Nomaadide sajand - Kuidas kliimamurrang üle elada

by Gaia Vince

A tremendous upheaval is coming this century: with every degree of temperature increase, roughly a billion people will be pushed outside the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. While we can and should do everything we can to mitigate the impact of climate change, the brutal truth is that huge swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable. From Bangladesh to Sudan to the southern and western United States, and in cities from Cardiff to New Orleans to Shanghai, the quadruple threat of drought, heat, wildfires and flooding will uproot billions of people. Mass migration will remake the world in the 21st century, either by accident, or design - and as Royal Society Science Prize-winning science journalist Gaia Vince shows us, far better the latter.

In this galvanizing and persuasive call to arms, Vince demonstrates how we can manage the coming climate migration. But the vital, counter-intuitive message of this book is that migration is not the problem - it's the solution. Not only will billions of people have no choice but to relocate, but advanced countries are facing demographic crises due to shrinking, ageing populations and the resulting labour shortages. Drawing on a wealth of eye-opening data, Vince describes how migration demonstrably brings tremendous benefits not only to migrants themselves, but to host countries, who benefit economically as well as culturally. A borderless world is not something to fear: in fact a World Bank study suggested that it would triple global GDP. As Vince shows us, we will increasingly be moving north, into the Arctic circle, and to countries like Canada, Greenland and Russia that will only benefit from rising temperatures and increased populations.

While the planetary emergency of climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves, the inevitability of mass migration has been largely ignored. In Nomad Century, Vince provides, for the first time, an examination of the most pressing question facing humanity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Environment, Climate Change, Politics, Audiobook, Sociology

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2022

About the author

Gaia Vince is a freelance British environmental journalist. broadcaster and non-fiction author.
Vince, a dual British and Australian national, is a chemist who studied at King’s College, London and then at the University of Bordeaux before undertaking a masters in engineering design. To fund her university studies, Vince freelanced as a journalist and at the Science Museum, building a tandem career which led her to leave research and take up writing full-time. She writes for The Guardian, and, in a column called Smart Planet, for BBC Online. She was previously news editor of Nature and online editor of New Scientist.

Reviews

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alarmist (because it needs to be) account of what is going to happen due to climate change in the next seventy-five years. A sad, but true story we are living and writing with our lives as a species on planet Earth. When I was in junior high we went on a nature walk looking for frogs. They were, our teacher told us, the amphibian indicator species that needed and thrived in freshwater habitats; they would tell us when the environment was degrading. Now 200 species of them have gone extinct. Their croaks, chirps and ribbits recede into the past and we humans plug along (what else can we do?) as though nothing has happened.

Gaia Vince is an environmental journalist. I had read her book, ‘Transcendence: How humans evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time, and found it highly readable. Vince’s journalist style makes this narrative engaging and informative. She broaches a subject not too many talk about, but since I’ve read this book, I’m seeing it pop up all over the place. Either I wasn’t paying attention or this cup is full now, and the scientists are talking. The second part is about solutions, a little more dense and unfamiliar. Not a breezy read, but well worth the time.

In the first part of the book, Vince details the human migration that is to come. I was glued to my seat with that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Vince says all of humanity will take part. We will either be migrating ourselves or receiving migrants. This is how we have always survived.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in 2022 reached 420 parts per million, is already higher than it’s been for at least the past 3 million years. It’s heating the planet beyond anything humans have experienced during our entire evolutionary history - and fast. As far as we know, only the instantaneous Cretaceous-Palaeogene meteorite impact event, 66 million years ago, caused more rapid global climate change than the current human-induced global heating. During that event, which famously killed off the dinosaurs, about 600-1,000 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide was released (with enormous amounts of other climate-changing gases). Now, we are the asteroid, taking just twenty years to release 600 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.

Vince calls fire, heat, drought, and flood the four horsemen of the Athropocene. Migration from hotter, drier climates will become the only way to survive. To say that our countries are unprepared is an understatement. In the US today, we hear that our immigration system is broken. What happens when the people in the US border states become migrants themselves, fleeing intolerable heat and drought?

By 2070, the earth’s tropical belt will regularly experience temperatures as hot as the Sahara. Some 3.5 billion people live in this planetary girdle, which encompasses large parts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. By the end of the century, that tropical belt will be thousands of kilometers broader. By 2100, temperatures could rise to the point that just going outside for a few hours in some places, including parts of India and eastern China, ‘will result in death even for the fittest of humans under shaded, well-ventilated conditions,’ according to one study. Extreme hotspots include mid-latitude North America, the Mediterranean, the Sahel in Africa, and the rapidly desertifying deep Amazon in South America. Those living in these places will need to migrate to survive, and they will begin relocating well before 2070.

