When can we go back?
Being in New Orleans was perhaps one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life and for many of the students that I took with me. Several of the students who came with me have asked me the same question, “When can we go back?”
I suppose that there are many people who ask just that question, but under a wholly different context.
In 1945 there were millions of people wandering Europe as displaced persons, all attempting to reestablish a place they could call home. Even today there are over 20 million people that have been displaced from their homes due to war. Increasingly though, there are many people that have been removed from their home due to environmental change. According to the United Nations there are currently 25 million people being forced from their homes due to human impacts on the environment.
Five hundred thousand people were displaced by Katrina and became perhaps North America’s first environmental refugees. Thousands of people cannot return home and are forced to live in small FEMA trailers.
There are environmental refugees around the world. From the islands of the Pacific to the hundreds of thousands of people in China forced to make way for monstrous dams, this is clearly a world wide phenomena of the natural environment being reshaped and the poorest people in the world are paying for it with their homes.
I always go back to the President of the Maldives pleading with world leaders to stop global warming before the people in his country are flooded out of his homes. Has much really changed in those past 20 years?
