A Note on Climate Change - Forced Migration

by Bob Curry, Emeritus Professor, Economics and International Affairs.

Recent fires, hurricanes and floods as well as those predicted to occur during the next half-decade have led climate scientists to conclude that there will be substantial waves of climate change-forced migration occurring throughout the United States. It’s a global phenomenon from which for many, there will be little chance to escape. The Asian Development Bank has been concerned about this phenomenon for some time. According to a recent study that it sponsored and published, three Southeast Asian countries are already in the throes of serious climate change-forced migration, e.g. Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam.

The study and a book resulting from it are somewhat unique in that they pay particular attention to the roles that women play in unplanned and forced family migration. In a short book titled Mainstreaming Gender into Climate Change Migration, co-author Dr. Eric Zusman and four of his research-team colleagues make the point that whether a forced-migration is going to be successful depends on how well families are united. The process of uniting them greatly involves women.

The book focuses on the multifaceted roles women play in all of the steps involved in the process of moving a family from long-establish home sites to ones that are new and strange to them. Their roles are central to keeping families in tact as they are forced to move away from farms and forest lands once familiar to them but that now examples of desertification and deforestation. Most of the droughts that caused the problems have been due to a lack of rainfall but in some instances, the problems have been exacerbated by diversions of river waters away from farms and forest lands and towards commercial and industrial centers. All of this has robbed families of secure and long term jobs and has forced them into underemployment, unemployment and in some cases homelessness. It has forced women to play key and unexpected roles in deciding whether it’s time to move, where to move, what jobs to seek and take, how to find living space, how to raise children, how to finance the move, and how to manage short-term spousal separations.

I’m glad I ran across this book. it’s like a stick of intellectual dynamite because it focuses on a very real existential threat to the quality of life of millions—and for some, life itself. It’s really quite a timely book. While reviewing it for an academic journal, it occurred to me that much of what is taking place in Southeast Asia is also taking place in California. After more than a decade of serious droughts and years of murderous forest fires and floods, some parts of the state are becoming virtually uninhabitable. This will cause women and men in California to face some very tough decisions. The book by Zusman focuses on some ideas about how government could help families who face such decisions. The book also reminds all of us that climate change is here, it’s all over the globe and it poses a “one world” challenge. It would be wise for the United States federal government to get involved immediately and fully in global efforts to reduce drastically the causes of climate change and to mitigate against its consequences including forced migration.

Bob Curry, Emeritus Professor CSUS, Economics and International Affairs.