A quite frank comment on climate migration from Israeli expert

Israeli expert says it exactly like he sees it after having researched his country's challenges:

"The migration wave is not a problem for the future. It is today; it is going on now [...] It will just increase from day to day. [...] In India, they shoot; in Nepal, they shoot; in Japan, they shoot [at refugees...] Millions perished along the Sahel [...] It’s the deterioration of Africa [...] I can see how the desert will penetrate slowly to Kiryat Gat, Gaza and Hebron – everywhere [...] If you accept what the scientists are saying, then there will be no question that people will be forced to leave the Negev. [...] Why are they coming to the North? Either because of population explosion or because of water loss [...] This is a microcosm of what is going on between the border of the Mediterranean climate and the semiarid zone. [...] I am one that fights for building fences all around Israeli borders [...] We are an island – we don’t belong to this region, and we have to defend Israel from waves of migration from Egypt from Jordan and maybe from Syria. If we want to keep Israel a Jewish state, we will have to defend ourselves from what I call ‘climate refugees,’ exactly as Europe is doing now [...we should provide the Palestinians and the Jordanians with sources of water] maybe this will bring peace. [...] I have to satisfy the Israeli citizens, to be human as much as I can [...] Whatever I do, we will not be as cruel as Europe. They have huge navies; they sink boats; they send them back."
- Prof. Arnon Soffer

Bold added by me. Although the warning is largely based on indisputable facts I foresee some controverse from certain parts of his comments.


From The Jerusalem Post / Defending Israel’s borders from ‘climate refugees'.

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Home, Sweet Home

Having just arrived home from Kenya - summed up at TH!NK3 in Touching. Brutal. Unfair. - I instantly find two stories from Kenya in my search alerts and one Ecowar-like post on the new TH!NK blog.

First, Photo District News / An Under-Reported War Over Water is an interview and background article about photographer Evan Abramson’s recent project called When the Water Ends: Africa’s Climate Conflicts. I have already mentioned Abramson's photos and short film and in fact borrowed a few seconds for my little Ecowar trailer.

Because of drought, the north end of Lake Turkana has retreated from southern Ethiopia into northern Kenya in the last 35 years. Abramson says there are unconfirmed reports that the Ethiopian government is arming indigenous tribes near its border with Kenya and encouraging them to assert their rights to the lake as it retreats. The Kenyan government, meanwhile, is disarming tribes within its borders, making them vulnerable to raids from Ethiopian tribes.

Adventurous photographers and journalists really should read this article about the production of Abramson's When the Water Ends. 7000 USD and one Canon EOS camera and the project began!

Secondly, Kenyan Daily Nation / Land conflict simmers in Rift Valley reports of futile government attempts to solve internal refugee issues.

The violence that rocked Likia in Njoro District on February 2 brought to the surface the simmering conflict over land in the Rift Valley [...] 70-year-old Kuria Wakaba was hacked to death and seven others critically injured brought to the fore the stark reality of unresolved land-based animosities. [...] The government had planned to resettle 850 families living in a camp in Nakuru town on a 2,400-acre piece of land in Mau Narok by December 31 last year.  But the plan was put on hold when members of the Maasai community opposed it. [...] Clashes over land use and ownership have been fuelled by politicians for their own benefit since the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1991 [Irin, a UN-affiliated humanitarian news and analysis agency says...] vast tracts of arable land in the Rift Valley were designated as White Highlands and reserved for European settlers during British rule. The pastoralist communities, mainly the Kalenjin and Maasai, were edged out. [... later, during Kenyan government administration] many well-connected politicians were illegally allocated public land.

Thirdly, a new blogger has appeared at the TH!NK platform with the bold postulate that water scarcity may contribute to future conflicts in the Middle East: TH!NK5 / Water politics and Middle East: a growing conflict. A new friend...

US ecowar soundtrack by Woody Guthrie

The 1913 Italian Hall Massacre

a tragedy that occurred on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan. Seventy-three men, women, and children, mostly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death in a stampede when someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party. [Wikipedia]

The Ludlow Massacre

the violent deaths of 19 people during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914. The deaths occurred after a day-long fight between strikers and the Guard. Two women and eleven children were asphyxiated and burned to death. Three union leaders and two strikers were killed by gunfire, along with one child, one passer-by, and one National Guardsman. In response, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard. [Wikipedia]

The Dust Bowl

[aka] or the Dirty Thirties was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains had displaced the natural grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. [...] Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes; many of these families (often known as "Okies", since so many of them [though not all of them] came from Oklahoma) traveled to California and other states, where they found economic conditions little better than those they had left. Owning no land, many traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and other crops at starvation wages. [Wikipedia]

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (1912–1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" displayed on his guitar. [...] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and Mike Ness have acknowledged their debt to Guthrie as an influence. Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". [Wikipedia]

UN study on policies regarding desertification

Overcoming One of the Greatest Environmental Challenges of Our Times: Re-thinking Policies to Cope with Desertification

Over the past few years, it has become increasingly clear that desertification is one of the most pressing global environmental challenges of our time, threatening to reverse the gains in sustainable development that we have seen emerge in many parts of the world. It is a process that can inherently destabilize societies by deepening poverty and creating environmental refugees who can often add stress to areas that may not yet be degraded. The impacts of desertification are exacerbated by political marginalization of the dryland poor, by the slow growth of health and education infrastructure and by the lack of livelihood alternatives to resource depleting agricultural practices.