All of it is scary and formidable, but Vince maintains an optimistic tone throughout, reminding her readers that national borders are a political construct, but, viewed historically, it is our national identities and borders that are the anomaly. I admit it’s hard for me to be as optimistic as the author. Still, it was reassuring to be reminded that people can and often do cooperate in times of crisis.

When the wealthy migrate south to their private islands or their summer homes, we think nothing of it. When the poor and destitute migrate for survival, it becomes an invasion, something to denigrate. At any moment, any of us could become a climate refugee. Look at what has happened in Maui and Hawaii’s affected island communities. Wildfires raging and people with no time to grab anything, just leaving with the clothes on their backs.

Climate change is not a political issue, but it has been politicized by those with their own interests at heart. It is something that will happen to all of us. The heatwaves, the fires, and the floods, the droughts and food shortages, the crops that won’t grow, none of that will be changed by rhetoric or denial. If you can’t get a copy of this book, I recommend you listen to Gaia Vince on youtube or any of the numerous other scientists that are now talking about this topic.

[donna backshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this five stars, but Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World was a super dense book, even for a science nerd like me. I had to read it in small spurts, because there was simply too much to absorb. I feel like it could have been presented in an easier-to-digest way, so it felt less like a textbook and more everyman friendly.

Plus, it was disheartening, even though the author tried desperately to infuse hope into her message. If we get everything right, and turn things around, which seems quite the stretch with the "I got mine" mentality running rampant in the world, and especially in America, then we might be okay. Might. But will the right people hear the message and act for the good of all? Or should we all start planning to move to Iceland?

My sons claim I won't stop talking about this book, and that means it's impacting me in all the right ways. I'm a better person for knowing, but also terrified. What can just one person do? I guess we'll find out.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

At risk of saying what everyone else is saying, this is a really important book, because it's covering something that hardly anyone seems to be thinking about, but that has a huge impact on our future. It's not really a climate change science book - for that you'd be better off with something like Bill McGuire's Hothouse Earth - it's more about the politics and economics of dealing with a huge impact of climate change will have - mass migration.

Arguably this means it isn't really a science book at all (anyone who thinks economics is a real science either doesn't know what science is, or doesn't know what economics is). However, because the impending crisis is driven by a scientific issue, and has to respond to scientific forecasts, I think it's worth thinking of it within the popular science canon. What Gaia Vince does very powerfully is show how the changing climate is going to force humanity into large scale migration, with most likely well over a billion people needing to move away from the hottest regions, either within countries or internationally.

Vince is very good on the implications of what she describes as the 'four horsemen of the Anthropocene' - fire, heat, drought and flooding. At the time the book is published, thousands are dying in floods in Pakistan, in a year when we've experienced wildfires, extreme heat and lack of water for crops across the world. As Vince makes clear, while settled people will cling on longer that is strictly feasible, there comes a point when they have to move, becoming refugees - and this will happen on a scale that far exceeds anything we've experienced in the past.

A lot of the book focusses on what will be necessary to deal with such a scale of migration. Vince is convincing in pointing out the benefits of having migrant workers - how they don't suppress wages, but rather boost the economy, as long as they become part of the community where they move into and so spend money in that economy. She is also good at highlighting all the barriers that are in place that will make it difficult to deal with mass migration. This is a massive wake-up call that we have to start thinking about things differently - as soon as possible.

Vince knows that this won't be easy - but she does tend to underestimate what has to be overcome. There's a good argument here that refugees, if allowed to work, don't 'take our jobs', but when it comes to the extra resources that are needed to support them, Vince resorts to hand-waving. We read for example 'There are obvious triggers: immigration can put pressure on host communities when housing, schools, healthcare and other services becomes strained. This can be avoided through careful planning and adequate investment from governments to manage the costs and delivery of services for the enlarged population.' But at a time when governments are struggling to cover costs of a pandemic and a global energy and food price crisis, it's hard to see where all the money would come from for new housing, schools etc. - especially when there's not enough provision already.

Similarly, it's hard to see how Vince's vision of the UN becoming a sort of worldwide EU (bearing in mind all the problems the EU has) would work in practice. Not only is this unlikely in terms of imagining countries like the US, China and Russia would buy into it, but also it's not at all clear where its money would come from. We read 'funds to assist city expansion could come from the new global body for this, the UN Organisation for Global Migration (with powers), which would ease the pain.' But where would that money come from, except the countries that need the money in the first place?

