The planet's first legal think tank dedicated to climate migrants
Category: ‘Faces’
We are currently in the process of collecting individual stories about people who have been directly affected by climate change and those with the means to help. After our official launch, you will find their testimonies here.
11 March 2022 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Ole ter Wey
In this week’s interview, correspondent Ole ter Wey talks to climate activist Grace Fong about the importance of climate education. Drawing on her very personal experiences with the impacts of climate change in her home country of Fiji, Grace Fong provides insights into what led her to work for Climate Science, an international organization that promotes comprehensive and accessible climate education for children and young adults around the world.
“Imagine if the politicians that are in power right now had this climate change education when they were in school. That can impact all their decisions they make right now taking into account the whole problem.“
04 March 2022 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Polly Nash
In this interview, correspondent Polly Nash talks to fire fighter Cami Schafer about one of the many frightening effects of climate change; the ever-growing threat of wildfires around the world. Last year California was hit by the Dixie Fire, the largest single forest fire in the state’s history. Burning for four months, the Dixie Fire destroyed over a thousand buildings and devastated entire towns. Cami Schafer, who was fighting this fire alongside her colleagues, gives insights into her daily work, her struggles and most importantly, what kept her sane and motivated during the demanding operation.
“You try not to be emotionally attached but you can’t really help it. Those are people’s houses, people’s livelihood, that’s all they have. But then we have to hustle and keep going the next day.”
25 November 2021 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Laura Corrigan
What role can mitigation and adaptation play in preventing climate migration? What barriers exist to the implementation of long term strategies?
In this interview, correspondent Laura Corrigan and Hellen Dawo discuss adaptation and mitigation as responses to the climate crisis. Hellen shares her insights on the complexity of sustainable entrepreneurship, the collaboration needed to create successful businesses that protect natural areas and the importance of context when looking at climate issues. If long term solutions to climate problems are to be reached and further displacement avoided, affected communities must not only be brought into the conversation – they must be brought into the work of finding and implementing solutions.
“When you’re dealing with global issues, or national issues or regional issues, it’s always more complex than it really seems, and the solutions really do need a lot of collaboration. And that’s where it gets messy.”
Hellen Dawo (MSc.) is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Campus Fryslân, University of Groningen. She completed an undergraduate science degree in her home country of Kenya, where, as a chemist, she held a variety of diverse roles in the industry before continuing to pursue a career in research in The Netherlands. Her research now focuses on the interaction between entrepreneurs and sensitive ecological and cultural environments.
23 November 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent Ella Kiyomi Dobson
In this interview, Jordan Hartzell provides an overview of the work The Farmlink Project does to redirect food waste and serve food insecure communities. Jordan speaks to how working with this organisation has changed how she thinks about food systems and networks. The extensive contributions of food waste to the climate crisis have helped Jordan and her team urge the importance of changing consumption and buying processes in the US. Jordan provides insights into the recent transformations within the organisation in order to adapt and better serve communities affected by intensifying weather events, such as in Texas and Louisiana.
“Thinking about the supply chain and the food system, and all of the different things that gointo figuring out how food gets to the grocery store and how it’s priced has really changed my perspective. Another thing that was really enthralling, along with seeing the direct impact on the communities receiving food, was seeing the impact Farm Link had on the people getting involved.”
Jordan Hartzell is from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and is currently a senior at Brown University studying Applied Mathematics – Computer Science. As a member of the founding team of The Farmlink Project, she has occupied several roles during a gap year from college. She started as the lead of the logistics team, where she wrote protocols for Farmlink’s food-moving operations and built relationships throughout the agricultural supply chain. In the fall of 2020, Jordan created the Product Team in order to design a sustainable model for rescuing surplus produce at scale; in co-leading this team with Jack Rehnborg, Jordan and her teammates built a software tool to decrease the time, energy, and logistical headache involved in coordinating Farmlink’s delivery operations. Now that her gap year is complete, Jordan is playing a supporting role to new Farmlink fellows as the team grows. When she’s not working with Farmlink, Jordan loves to rock climb and read.
1 October 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent Ole Ter Wey
In this interview, Correspondent Ole Ter Wey and Meteorologist Mauna Eria speak about the adverse impacts of extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels in the small-island nation of Kiribati. Together, they explore the concepts of “Migration with Dignity”, implying a need for making preparations for the inevitable, and “Resilience”, a movement towards building a future on the Kiribati Islands. But local adaptation and mitigation efforts aren’t enough, Mauna Eria urges the international community to take action by reducing their own carbon emissions and help in the mitigation of perhaps the greatest crisis of our era.
