Climate change may become a significant factor in impelling environmental migration. The expansion of the hole in the ozone layer, global warming, and anticipated increases in sea levels would have significant population displacement implications. For example, a report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and Institute of Medicine (1991:24) concludes that while understanding of complex global climatic systems is limited, some radical changes which will increase global temperatures must be considered plausible: - As high altitude tundra melts, CH4 would be released, increasing greenhouse warming. - Increased freshwater runoff in high latitudes and reduced differentials in temperature between poles and equator could radically change ocean currents, leading to altered weather patterns. - There could be a significant melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in a sea level several meters higher than it is today. The report concludes that, while migration is likely to be an important response to climate change, in the United States it is unlikely that climate-driven migration will be on a scale that cannot be managed. However, it is not sufficient to consider the migration-environment relationship only in terms of migration induced as a response to the occurrence of particular environmental events. As Suhrke (1992:5) points out: From a broader development perspective, environmental degradation appears as a proximate cause of migration. The underlying causes are found in increasing population pressures on land and the patterns of resource use. Demography and political economy, in other words, are most salient causal factors. Yet these obviously interact in critical ways with specific environmental variables. Sometimes the result is stress of a kind that leads to massive outmigration. But to understand why, it is necessary to focus on the broader development
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JOURNAL ARTICLE
Environmental Concerns and International Migration Author(s): Graeme Hugo Source: The International Migration Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, Special Issue: Ethics, Migration, and Global Stewardship (Spring, 1996), pp. 105-131 Published by: Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2547462 Accessed: 30-05-2017 22:13 UTC
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