The Effects Of Climate Change On Migration In Mexico And Central America

Climate Change and its effects on Migration in Mexico and Central America
Climate change has quite an impact on migration throughout Mexico and Central America. Changing temperatures, droughts, catastrophic weather and rising sea levels at times force people to migrate to another area. It appears that the changing climates impact on livelihoods and migration are much stronger in rural areas than in urban area (Nawrotzki, 2016). Sometimes its temporary migration while other times it’s permanent. Each of these different events happen due to climate change and they make people migrate in different ways. Climate change is causing weather patterns to change. Central America already has harsh cyclone storms that come through and climate change is
making these storms stronger. Honduras is a perfect example. Honduras is in a location that is prone to very harsh storms. These storms come through and destroy people's livelihood. Not to mention, it destroys resources making them scarce. This causes a higher poverty and crime rate. Therefore, people migrate to go live a better life. The poverty and crime are a direct result of the storms destroying everything (Leutert, 2017). It is easy to see how climate change can have a “domino effect”. It causes the storms to be stronger which makes Honduras even more impoverished which in turn makes people want to migrate out of the country. Climate change is also causing droughts in Central America.
Droughts happen naturally at times but with the climate changing the frequency and severity of these droughts are on the rise. Droughts are destroying all the crops in the area. This is having a drastic effect on the food supply in Central America. Resources are scarce and it becomes a struggle for people find an adequate amount of food. Also, a great percentage of Central Americans are farmers and many of their livelihoods are destroyed since their crops failed (Hares, 2017). This causes poverty and starvation. As a result many Central Americans migrate to North America for a better
life. Also, sea levels are beginning to rise due to climate change. Due to the earth warming, glaciers are melting which is causing sea levels to rise. It is expected that the sea level will rise another one to four feet in Central America by the year 2100. Rising sea levels have many negative impacts.IIt causes a higher risk in storm surges and floods. Many people live along the shoreline and flooding is causing large amounts of damage.The flooding and high sea levels also at times contaminate fresh water sources with salt water (“Climate Change Impacts in Latin America”, 2017) The rising sea levels is causing people to migrate inland and this will continue as the sea level continues to rise. There are several solutions to either adapt to climate change or try to slow it down all together.
There is new technology that is a drought warning tool which uses geospatial data to map areas that will be most affected by drought. Being that Central America is one of the most vulnerable to drought due to climate change, this tool is very helpful. It helps the regions governments and farmers avoid crop losses as much as possible (Moloney, 2017). Another option would be to take steps to reduce climate change all together. Carbon emissions are the main reason for climate change if the world works together to help lower the amount of carbon emissions humans put off we can either stop climate change or drastically slow it down. Driving hybrid and electric cars and putting some regulations on factories to ensure they aren't polluting the air. These are some changes that could be made. And reducing carbon emissions means that the earth won’t heat up as fast which in turn will make the glacier not melt so the sea levels will not continue to rise so quickly. It would also lead to a lower frequency of harsh weather and droughts that cause poverty and starvation which causes people to
migrate. To conclude, it is clear that climate change does in fact have an impact on migration. Climate change causes catastrophic weather, droughts, and rising sea levels. Each one of these events forces people to migrate either temporarily or permanently. Climate change has a “domino effect”, the changing climate causes another event which in turn causes people to migrate. People can attempt to adapt to these changes or we can try to slow climate change by reducing carbon emissions. It would take collaboration and discipline but it can be done.