Climate migration one of the most urgent effects of the climate crisis impacting communities all around the world.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Climate migration is increasingly popping up in the headlines, and for good reason—it’s one of the most urgent effects of the climate crisis impacting communities all around the world. As the planet warms, people (and even our wildlife) are being forced to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and survival. While this reality is heavy, it's also an opportunity for us to rethink how we can respond to the challenges ahead.
Here’s what we’ll cover step-by-step:
Ready to explore this global shift and figure out how we can take action to build a more resilient, connected future? Let’s go!
🎯 Action step 1 of 4: READ — Let's start by looking at a few articles together.
Our climate crisis is fueling migration around the globe amidst all of the natural disasters we’re seeing all over the news. This Action Pack is about having the courage to weather the grief we're seeing in the world. It's not going to be a fun read, but it will reiterate once again that these "tragedies" are not inevitable.
Here are two articles you can choose from on climate migration. One is from our favorite Grist article asking, "What is a 'climate refugee' and how many are there?" It's short, conversational, and a quick read from 2019.
The other is an interactive piece from the New York Times Magazine in 2020 that explores climate migration. It's got data, maps, stories from around the world, and a LOT of information. (P.S. We chose earlier pieces to keep some distance between the unnatural disasters that are unfolding in 2024.)
Choose your own adventure; here are some facts below.
The state of the world can make things feel like everything is impossible. (That’s not true). We CAN create resilient communities. We CAN feed our people. We CAN build more housing. We CAN freaking decarbonize this beautiful planet. If we created this future for ourselves through extractive capitalism and colonialist supremacy, we can create a new one! To create a new future, we need each other. We are the only ones who will save us.
🏁 Checkpoint: This is the end of action step 1 of 4: READ.
🎯 Action step 2 of 4: LISTEN — we'll watch a short video or listen to a podcast to further expand on our topic.
For the first time in the four-year history of an Action Pack, there will be no commentary offered to pair with this video.
Take this as an invitation to reflect instead on the following:
This Action Pack is about having the courage to process and sit with difficult stories. Then, we’ll become equipped to build a more resilient future for ourselves, others, and our planet.
🏁 Checkpoint: This is the end of action step 2 of 4: LISTEN.
🎯 Action step 3 of 4: ACT — Now it's time to do something. Let's go!
Taking action in the face of climate change begins with taking intentional steps to prepare, connect, and advocate collectively for a climate resilient future.
1. Prepare yourself and your loved ones for climate disasters.
No place is safe from climate disasters. Assemble an emergency kit or buy one. Don't put this off.
2. Talk about it often.
The word "emergency" or "natural disaster" is less polarizing than "global warming" or "climate change" so use that to our advantage! Ask your friends and family if they're concerned about natural disasters. Why/why not? What's their plan?
3. Get involved in local advocacy .
Many cities around the world have a small group of decision-makers that influence how money is spent on things like transit, utilities, emergency hubs, and more. Find out who represents you on a local level.
4. Donate to the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Fund.
You can find more info here and it's a great way to help communities rebuild after unnatural disasters.
5. Strengthen your community muscles.
Displacement and migration as a result of climate change will be inevitable. We will have lots of new people moving to the places we live, or perhaps we will be the new people moving to different places. That can be a good thing! New friends yay! Especially in "Western" countries, our community muscles have been atrophying because of ✨hyperindividualism✨ and it's time to rehabilitate. Take a bus. Hang out in a library. Go out and volunteer. Navigate smelly spaces that are uncomfortable but not unsafe. Join Soapbox Project's membership and hang out with us. Choose the hard of community over the hard of loneliness and commit to that choice every day.
The odds are against us, but we can change those odds ourselves. It's up to us to save ourselves and rise up to greet our new challenges.
🏁 Checkpoint: This is the end of action step 3 of 4: ACT.
Before we go any further, it's time for you to pledge your commitment. It takes less than 30 seconds to pledge and we can bother you about it in a friendly way, so we can hold each other accountable. Pledge here!
🎯 Action step 4 of 4: REFLECT — what can you commit to? What fresh perspectives can we look at?
The poem "Atlas" by Teresa Siagaton invites us to reconsider the way we visualize the world. She forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about history, identity, and survival in light of the climate crisis. Read it here to honor the intended formatting. If you're curious, you can also read this interview with the poet Terisa Siagatonu.
If you open up any atlas
and take a look at a map of the world,
almost every single one of them
slices the Pacific Ocean in half.
To the human eye,
every map centers all the land masses on Earth
creating the illusion
that water can handle the butchering
and be pushed to the edges
of the world.
As if the Pacific Ocean isn’t the largest body
living today, beating the loudest heart,
the reason why land has a pulse in the first place.
The audacity one must have to create a visual so
violent as to assume that no one comes
from water so no one will care
what you do with it
and yet,
people came from land,
are still coming from land,
and look what was done to them.
When people ask me where I’m from,
they don’t believe me when I say water.
So instead, I tell them that home is a machete
and that I belong to places
that don’t belong to themselves anymore,
broken and butchered places that have made me
a hyphen of a woman:
a Samoan-American that carries the weight of both
colonizer and colonized,
both blade and blood.
California stolen.
Samoa sliced in half stolen.
California, nestled on the western coast of the most powerful
country on this planet.
Samoa, an island so microscopic on a map, it’s no wonder
people doubt its existence.
California, a state of emergency away from having the drought
rid it of all its water.
Samoa, a state of emergency away from becoming a saltwater cemetery
if the sea level doesn’t stop rising.
When people ask me where I’m from,
what they want is to hear me speak of land,
what they want is to know where I go once I leave here,
the privilege that comes with assuming that home
is just a destination, and not the panic.
Not the constant migration that the panic gives birth to.
What is it like? To know that home is something
that’s waiting for you to return to it?
What does it mean to belong to something that isn’t sinking?
What does it mean to belong to what is causing the flood?
So many of us come from water
but when you come from water
no one believes you.
Colonization keeps laughing.
Global warming is grinning
at all your grief.
How you mourn the loss of a home
that isn’t even gone yet.
That no one believes you’re from.
How everyone is beginning
to hear more about your island
but only in the context of
vacations and honeymoons,
football and military life,
exotic women exotic fruit exotic beaches
but never asks about the rest of its body.
The water.
The islands breathing in it.
The reason why they’re sinking.
No one visualizes islands in the Pacific
as actually being there.
You explain and explain and clarify
and correct their incorrect pronunciation
and explain
until they remember just how vast your ocean is,
how microscopic your islands look in it,
how easy it is to miss when looking
on a map of the world.
Excuses people make
for why they didn’t see it
before.
As you reflect, ask yourself:
Siagatonu’s words invite us to reflect on our own relationships to the planet and the stories we often overlook when it comes to the climate crisis. With Soapbox Project's core values of courage and joy, we commit to collectively join forces to envision a resilient future.
🏁 Checkpoint: This is the end of action step 4 of 4: REFLECT.
Check out our membership community for more resources like free weekly events with social justice experts, sustainable product discounts, pre-written email templates, a social impact job board, and in-person hangouts with new friends. Thanks for taking action with Soapbox Project!
Get our free bite-sized climate action plans before you go!