Immigration: is a policy of compassion possible?

In my previous post I mentioned Laurence C. Smith's The World in 2050 and promised to connect his ideas to Green Party Policies. I still was not sure where this was going to take me and therefore, overly ambitious about the time frame. It will take a lot more than the two weeks I mentioned.

In the meantime, I did get an OpEd for my local paper out of it. It will be run on Friday Nov. 7 in the Morgan Hill Times, but you can read a copy at Polizeros.

There are two forces that will drive the movement of people in coming decade. One is obviously the mounting pressures from population growth. If one has to leave their homelands, then why not to a wealthier America? or a more welcoming Canada? The other is climate disruption where drought causes famine, where sea level rise floods coastal cities and delta farmlands and some places just become unbearable.

Estimates of the number of climate refugees vary widely. We know how many people live in affected areas... but it only a guess as to how many will chose to leave when not yet forced to do so. Some estimate it to be as high as 50 million.

Even if we don't agree to such a high number, still we have to admit that there will be some. Pacific Islands will be under water. Increased desertification already affects Africa, the Mediterranean, even Texas (sub's req'd). How many will be displaced by this? I don't know but the refugee camps in Kenya are already over full.

Along with this climate disruption, we will will have political disruption as well. There has always been a resentment against new immigrants in the US, even though this country is the product of a succession of immigrations. Now state after state, most recently Alabama, have passed laws claiming to protect the US from "illegal" immigration, but in reality with a strong racist motivation.

Then, as I was thinking on this issue, two news items game me the impetus to start writing. One is the release of a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that gives a very sobering assessment of climate risk. According to the UK's Guardian:

"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried – if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."

That prettymuch tells us that we need changes in energy policy now. But we also need to understand how it will affect immigration here.

Before this week, I might has painted a bleak picture, one of the US demonstrating a fortress mentality closing all its borders with Herman Cain electric fences or moats filled with alligators. Then, a stunning thing happened. Arizona voters successfully recalled State Senator RusselPearce, President of the Senate and the author of Arizona's infamous immigration law, a law strongly opposed by Arizona's Green Party. Arizonans have had enough of militancy and racism. The election turned on the fact that Arizonans wanted their legislators to have a bit of compassion.

I expect that there will be more political dislocations. If the US accepts climate refugees, they will compete for existing jobs. The Democratic Party has always tried to make immigrant communities as part of their political base. But they also have leaned heavily on labor union support that will act to protect their jobs for existing membership. This will not sort out quickly.

What does this mean for Greens? Neither of our presidential candidates, Kent Mesplay and Jill Stein, seem to have paid much attention to this issue. If they were to do so, if they were to focus on building a national policy based on compassion, I am sure that they will find acceptance in the electorate.

Additional Information: Green Party Platform on Immigration / Migration.

Republicans to the world: We don't want or need you.

It takes a lot to make a progressive hero out of Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) but between Oklahoma's Sen. Inhofe and the climate change blatherings of a couple of ex-junkies named Beck and Limbaugh, they have managed to to just that. But, they also had some help from our own Senator Boxer and Obama Administration, as I wrote before.

The delay of Boxer and the Obama administration in dealing with climate change have put the world at risk. Those countries with whom we should be working toward some solutions to the problems of climate change are, in fact, looking at the United States's failure to come to grips with reality and beginning to wonder just how much change with got when Obama swept into office.

At climate talks in Barcelona, the last UN sponsored meeting before Copenhagen, some 50 African countries walked out.

African delegates walked out of meetings during United Nations climate change talks in Barcelona, Spain this week, claiming that developed countries were not making solid commitments to cut their emissions of climate-warming gases.

Americans, in their usual arrogant manner, might dismiss this a bunch of poor countries whining about their status after centuries of exploitation. However these same countries are going to face the brunt of problems and have started to find ways of dealing with it. Already, we are seeing climate change refugees moving from country to country in Africa and  governments were forced to act now in light of what was sure to come.

African nations adopt refugee convention

Kampala / Agence France-Presse
African leaders on Friday ratified a convention on the protection of the continent's internally-displaced people, refugees and returnees, billed as the first of its kind worldwide.

The number of refugees in Africa is now close to 20 million. I wonder what America's Minute Man organization will say about illegals when climate refugees start to demand entry to the US because our arrogance devastated their homeland.

But back to the US and Senate Republicans. All but Graham have walked out of the mark up of the Boxer led committee meetings that were supposed to be marking up the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (Kerry - Boxer). As one Democratic Senator quipped, the Party of No has become the Party of No Show.

This act of (not sure what word to use… arrogance? stupidity?) makes US participation in the Copenhagen talks problematic. European leaders are aiming their messages directly at the US Congress.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Congress and the Obama administration Tuesday to take bold steps to address global warming, even as Senate Democrats and Republicans feuded over whether to press ahead with a climate bill.

I hope that Sen. Inhofe had someone read that Washington Post article for him.

The view from the British press is even bleaker.

The US has given up hope of reaching a global climate change treaty at Copenhagen and is working towards a deal late next year, the Obama administration said today. The decision ends hopes of a legally binding deal being sealed next month.

Through all of this, the failures of Congress to act will follow one after one until catastrophe forces action and then it will be too little. Shall we call this the New Orleans Syndrome, naming it after a city where, like climate change, the catastrophe was foretold, action was delayed, and even now is being buried in rhetoric like ruin of the 9th Ward was carted away, buried out of sight and the lessons forgotten.

We can no longer afford to leave the Senate in the hands of Republicans in a state of perpetual denial and Democrats in a state of perpetual compromise. The world is looking to the United States for leadership. Republicans would lead by mooning the world.