t the end of the film “The Day After Tomorrow,” the new American president announces that Washington had reached an economic accord with the Mexican government allowing American refugees into the country after an apocalyptic series of storms ravage North America, freezing much of the country. The film, as the Financial Times recently pointed out, struck a nerve—its depiction that the climate crisis finally happened, that the worst had come to pass, and now the world needed to move on to recovery and survival. The proverbial frog was no longer in the slowly boiling pot, but instead the frog was cooked and humanity must move on.
What was more interesting though was the very suggestion that the power relationship and migratory flows between Washington and Mexico City could reverse. While one can quibble with the science and meteorology underpinning the film, it nonetheless highlights the reality that climate change will—and indeed already is—resulting in dramatic changes not just to the climate, but to global populations. Gaia Vince’s “Nomad Century” explores this thread, arguing that the world will be dramatically shaped not only by the changes to the climate, but by the resulting flows of people from affected areas.
Unlike “The Day After Tomorrow,” “Nomad Century” does not require the willful suspension of disbelief, but placing oneself in a different mental frame. If one approaches it from an entrenched perspective of the here and now, there will be much with which one disagrees. If, however, one places their frame of reference in the slowly evolving climate catastrophe and examines preparation options, there is a very thought-provoking argument to be found.
There is much to be said from getting beyond the present as Vince does. Rather than litigate the causes of climate change, she focuses on preparing for the increasingly inevitable. Ironically, though perhaps unintentionally, she shares a perspective with the Department of Defense. The Pentagon is preparing for the inevitability of climate change rather than its politics—from future proofing military bases to developing equipment that can handle higher temperatures.
The challenge that Vince lands on is that those persnickety politics hamstring her proposed solutions. She rightly points out the economic and cultural benefits of migration. Migrants contribute more to the communities they join than they cost, serve to fill jobs that most citizens are disinclined to do, and become even more important as populations age. This, despite data to the contrary, is disputed as migration is increasingly a politically expedient issue in Western countries for nationalist and nativist parties.
Her arguments that nation-state boundaries are artificial are perhaps off the mark, not just from its historical grounding, but also because the law of the land remains. “Nation states, then, are an unnatural, artificial social structure that emerged out of the complexity of the industrial revolution” she writes. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia and all that followed (and arguably much of what preceded it) defined national sovereignty as the monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a given territorial boundary—however that is defined. The nation-state, then, remains the dominant structure of international politics and that is not changing.
It is interesting that she attacks the concept of the nation-state and advocates for the removal of borders, yet trumpets the successes of nation-states like Spain and Germany in managing migration. While she may wish for a supra-national global identity or international citizenship, these are not viable political concepts. This is unlikely to change even with the emergence of climate-driven global migration. Individual nation-states may succumb to pressures resulting from climate change, but arguably the desires to protect one’s own citizenry will increase, not decrease. For its part, the European Union, a supra-national body of partial authority, is already finding it hard to manage national pressures resulting from migration. Its performance does not bode well for the ability of other multilateral and supra-national bodies to manage this emerging development.
Her suggestion that if these bodies can manage the flow of goods and services, they should be able to better manage the flow of people is a touch off the mark, too. The economic value of trade is not in dispute. What is often in dispute is how different nation-states compete on the uneven trade playing field. Goods and services do not add numbers to a population and do not result in perceived dislocation or the erosion of cultural identity the same way that migrants do—again this is political perception more than reality.
Vince asserts that “removing borders would improve humanity’s resilience to the stresses and shocks of global climate change,” but perhaps underplays the second and third order effects that will inevitably result in recipient communities. She does rightly, if understatedly, note that “it would also result in losers among some sectors of society, particularly in the host nations, so strong dynamic social policy with a welfare contingency would be required to help the transition.” Here again, the challenge of politics intervenes. Even if the first part of her sentiment—removing borders—is a non-starter, the social welfare and political systems of the Western world are already under increasing post-COVID economic pressures and unable to cope with the influx of migrants— and this is without having to deal with the environmental crisis.
