From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Russian Population Density Map. By Kartoshka1994 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, link

According to climate researcher Joel Millward-Hopkins, Trump, Putin and Bolsonaro’s rise to power was helped by Global Warming.

Why the impacts of climate change may make us less likely to reduce emissions

Published: June 30, 2023 8.51pm AEST
Joel Millward-Hopkins
Postdoctoral Researcher in Sustainability, University of Leeds

The wildfires raging across Canada’s south-eastern province of Quebec are unprecedented. A warm, dry spring allowed the tinder to accumulate and lightning storms in early June lit the match, dramatically escalating 2023’s fire season.

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One might hope, at least, that as these increasingly acute effects of climate change are felt by wealthy, high-emitting countries, people will be persuaded to act with the conviction necessary to avert the climate crisis, which threatens the lives of millions and the livelihoods of billions.

However, as I argued in a recent paper, the hope underlying this assumption could be misplaced. As the effects of warming are felt more substantially, we may instead vote into power people committed to making the problem worse. 

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Right-wing politicians have successfully exploited the narrative around these issues which climate change is inflaming: immigration, economic inequality and global insecurity. Their promises to reverse falling living standards for a selection of the public, relieve stress on (underfunded) public services and protect the nation from external threats invariably involve appeals to close borders and scapegoat migrants. 

These leaders are also anti-environmentalist. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsanaro have fetishised traditional industries such as coal mining, abandoned global challenges in favour of national pursuits and are openly sceptical of, or outright deny, human influence on the climate.

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The absence of a global consciousness and a willingness to cooperate, which is inherent to this politics, would make maintaining a safe climate almost impossible.

…Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-the-impacts-of-climate-change-may-make-us-less-likely-to-reduce-emissions-207385

There is zero evidence people are migrating because of global warming.

Affluent hot countries like Singapore, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates have some of the most difficult citizenship procedures on the planet, because so many people want to live there permanently. They accept guest workers in droves, people who are eager to make some money, but you really need to get in with the right people, or invest a lot of money, to have any hope of settling in such places permanently.

Brazil has a problem with skilled emigration, but that mostly kicked off after they elected a communist President. Nobody with other options wants to be trapped in the next Venezuela.

What about climate damage in cold countries? Like Canadians, most Russians live in a thin strip near the Southern Border. Russia has a serious problem with depopulation in the North, a resource rich region they are keen to develop. Even Russians mostly don’t like Siberian winters.

If global warming was directly hurting Russia, or Canada for that matter, large numbers of people would be migrating to the far North to escape the global warming.

Russia does have a lot of immigration, surprisingly, but I would argue this is mostly economic. The Russian economy might be a mobster run basket case from the perspective of Wealthy westerners, but for immigrants from truly poor countries, Russia offers migrants the opportunity to mostly eat regularly, which is more than many of them had back in their home country. Whatever mistreatment they receive at the hands of their Russian employers, many choose to stay, often overstaying their visas and paying bribes to Russian police to avoid deportation.

Climate alarmists would love us to accept their assertion that climate change is driving migration. But given the failure of hot nations like Singapore to depopulate, in my opinion their claims are less than convincing.