OVERVIEW

As of the end of 2018, nearly 320 million people, worldwide, had been unwillingly displaced from their homes, driven by environmental disruption, conflict, and the ongoing global health crisis. Another 20-30 million--the exact number is hard to measure--have become migrants by choice, escaping conditions that have grown unbearable ahead of the inevitable forced move. Many migrants (particularly from the latter group) have resettled, taking up new lives in new locations; a large minority remain in refugee or displaced person facilities, in conditions that range from the tragic to the catastrophic. A significant number, however, have adopted a migrant life, neither settling and assimilating nor remaining with fellow refugees in long-term (although supposedly temporary) camps.

The significance of this mass of refugees and migrants--around 5% of the planet's population--is only beginning to be felt. The Diasporic Wave, as some sociologists have termed it, creates problems not just around food or economics, but around health, identity, even religion. Media often characterize migrants as vectors for disease, but they are victims of local diseases at least as often, as they encounter new pathogen variants. Friction around national or cultural identity can be exacerbated by forced migration, leading to increased social violence. And while rival religious groups pushed together in cramped conditions can lead to conflict, a more provocative development has been the proliferation of syncretic religious movements, combining elements of different beliefs, responding to immediate and localized needs.

As with Outlaw Planet, the Generation Exile superthreat stands as a catalyst for extinction risk not because it poses physical harm to populations, but because of the stresses and demands that it places on the resilience and response capacities of societies and governments. The combined impact of 350 million displaced persons--likely to rise to 500 million by the middle of the next decade--will make successful responses to emerging crises (as well as the other superthreats) enormously difficult. Examples:

  • • 50 million climate refugees from Bangladesh are engaged in ongoing conflict with the residents of Kolkata over water access and rights. The refugees arrived after Typhoon Sharnula put much of Bangladesh under water in 2010.
  • • Disease, climate, and conflict are all worsened by urban density. Many urban dwellers are retreat to countryside, and the planet, which was briefly more urban than rural, is shifting again to slightly more rural.
  • • The "Ghost Dance Revival" has spread millennial movements through migration, mixing elements of local religious iconography. It has a strong apocalyptic narrative, that will likely strengthened by the recent GEAS announcement.
  • • An African Union study has declared that over 10% of the continent's population are now "displaced persons."
  • Visas are now required to visit Canada from the United State. The Canadian Minister of the Interior was quoted as saying, "The problem of illegal immigration from the south has reached epic proportions. Canada just can't take on so many migrants."

CLIMATE REFUGEES

A significant plurality of the various global diasporas now underway have been triggered by climate disruption effects. Of the 320 million recognized as unwillingly displaced, approximately 115 million have become refugees for reasons directly related to global warming. Although this includes the 50 million Bangladesh refugees now living in India after Typhoon Sharnula, most experts consider it to be a conservative estimate. One problem is that the impact of climate change is often difficult to separate from other types of crisis. Because global warming impacts so many aspects of civilization, it's possible to argue that many refugees from war or pandemic disease are climate refugees, as well.

The 115 million people now living in refugee camps, in resettlement cities, or as migrant communities come largely from regions of the world facing environmental changes of sufficient magnitude to make staying and rebuilding effectively impossible. Most were driven out by storm effects--from the physical destruction of communities by wind (such as in Boca Raton, Florida in 2014, and Forteleza, Brazil in 2018) to massive and unrecoverable flooding (such as in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2017, and much of Bangladesh in 2010). In these situations, the elimination of buildings, power, and even roads was so complete that the cost of rebuilding couldn't be met--especially since future storms are almost inevitable. Money that would have been spent on rebuilding has typically been spent on reinforcing the protections for similarly vulnerable locations.

Most of those not driven out by storms were driven out by drought. Refugees fleeing drought tend to emerge over an extended period, as individual families and communities reach a breaking point. Some people remain behind long after fleeing would be wise, simply out of hopes that the drought would soon break. Because drought conditions lack the pinpoint clarity of a storm, early drought refugees may be labeled "economic migrants," and therefore not receive official support (or attention). In 2014, the UN High Commission on Refugees started to work closely with weather specialists around the world to identify drought and near-drought conditions as they form.

A small, but growing, number of refugees have come to be known as "heat migrants," fleeing conditions that aren't technically in drought but face long periods of deadly heat.

THE DIASPORIC WAVE

With 5% of the Earth's population now displaced (and 10% on the near horizon), the stresses upon traditional civic, economic, and cultural systems is enormous. Since the earliest days of urbanization, thousands of years ago, institutions of identity, sovereignty, and power have been tied to stable population centers. With such a large percentage of the populace no longer connected to their homes, it's increasingly likely that we'll see significant disputes centered on these precise factors.

Issues of identity, for example, manifest clearly around religion, language, and culture, but can also show up in friction between generations, and in what kinds of professions are deemed acceptable. Sovereignty issues emerge most plainly in cross-border migration, but issues of minority rights and sovereignty can be enflamed by the sudden increase of people from the same--or from conflicting--cultures. Issues of power, in the political rather than energy sense, take these two dilemmas around identity and sovereignty and link them to issues of political competition. When does a wave of emigration turn into a "brain drain"?

All of these questions are underscored by the emerging demographic of "perpetual migrants." By taking advantage of remaining open borders, dense communication networks, and a strong sense of community identity (even when separated), they have fought to avoid long-term resettlement. This phenomenon occurs mainly in the industrial and post-industrial world (primarily North America and Europe), although perpetual migrant communities of Indian and Chinese origin are now appearing.

POINTS OF IMPACT

Generation Exile as a superthreat hits everywhere, but holds particular power in those locations seeing broad disruption from climate, conflict, or disease. It's a very human reaction to wish to flee danger; the superthreat aspect of Generation Exile doesn't come from the refugees themselves, but from institutions of support and survival pushed past the point of exhaustion.

  • • Storm zones
  • • Drought zones
  • • War zones
  • • Pandemic zones

CONNECTIONS

The Generation Exile superthreat interacts with the four other superthreats in the following ways:

Quarantine: Disaporas are functioning as disease vectors, and migration is making control of the pandemic harder. Migratory groups serve as ready scapegoats for outbreaks. The pandemic can serve as trigger for expulsion or involuntary quarantine of minorities.

Ravenous: Migrating populations lead to unpredictable food demands, and unexpected stresses on food infrastructure and workforce. Famine and related conditions serve as a key driver for ongoing migration.

Outlaw Planet: Migration is driven by need to escape social conflict. Demands for monitoring of migrants grow. Griefers hide easily within diasporic populations.

Power Struggle: Unpredictable population levels mean unpredictable demands on energy infrastructure, as well as on workforce availability. Energy conflicts and availability serve as a secondary driver for migration, but greatly reduce ease of movement.