One need only look at America’s southern border or Southern Europe’s Middle East and North Africa-related migrant crisis for evidence. Regardless of one’s politics, the U.S. response migration is a searing indictment of successive administrations failing to set and manage a sensible immigration policy. Political opportunism and bureaucratic sclerosis have created a broken system that satisfies neither party, nor security or economic necessities. If Washington cannot fix this system now, what hope does it have of responding to a true climate emergency? Similar challenges face the European Union and its current (and former) constituent countries. It was not that long ago that Hungary was erected its own fences and the United Kingdom was considering deporting migrants to Rwanda.
While, Vince makes a persuasive case for the value of migration (climate or otherwise), it is the other parts that make this book truly stand out. Her exploration of how climate change will redraw the map of habitable spaces is utterly fascinating. She writes how higher latitudes will become increasing desirable, how parts of the tropics and Middle East will be practically unlivable, and how these changes will reshape human activity. For example, Canada’s and Russia’s northern latitudes will become destinations of choice, necessitating the retrofitting of their limited existing infrastructure. Equally as fascinating is her exploration of how that human ecosystem of food, energy, and habitation will need to change. Her exploration of these topics offers a range of near- and long-term solutions to adapt to the coming climate change related effects. Regardless of your position on climate change, there are demonstrable effects and changes that need to happen if humanity is to adapt to the range of its effects.
Vince’s book is a compelling read, but one that requires a measure of disengagement from the present moment. However, the somewhat inconsistent approach to role of nation-states as well as the omission of a deeper engagement with both the political and security challenges of climate-related migration, do undermine the central theme of the book. Putting that to the side and focusing on what her book contributes to the overall understanding of how society will feel the effects of climate change and how it will reshape the map of humanity is a far richer and more fruitful engagement with the book. Humanity is already feeling the effects of climate change—we are that frog in the pot. Yet, the question remains whether we jump to safety today, turn into soup, or manage to build ourselves sustainable bouillon cubes on which we can float for a little longer.
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Planning for the Coming Climate Catastrophe
San Francisco, California, in 2020 after Labor Day fires. Photo by Patrick Perkins via Unsplash.
October 22, 2022
Climate change will and already is causing dramatic changes. In his latest book review, Joshua Huminski analyzes Gaia Vince’s “Nomad Century,” which argues that the world will be dramatically shaped not only by the changes to the climate, but by the resulting flows of people from affected areas.
A
t the end of the film “The Day After Tomorrow,” the new American president announces that Washington had reached an economic accord with the Mexican government allowing American refugees into the country after an apocalyptic series of storms ravage North America, freezing much of the country. The film, as the Financial Times recently pointed out, struck a nerve—its depiction that the climate crisis finally happened, that the worst had come to pass, and now the world needed to move on to recovery and survival. The proverbial frog was no longer in the slowly boiling pot, but instead the frog was cooked and humanity must move on.
What was more interesting though was the very suggestion that the power relationship and migratory flows between Washington and Mexico City could reverse. While one can quibble with the science and meteorology underpinning the film, it nonetheless highlights the reality that climate change will—and indeed already is—resulting in dramatic changes not just to the climate, but to global populations. Gaia Vince’s “Nomad Century” explores this thread, arguing that the world will be dramatically shaped not only by the changes to the climate, but by the resulting flows of people from affected areas.
Unlike “The Day After Tomorrow,” “Nomad Century” does not require the willful suspension of disbelief, but placing oneself in a different mental frame. If one approaches it from an entrenched perspective of the here and now, there will be much with which one disagrees. If, however, one places their frame of reference in the slowly evolving climate catastrophe and examines preparation options, there is a very thought-provoking argument to be found.
There is much to be said from getting beyond the present as Vince does. Rather than litigate the causes of climate change, she focuses on preparing for the increasingly inevitable. Ironically, though perhaps unintentionally, she shares a perspective with the Department of Defense. The Pentagon is preparing for the inevitability of climate change rather than its politics—from future proofing military bases to developing equipment that can handle higher temperatures.
The challenge that Vince lands on is that those persnickety politics hamstring her proposed solutions. She rightly points out the economic and cultural benefits of migration. Migrants contribute more to the communities they join than they cost, serve to fill jobs that most citizens are disinclined to do, and become even more important as populations age. This, despite data to the contrary, is disputed as migration is increasingly a politically expedient issue in Western countries for nationalist and nativist parties.
