Start practising hospitality! Get used to welcoming newcomers!
As climate change progresses, Canada will need to welcome climate refugees who are displaced by rising sea levels and desertification. Mass migrations were part of every climate event that I have studied. So let’s open our hearts and home to newcomers who have become homeless. Manitoba’s strength is its spirit of generosity and its volunteerism, and we will need to draw on that strength to demonstrate resilience and adaptive capacity.
Mass migrations are a human dimension of current climate change adaptation.
Let’s look at a previous climate event called The Migration Period. A series of severe droughts in the Asian steppes between 360 and 550 was followed by volcanic explosions in the sixth century. This climate event caused massive societal upheaval across Asia and Europe.
- 370-453 – Huns invade Europe. Massive migrations follow for 300 years.
- 410 – Visigoths sack Rome
- 476 – the Roman Empire collapses
- 541-542 – pandemic of the bubonic plague
- 550 – the Gupta Empire collapses
- 632 – Sasanian Empire collapses.
The Dark Age that coincided with this climate event is called The Roman Dark Age or the Medieval Dark Age. It lasted 400+ years to Early Middle Ages (10th century) and was accompanied by a loss of literacy and loss of technology.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5977/486.full?rss=1
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/how-little-ice-age-shaped-civilisation