[Chronique d’Élisabeth Vallet] Climate Change in the United States High heat and migration shock

Their summer is our winter. In the south of the United States, the “beautiful season” we spend indoors. A place for parents to watch their little ones play outside. When humidity is dangerous at 42 ° C -20 C you should take the components into account when working outdoors. It must be said that from the Pacific coast to the desert, from Colorado to Prairie, Central and Southwest America has always presented challenges to the people who live there. This is because these areas experience constant cyclical drought. Lasts a year or ten years. Those who can change social structures.

The scary story of Dust bowl Is here to remind you. At the beginning of XX^And Over the centuries, a series of economic and political events brought thousands of Americans into the confluence of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas to farm in the American southwestern plains, a time when grassland was only suitable for barbarism. But for a decade beginning in 1931 – when a series of droughts hit the plains, this human adventure abruptly ceased – it caused a real climate catastrophe: farmers could not cultivate the land, and they suffered because it was too dry. Empty fields exposed to hot, dry air.

A series of hurricanes pounded the eroded land in terrible dust clouds. For a decade, these “black blizzards” eroded the prairie farms and occasionally darkened the sky over the Atlantic coast. It rained again in 1940, and the adoption of plowing methods and the digging of wells at the water level of the ocean put an end to this tragic chapter. For a time. This is because climate change increases the incidence of cyclical drought and changes the situation. Evolution is already clear. In Arizona, the city of Phoenix collects temperature records. In California it burns from season to season, burning earlier each year. But it is the motor of agriculture on the Colorado River, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Dawson (and suburbs of Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Los Angeles and San Diego), from Arizona to Wyoming’s farms. And the key to hydropower generation, is officially in crisis.

For the first time in American history, there is
For 10 days, the U.S. Bureau of Restructuring decided to postpone the release of the sanctions. Between May and July, in principle, Colorado is filled by melting overhead snow. Today, arid soils drink molten water that does not reach the river. Used, smuggled, pumped, Colorado is just a shadow: its level is very low. With layered effects. In power generation, this becomes unpredictable. Water access to downstream consumers: Exactly 100 years ago, states along the river shared rights to this waterfall, but today, this sharing does not correspond to the realities of the river. Some communities may be rationed or may not even have access to water.

In the western and central parts of the country, it is no longer possible to alleviate the drought by pumping water frantically, as we were able to get out of the episode. Dust bowl : They are also shrinking – whether it is the reservoir of Memphis Sands, whether it is in the Central Valley or the largest body of water in Oklahoma. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) explains that their disappearance at the end of the century will threaten food security on a continental scale. With the key to significant internal displacement movements. There has already been migration eastward from California following repeated fires in recent years. Ration in Arizona, Colorado, has led to the exodus of farmers who have been selling their family-owned farms for generations. Today, the movement is a luxury that is not necessary for the most vulnerable communities. But there will come a time when it will only be about survival.

From the study of tree growth rings, NASA study team led by Ben Cook expands the scope of drought cycles. In its release Scientific advances In 2015, he mapped out the possibility of desertification in North America if greenhouse gas emissions were not reduced. The results are clear: by 2095, an area from California to Texas and from Arizona to Kansas will collapse into an arid desert. As Timothy Kohler, Timothy Lendon and Morton Schaefer have written, this change will destabilize human settlement by 2070. Inside Processes of the National Academy of Sciences (PNASIn 2020.

Cartographic representations really Proplica Project on Climate Migration Draw boundaries for human survival in these hospitable areas of North America defined by environmental inactivity. According to one of the authors, Abram Lustgarden, the extreme weather events in the north, on the one hand, caused the emigration of drought survivors, and on the other hand, extreme heat waves. And in the south, ending in collisions with multiple displacement shocks.

The United States has already experienced such population movements: Dust bowl The first climate in the country’s history pushed refugees onto the roads. That did not happen right: the then-governor of Colorado declared martial law in April 1936 and sent the National Guard to the southern border of his state, believing that he did not have the capacity to admit other refugees. California refused to integrate them, restricting access to. OK In some places, the bosses exploited these helpless people from the East – as depicted in Steinbeck’s novels. In fact, the IPCC has failed to formulate policies in line with climate change, as it has called for In his last statement, These movements increase. With it, communities, communities fragmented, the accent of inequalities and the rapid erosion of social contract. It is a mistake to believe that certain events can be controlled by closing boundaries.

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