Global Warming Could Boost Illegal Immigration, Expert Says -- 09/20/2006
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
September 20, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - Global warming might cause an increase in illegal immigration as people "flee storm-ravaged or sun-parched regions" to find refuge in the U.S., according to an expert who addressed a gathering on climate change in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
"Large-scale climatic disruptions in nearby nations, such as Mexico or Caribbean Island nations," may result in "spillover effects on the health system in the U.S.," said Devra Lee Davis, director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, in an abstract on the subject, "Changes in Severe Weather and Climate: Implications for Human Health."
One way such a "spillover effect" could occur is through "a rapid surge in illegal migration as people flee storm-ravaged or sun-parched regions to earn a living, or simply an outbreak of disease in fetid urban slums that spreads across borders," Davis noted.
"New immigrants, especially those who come here illegally, may have a higher incidence of some diseases, such as tuberculosis, that are rare today in the U.S.," she added.
While acknowledging "it is very hard to make projections of what the potential impacts" of man-made greenhouse gases are likely to be, Davis stressed that public health officials will "need to be on the lookout for a wider variety of diseases as climate changes and the mobility of people and other disease-carriers increases."
"If we want to make the future a better place, we have to study the past," Davis said as she discussed the same topic during the Washington Summit on Climate Stabilization sponsored by the non-profit Climate Institute.
Davis pointed to her hometown of Donora, Pa., during October 1948, when more than 20 residents died from inhaling toxic fumes over the course of four days after a zinc mill opened in the town.
"What happened with Donora then is exactly what is happening with climate now," she stated, noting that people in her hometown decided to examine what was causing the health crisis before taking any action.
"Studying the problem is a lot easier than doing something about it," Davis said. "Beware those who tell you we always need to study more."
Often during her talk, Davis equated global warming with pollution. At one point, she noted that "there is no such thing as local pollution" because of the constant interaction of weather systems around the world.
"It's the fossil fuel problem that got us in this situation," she said. "As many people die from air pollution today as die from car crashes every year in the developed world" because the "global impact of fossil fuels on public health is enormous."
"Think about this: Why did HIV/AIDS arise in Africa, despite the theory that it was developed by some nefarious sources?" Davis asked. "Because the nutritional conditions of people in Africa and the exposure to co-factors such as Hepatitis B were so much more prevalent there, that the vulnerability was greater.
"Even HIV/AIDS can be thought of as a climate-related disease," she noted.
Davis concluded her speech by again discussing the effect of pollution on her hometown in 1948.
"That lump of coal that my grandfather shoveled down the coal chute outside the family furnace in 1948 would have landed in the basement right under where my grandmother usually stayed in bed, and at night, my grandfather would have gone down to the cellar to fire up the furnace," she said.
"That lump would have burned completely, yielding water, carbon dioxide, a number of sticky, smelly compounds and some heat," Davis noted. "The gases of carbon dioxide burned in the fires of Donora are up there still, warming us all now. That's the problem that we face."
However, Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming at the free market-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), told Cybercast News Service that he disagrees with Davis' view of the effects of climate change.
"It's interesting that she ties the greatest threat to mankind -- according to Al Gore and others, global warming -- to what the American public sees as the greatest threat, namely illegal immigration," Ebell said.
"We already have a lot of illegal immigration, and if you believe Al Gore's scenario, you'd see that under a global warming catastrophe, we'd all be fleeing south to Mexico rather than people fleeing north," he noted.
"The American people are voting on climate every day, and if you look at the U.S. Census, they're moving south," Ebell stated. "Since the invention of air conditioning, states like Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Maine are not gaining rapidly in population. It's Arizona, California, Florida, Texas -- all the warm places."
Ebell also called the Washington Summit on Climate Stabilization a "ridiculous" event that "shows the global warming alarmists have lost all sense of reality."
"The idea that humankind can control the climate in order to stabilize it and can somehow choose the number of warm days, cool days and rainy days is just monstrous human pride and arrogance," he added.
Instead of putting the world on an "energy diet," Ebell proposed "creating more energy so people living on a subsistence level can benefit from modern, industrial civilization just a little bit, so they will no longer be prone to natural disasters."
"That's the way to make the world a healthier, happier and more prosperous place," he added.