Her arguments that nation-state boundaries are artificial are perhaps off the mark, not just from its historical grounding, but also because the law of the land remains. “Nation states, then, are an unnatural, artificial social structure that emerged out of the complexity of the industrial revolution” she writes. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia and all that followed (and arguably much of what preceded it) defined national sovereignty as the monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a given territorial boundary—however that is defined. The nation-state, then, remains the dominant structure of international politics and that is not changing.
It is interesting that she attacks the concept of the nation-state and advocates for the removal of borders, yet trumpets the successes of nation-states like Spain and Germany in managing migration. While she may wish for a supra-national global identity or international citizenship, these are not viable political concepts. This is unlikely to change even with the emergence of climate-driven global migration. Individual nation-states may succumb to pressures resulting from climate change, but arguably the desires to protect one’s own citizenry will increase, not decrease. For its part, the European Union, a supra-national body of partial authority, is already finding it hard to manage national pressures resulting from migration. Its performance does not bode well for the ability of other multilateral and supra-national bodies to manage this emerging development.
Her suggestion that if these bodies can manage the flow of goods and services, they should be able to better manage the flow of people is a touch off the mark, too. The economic value of trade is not in dispute. What is often in dispute is how different nation-states compete on the uneven trade playing field. Goods and services do not add numbers to a population and do not result in perceived dislocation or the erosion of cultural identity the same way that migrants do—again this is political perception more than reality.
Vince asserts that “removing borders would improve humanity’s resilience to the stresses and shocks of global climate change,” but perhaps underplays the second and third order effects that will inevitably result in recipient communities. She does rightly, if understatedly, note that “it would also result in losers among some sectors of society, particularly in the host nations, so strong dynamic social policy with a welfare contingency would be required to help the transition.” Here again, the challenge of politics intervenes. Even if the first part of her sentiment—removing borders—is a non-starter, the social welfare and political systems of the Western world are already under increasing post-COVID economic pressures and unable to cope with the influx of migrants— and this is without having to deal with the environmental crisis.
One need only look at America’s southern border or Southern Europe’s Middle East and North Africa-related migrant crisis for evidence. Regardless of one’s politics, the U.S. response migration is a searing indictment of successive administrations failing to set and manage a sensible immigration policy. Political opportunism and bureaucratic sclerosis have created a broken system that satisfies neither party, nor security or economic necessities. If Washington cannot fix this system now, what hope does it have of responding to a true climate emergency? Similar challenges face the European Union and its current (and former) constituent countries. It was not that long ago that Hungary was erected its own fences and the United Kingdom was considering deporting migrants to Rwanda.
While, Vince makes a persuasive case for the value of migration (climate or otherwise), it is the other parts that make this book truly stand out. Her exploration of how climate change will redraw the map of habitable spaces is utterly fascinating. She writes how higher latitudes will become increasing desirable, how parts of the tropics and Middle East will be practically unlivable, and how these changes will reshape human activity. For example, Canada’s and Russia’s northern latitudes will become destinations of choice, necessitating the retrofitting of their limited existing infrastructure. Equally as fascinating is her exploration of how that human ecosystem of food, energy, and habitation will need to change. Her exploration of these topics offers a range of near- and long-term solutions to adapt to the coming climate change related effects. Regardless of your position on climate change, there are demonstrable effects and changes that need to happen if humanity is to adapt to the range of its effects.
Vince’s book is a compelling read, but one that requires a measure of disengagement from the present moment. However, the somewhat inconsistent approach to role of nation-states as well as the omission of a deeper engagement with both the political and security challenges of climate-related migration, do undermine the central theme of the book. Putting that to the side and focusing on what her book contributes to the overall understanding of how society will feel the effects of climate change and how it will reshape the map of humanity is a far richer and more fruitful engagement with the book. Humanity is already feeling the effects of climate change—we are that frog in the pot. Yet, the question remains whether we jump to safety today, turn into soup, or manage to build ourselves sustainable bouillon cubes on which we can float for a little longer.
