The future of climate change refugees

It's here already. And it's going to get much worse.

Migrants.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Mario Tama/Getty Images, Tatiana Mezhenina/iStock)

What is causing the refugee crisis in Central America? One major fuel is the war on drugs, as I have previously written. But another under-discussed factor is climate change, which has devastated many farms in Central America. These climate refugees are just the first glimmerings of a problem that is going to plague the world for the foreseeable future.

The PBS News Hour recently ran an excellent report on how climate problems are driving many farmers out of business in Honduras. One issue is drought — over the last decade or so, warming temperatures have created chronic rain shortfalls over much of the country, destroying whole crops and rendering traditional planting techniques impossible. Poorer farmers are even finding subsistence agriculture out of the question:

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.