A New Strategy for Indigenous Climate Refugees
In the midst of a global pandemic and increasingly desperate attempts by the Trump administration to subvert the results of the 2020 election, it would be easy to miss a slew of recent news stories on individuals the media has termed "climate refugees."
These are people who have been displaced due to catastrophic climate change, or who will be forced to flee as their homes become too hot, too cold, or too dry, or if they become regular targets of massive storms or end up underwater. As many of these stories have highlighted, among those most at risk are the Indigenous peoples of the United States.
The scale of climate-induced displacement boggles the mind. According to many reports — including one by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees — well over 100 million people will be forced to flee their homes as a result of climate change by the year 2050. Indigenous peoples all over the world — including the Yanomami in the Amazon, the Inuit in the Arctic, and the Saami in Scandinavia — are on the front lines of climate displacement.
Here at home, climate change could render uninhabitable hundreds of Native American communities in Alaska, Florida, Hawai'i, Louisiana, South …
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