In this interview, Dr. Donald Kingsbury dives into his research on energy transitions and carbon capitalism with Earth Refuge Correspondent Samantha Quadros. Dr. Kingsbury saw how his community, located in the rust belt of the United States, was being affected by economic restructuring and NAFTA, which inspired him to look more closely into the social, cultural and political structures that facilitate resource extraction in Latin America. During his time in Venezuela working with social movements, he came to realise how deep the extraction of resources, ie. oil, underwrites political economy and social identity. Adopting lithium and water extraction as an example, Dr. Kingsbury explores the nuanced intersections between climate change, displacement and inequalities in the extraction sphere.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this interview on our Earth Refuge Spotify:
You can buy his book Climate Changed: Refugee Border Stories and the Business of Miseryhere.
Daniel Briggs is an experienced ethnographer and social researcher who has studied some of the most disturbing and challenging social realities of the 21st century. He is currently a part-time Professor of Criminology at Universidad Europea, and an award-winning author in the field of Criminology.
In this conversation with Yumna, he discusses what ethnographic research entails, and what led him to research and write ‘Climate Changed: Refugee Border Stories and the Business of Misery’, an honest, humane account about the rapid downsizing of the world’s natural resources and the consequences this has for millions who are displaced from their home countries because of politically-instigated and economically-justified war and conflict. The book is centred upon interviews with 110 refugees who arrived into Europe from 2015-2018 and observations of refugee camps, border crossings, inner-city slums, social housing projects, NGO and related refugee associations. Briggs sets this against the geopolitical and commercial enterprise that dismantled refugees’ countries in the international chase for wilting quantities of the world’s natural resources.
“… i counted about [200 people] in [Basmane Square] … and there was a boy, probably 2 years of age at the time…playing with a [discarded] lifejacket as if it were a toy with which he didn’t know how to play… You realise that actually, these people want everything you or I want in life: a safe place for their family to live, a job, and to not be terrorised. And I just thought to myself, “My God, that kid has no idea what has happened in his home country, no idea why he is sitting on a dirty pavement playing with a lifejacket…it really brings it home”
A public interest lawyer and entrepreneur who has worked in DC and throughout Asia, Rebecca Ballard founded @MavenWomen to meet an unmet market need for additional socially conscious options for professional women’s attire, and went on to found the recently launched @The.Fashion.Connection (FTS) to “move the needle” in the global garment industry through product creation and partnership, consumer education, and advocacy. This year, FTS is highlighting the links between the impacts of fast fashion and human trafficking. During this interview, she discusses the vulnerability of the – largely female – fast fashion workforce, the modern day slavery landscape, and the overlaps between fast fashion, human trafficking, and climate justice.
In this interview, Dr Anna Oltman, researcher and lecturer at University College London, talks about human rights and the politics of refugees and asylum with Nikoleta Vasileva. She explains the key terms relating to migration and some common misconceptions in the Global North and society as a whole. She sheds light on the policy of deterrence that States adopt to discourage migration and how it affects refugees. Finally, Dr Oltman touches upon the role of gender and sexual orientation in asylum applications, as well as on some key takeaways from her research to benefit activists and displaced people alike.
Dr Oltman is a lecturer and researcher in international human rights with a focus on the politics of refugees and asylum. She has worked with several refugee resettlement agencies and is a committed advocate for displaced people and migrants regardless of immigration status. Currently, she teaches two modules on the politics of human rights at University College London and her research focuses on the institutional and political sources of compliance with international human rights agreements.
Take Aways
85% of refugees* worldwide are hosted in developing countries. 73% of refugees* worldwide are hosted in neighbouring countries.
*This includes refugees and Venezuelans displaced abroad
39% of refugees are hosted in only five countries:
Turkey – 3.6 million Colombia – 1.8 million Pakistan – 1.4 million Uganda – 1.4 million Germany – 1.1 million
Relative to their national populations, Lebanon hosted the largest number of refugees (1 in 7).
Only a fraction of the millions displaced found a solution during 2010-2019, “A Decade of Displacement”
40% of the forcibly displaced persons were children: An estimated 30 – 34 million of the 79.5 million forcibly displaced persons were children below 18 years of age.
30 April 2021 – conducted by Shake Up The Establishment
In this episode, Yumna Kamel speaks with Stephanie from @shakeuptheestab – a youth-led non-profit promoting climate justice & political action in what is currently called Canada – as part of their Earth Week interview series. They discuss what climate migration is, what climate justice means, and the projects that Earth Refuge is carrying out to address this crisis and find legal protections for impacted communities.
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