Where Will You Go?
Imagining Mobility, Health, and Habitat in the 21st Century
Dr. David Kyle
June 1, 2011
|
It has happened throughout history, humans migrate as the environment changes. With recent changes around the planet, what will happen in the 21st century? Will migration happen across borders, be temporary, how many?
According to the International Organization for Migration, in 2008 alone, over 20 million people were displaced by environmental factors. As storms and droughts grow larger and weather patterns more extreme, how will people respond?
Severe environmental damage, whether natural or manmade, can leave populations with little recourse but to move permanently and en-masse.
This happened in the 1930s Dust Bowl in the Great Plains of the United States. Below-average rainfall, accompanied by the Great Depression, resulted in the widespread failure of small farms and the migration of about 300,000 "Okies" to California (Fritz, 2010).
Future forecasts vary from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. While there are no scientifically verified estimates of the number of people that will be displaced by climate change, several studies by UN agencies, IOM, and NGOs, including an influential report published in 2009, already show evidence that environmentally induced migration is occurring
Dr. David Kyle will discuss his latest book Where Will You Go? Imagining Mobility, Health, and Habitat in the 21st Century and how environmental migration might affect you.
Doors open at 7pm, presentation starts at 7:30pm.
Tickets
About Dr. David Kyle
David Kyle, Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Davis, earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He is currently the interim Co-Director of the Center of Expertise in Migration and Health of the 10-campus UC Global Health Institute.
He was executive director of the Gifford Center for Population Studies from 2009-2012. Prof. Kyle has helped pioneer or conceived of the concepts of transnational migration, the migration industry, cognitive migration, and the mobile underclass.
His recent volume is Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives (2nd ed.), with Rey Koslowski (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011) and he is author of Transnational Peasants: Migrations, Networks, and Ethnicity in Andean Ecuador (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). His current book project is, Where Will You Go? Imagining Mobility, Health, and Habitat in the 21st Century.
Scroll down to learn more about this topic.
Thanks to Our 2011-12 Supporters!
 |
 |
 |
 |
Learn More About this Topic
For your convenience, we have compiled these resources as a starting point for your research. PNC does not have any relationship with these websites and inclusion on this list does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement.
- Migration Climate Change and the Environment, by the International Organization for Migration
- Climate Change and Migration: Sorting through Complex Issues without the Hype, By Carolina Fritz, Migration Policy Institute
- Report disperses migration myth, By Anna Barnett, Nature Reports