People Face the Harrowing Choice of Migration or Starvation

Impotently watching your children and other family members slowly and painfully starve to death is a horror that most of us cannot fully imagine. Around the world today, tens of millions face that tragedy every single day.

To understand why people risk their lives and die attempting to migrate, please ask yourself this question, “Would I, day by day, sit idly by watching my children, spouse, parents, and other family members grow thinner, weaker, and sicker as they cry out for help for the pain and perish from the death that starvation brings?”

Illegally crossing a border is a meaningless risk to those starving and on the brink of death. Desperation and fear drive people to save themselves. Sometimes, whole families will flee, but more often, it is the men who risk their lives and attempt to migrate, hoping they will be able to send support back to their families.

Honestly, would you allow and watch your children, spouse, and parents starve to death and do nothing at all? Of course not!

What Exactly is Driving the Migrants?

Drought devastated cornfield. No crops and no food drive people from their land. Image by Igor Stevanovic

Poor economic conditions and poverty, lack of sufficient health resources, political insecurity, violence of many kinds, and wars drive desperate migration. Climate change that brings droughts, floods, increased numbers of intense storms, and environmental devastation is the largest contributor to those issues and forces people to migrate, no matter the risks. Food insecurity and a complicated web of interdependent issues are causes that are multiplied by global climate change. Each issue creates and exacerbates other problems in a web of interdependency.

Flooding causes people to lose food and even their lives. iStock.com/Pixelfusion3d

Some locations may actually see some local benefits from climate change and warming temperatures, while the vast majority of the planet’s habitable lands will become increasingly uninhabitable. In areas devastated by changes and insurmountable challenges, where you live has a lot to do with how you will fare because less developed countries often lack the ability to assist citizens.

The list of countries that cannot provide support and struggle to provide even basic services is long. Lack of support compounds the dangers faced by extremely poor residents from environmental destruction, and fosters forced migration. Climate change migration is not a freely arrived-at decision; it is often the only viable path to follow to avoid death.

Dreadful Decisions

Climate change is part of the reason that drove people from home and risked their lives for a safe future. iStock.com/Naeblys

Any decision to leave one’s country is not easily arrived at, even when driven by life-threatening forces, and once indigent migrants make this decision, they face extraordinary challenges and risks. The decision to escape means that their meager assets must be converted to cash and handed over to those who will “guide and assist” them on their journey. Tragically, those offering such guidance and assistance are almost always gang members, and money that was paid to them for safe passage is often stolen.

In cases where such help is purchased and actually provided, migrants routinely suffocate in unventilated trucks that leave them dead or are loaded onto leaky, unseaworthy boats that sink en route, resulting in whole families drowning. Women and girls, when present, many times are subjected to sexual abuse and rape. While many unlucky children, women, and men are sold into illegal bondage and slavery.

For those lucky ones that actually arrive at a destination country, the journey is sometimes not over as entry into many nations is blocked. If they are fortunate enough to be admitted, discrimination and abuse are often their constant companions. Some attempt to enter a country illegally, face detention and deportation if apprehended, and live in constant fear of that occurring.

How Big a Problem Is a Migration?

Africa-hungry people stand in line for food support. Stosub/shutterstock.com

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO 2022), “The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2022 and 2026 is predicted to be between 1.1 °C and 1.7 °C higher than pre-industrial levels (the average over the years 1850-1900).” These rapidly rising global warming temperatures are already feeding forced migration, and while the exact number of persons forced to move because of climate change is unknown, there is a certainty that they are annually increasing as living conditions worsen.

The Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) states that “Over one billion people are at threat of being displaced by 2050 due to environmental change,” while the International Organization for Migration (IOM) lists a range between 25 million and 1 billion people. No one alleges that any estimate is accurate, but many millions will be on the move. Much of the suffering and dislocation will occur in populations living in less developed countries; however, all countries, rich and poor, will see huge costs associated with the dislocations of such shifting populations.

In destination countries, migrants fearing for their lives will surge across borders wherever and whenever they find a way. As never before, rich nations will have their hands full dealing with the impact of tens of millions, and perhaps hundreds of millions of often unwanted people, all of whom will impose social, economic, and political costs on host countries.

In the United States, southern and northern border states will be more heavily impacted, but, as can already be seen, no state will escape costs as conditions worsen. Costs, in lives and money, are already enormous—in the long term, they will become devastating on all sides of the migration issue.

In Europe, the situation is similar to that of migrants from periphery nations who are on the move. A trend that is growing.

These climate-driven disasters can be avoided, but time grows short to implement climate change mitigation that will protect our planet and all its species. For innumerable reasons, solutions and agreements for these issues must be found, and this will only occur if we choose leaders and representatives who understand the depth of the problems we face and will pursue solutions that move us forward toward a safe and habitable planet for the migrants, ourselves, our children, and the million species that are projected to vanish in the coming decades. The time to act is now.