevertheless, it is difficult for school-going children to continue with their learning considering that their schools are flooded. Accessing health facilities is almost impossible because means of transportation are unavailable and roads covered in water. Generally, the economy of the flooded areas is unstable because the floods are unpredictable, thus, business is also unpredictable and inconsistent. Pull factors that attract people to lesser affected areas vary from economy, education, employment, among others. A place that is less affected by climatic catastrophes has room for stable economic growth that most people would want to invest in without much fear. Education in such places runs smoothly and the children are able to go to school all year round, in times of floods or not. Roads are accessible and people can comfortably access health facilities and other amenities at all times. Most importantly, people can live with a peace of mind without much worry of a catastrophic attack. The government of Bangladesh and several NGO’s came up with mitigation strategies for disaster preparedness in case of a future cyclone attack. This program caters for prevention of storm, and was launched after the cyclone attack of 1991. The ministry of Disaster Management and Relief together with Red Crescent Society structured a comprehensive program to address the cyclone catastrophe through monitoring, and evaluation of the coastal areas, and sea level. Additionally, multiple-purpose cyclone shelters are constructed in the coastal areas that can act as schools and health facilities when the weather is normal (NatGeo 20). Finally, people can predict the effects of climate change on human migration by exploring the effects of environmental problems on migration, food, and, agricultural trends in recent years. Food will be a major problem in the next fifteen years if, Bangladesh keeps suffering from cyclones. The government is not in a position to cater for food supply for millions during such cyclonic times. Therefore, citizens can also help in increasing the food supply by changing their agricultural practices to increase the crop yield. This can be by using high-yield of rice, which is the staple food, as well as increasing their cultivated land by planting forests in the flood-vulnerable areas especially along the coast and, build embankments. Works Cited “Annual flood report.”-Ministry of Water Resources, Dhaka with financial Assistance, Ministry of Disaster Management & Relief. FFWC, BWDB publishers. 2012 Print. "climate refugee." - National Geographic Education. N.d.Web. 6 Aug. 2014. . Devarajan, Shanta . "Beggar thy neighbor?." End Poverty in South Asia. Nd. 19 Mar. 2008. Web. 6 Aug. 2014. . Karim, Masud. "Bangladesh faces climate change refugee nightmare." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 14 Apr. 2008. Web. 6 Aug. 2014. . "Map Of Bangladesh Floods." Dogs and Doubles RSS. Nd. Web. 6 Aug. 2014. . Read More