The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimate that 25 million people could currently be classified as being environmental refugees. Climate change can lead to increased drought and desertification, raised sea levels and more extreme weather, all of which can reduce supplies of food and water and eventually force people to flee their homes. The inhabitants of the Carteret Islands became the first climate refugees due to sea level rise attributed to global climate change. Inhabitants of other low lying islands and coastal settlements are also at risk. The Citizen's Guide to Climate Refugees can be downloaded from Friends of the Earth Australia here.
My Alter Ego blog next week is carrying poetry and reviews for Refugee Week - 18 - 24 June 2007. Please check it out!
4 comments:
my mum's village is currently flooding in yorkshire, last week i saw al gore's film (a bit sickly sweet at points, but scientifically with some very valid - and scary - facts), let's hope that all these messages will finally start getting through and waking us up in time to do something for our world?
by the way, i hope you don't mind but i tagged you with a meme that i was tagged with by the heartful blogger. there is many a mention of books and travel, films and fun and so i thought you may like it! if so, copy and paste and fill in your answers - if you want of course. thanks, have a good sunday, nà
I had no idea it was refugee week next week. We've got our general assembly next week at the festival in Norwich and though we focus on exiles, it's something we should definitely focus on!
and crap- came to tag you since I've just come back to blogging. must be several memes going around now.
i'm back again, sorry, i was just pondering - i realise that the people you were talking about in your post have a much more dramatic situation than my mum's village! -in my earlier post i wasn't trying to make light of the situation, or ignore greater problems, just pondering recently how climate change seems to be showing itself ever more clearly and how we should be ever more aware of the impact of our personal/national actions upon our planet
Na - its true though, whether its major devastation or flooding in north England, its worrying. Thanks for the tag by the way!
Ren.kat - I don't know if its international or just UK. Hope your general assembly goes well.
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