mick silver
4th May 2016, 10:12 AM
U.S. Government Pays $48 Million to Resettle First American “Climate Change Refugees
Source: NY Times (http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/us-government-pays-48-million-to-resettle-first-american-climate-change-refugees-160504?news=858760)
Each morning at 3:30, when Joann Bourg leaves the mildewed and rusted house that her parents built on her grandfather’s property, she worries that the bridge connecting this spit of waterlogged land to Louisiana’s terra firma will again be flooded and she will miss another day’s work.
Ms. Bourg, a custodian at a sporting goods store on the mainland, lives with her two sisters, 82-year-old mother, son and niece on land where her ancestors, members of the Native American tribes of southeastern Louisiana, have lived for generations. That earth is now dying, drowning in salt and sinking into the sea, and she is ready to leave.
With a first-of-its-kind “climate resilience” grant to resettle the island’s native residents, Washington is ready to help.
“Yes, this is our grandpa’s land,” Ms. Bourg said. “But it’s going under one way or another.”
In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-housing-and-urban-development?detailsDepartmentID=572) announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems.
One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles (http://www.isledejeancharles.com/), is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change. The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees.
“We’re going to lose all our heritage, all our culture,” lamented Chief Albert Naquin of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw (http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main/tcc/Tribes/gc_choctaw), the tribe to which most Isle de Jean Charles residents belong. “It’s all going to be history.”
Around the globe, governments are confronting the reality that as human-caused climate change warms the planet, rising sea levels, stronger storms, increased flooding, harsher droughts and dwindling freshwater supplies could drive the world’s most vulnerable people from their homes. Between 50 million and 200 million people — mainly subsistence farmers and fishermen — could be displaced by 2050 because of climate change, according to estimates by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (http://ehs.unu.edu/) and the International Organization for Migration (http://www.iom.int/).
“The changes are underway and they are very rapid,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell (http://www.allgov.com/news/appointments-and-resignations/secretary-of-the-interior-who-is-sally-jewell-130310?news=849370) warned last week in Ottawa. “We will have climate refugees.”
Read More... (http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/us-government-pays-48-million-to-resettle-first-american-climate-change-refugees-160504?news=858760)
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Source: NY Times (http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/us-government-pays-48-million-to-resettle-first-american-climate-change-refugees-160504?news=858760)
Each morning at 3:30, when Joann Bourg leaves the mildewed and rusted house that her parents built on her grandfather’s property, she worries that the bridge connecting this spit of waterlogged land to Louisiana’s terra firma will again be flooded and she will miss another day’s work.
Ms. Bourg, a custodian at a sporting goods store on the mainland, lives with her two sisters, 82-year-old mother, son and niece on land where her ancestors, members of the Native American tribes of southeastern Louisiana, have lived for generations. That earth is now dying, drowning in salt and sinking into the sea, and she is ready to leave.
With a first-of-its-kind “climate resilience” grant to resettle the island’s native residents, Washington is ready to help.
“Yes, this is our grandpa’s land,” Ms. Bourg said. “But it’s going under one way or another.”
In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-housing-and-urban-development?detailsDepartmentID=572) announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems.
One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles (http://www.isledejeancharles.com/), is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change. The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees.
“We’re going to lose all our heritage, all our culture,” lamented Chief Albert Naquin of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw (http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main/tcc/Tribes/gc_choctaw), the tribe to which most Isle de Jean Charles residents belong. “It’s all going to be history.”
Around the globe, governments are confronting the reality that as human-caused climate change warms the planet, rising sea levels, stronger storms, increased flooding, harsher droughts and dwindling freshwater supplies could drive the world’s most vulnerable people from their homes. Between 50 million and 200 million people — mainly subsistence farmers and fishermen — could be displaced by 2050 because of climate change, according to estimates by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (http://ehs.unu.edu/) and the International Organization for Migration (http://www.iom.int/).
“The changes are underway and they are very rapid,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell (http://www.allgov.com/news/appointments-and-resignations/secretary-of-the-interior-who-is-sally-jewell-130310?news=849370) warned last week in Ottawa. “We will have climate refugees.”
Read More... (http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/us-government-pays-48-million-to-resettle-first-american-climate-change-refugees-160504?news=858760)
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