As far as individual input to reduce the impact of climate change, Vince is good on almost all the things we can do like eating less meat and not driving petrol cars... however, like most academics, she has a blind spot when it comes to frequent flying. She repeatedly mentions how she travels all over the place, visiting different continents. But she fails to say that by far the biggest impact a frequent flyer has on climate change is their flying. There's a huge element of 'do as I say, not as I do' - but academics have to realise this has to stop. No more jollies to conferences. No more visiting distant places to do research when local researchers can do this on your behalf. And one final moan. I'm a big enthusiast for nuclear fusion, but Vince's claim that 'the first fusion reactors could start entering grids by 2030' is fantasy, as anyone who has followed the industry over its many decades would realise.

As is often the case with a book like this, then, it is far better on the problems than the solutions. But that doesn't make it any less important, because, unlike climate change itself, the problems described here have not been widely grasped by politicians or the public. This is a book anyone involved or interested in public policy should be reading as a matter of urgency, with the hope that some realistic solutions can be developed.

[Simms · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure who this book is really for... The book is part explication of the dire consequences of a potential 4°C warming of global temperatures, part prediction of the ways human society will or may have to change due to migration, part suggestion of policies and plans that could or should be implemented to either slow the temperature rise or effectively deal with the migration ... with mixed results.

As a warning of the effects of climate change, it is grim and unreassuring, as it no doubt is meant to be; indeed, the book seems most effective as a piece of scaremongering to get people motivated to address the climate (and I say that in the most positive sense).

As a prediction of the changes to come, it is a mixed bag, sometimes intriguing (such as the discussion of projected changes in habitable zones in Greenland or Canada) and sometimes head-scratchingly pat (such as when the author flatly predicts that the greening of the electrical grid will have been accomplished by the time her children are in their 30s). The book also seems to entirely disregard predictions of any political ramifications of the predicted changes, including conflict; mass migration seems to be expected with tremendous peaceful cooperation between nations. I understand that prediction of such geopolitical factors is wildly difficult, but without them it raises questions of the utility of the entire exercise.

Likewise it is mixed as a collection of policy proposals. Many are quite reasonable, if vague, but they are often things that the reader cannot possibly affect unless they work specifically in the fields of public policy or urban planning, or in the government more generally; more to the point, much of the suggestions regard the author's theorized newly-built cities in the far north, which are decades or more away from reality -- hopefully these urban-planning or government-employed readers are quite young! In other cases the proposals are vague to the point of irrelevancy or seem unmoored from reality, such as when the author proposes that private aircraft be banned unless they are electric (with seemingly little regard to the energy-density problems that render cost-effective all-electric air travel a pipe dream with current technology).

In the end, the only real actionable takeaway the reader can get from this book is a broad "be more concerned about climate change!" (unless one is lucky enough to be a teenager who is dying to go into urban planning and has a really great memory). That's a fine lesson, to be sure, but reading 280-odd pages to get it is perhaps not worth the time commitment, and most people who are interested and receptive enough to the book's premise to actually pick it up are already going to be onboard.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the ARC.

[N Rizkalla · Rating 1 out of 5]

The argument of this book is very flawed.

After drawing a bleak view of how most of the earth will not be inhabitable due to global warming she offers the most naive solution: 11 billion people have to migrate in a handful of few places that will be inhabitable from a climate perspective. The 11 billion people who left their homes, assets and everything will be staked in mega cities in Canada, Siberia and similar places. Then you have to expect that this mass migrations will lead to people living in harmony, thriving, paying taxes and voting for a democratic government- which will not be a nation-state but a city-state.

This is simply absurd. I can’t even call it naivety!

The author twists facts which are often manipulated, truncated and put out of context to support her flawed arguments. When you twist facts so much, you will eventually fall into contradictions, which is the basic theme of this book.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew this was dense.

And very, very repetitive.

It's good, it's dire, and it paints a bleak picture for humanity.

On the plus side: we have the technology to fix the climate and the future.

On the down side: we're going to have to change literally everything about ourselves to do it—and rely on corporations and governments to do their parts.

[Ryan Barker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Punchline: If you want something that's well-considered and well-researched on the topic. This book isn't it. Maybe read Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink, Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, or Now Is The Time For Trees. Or listen to the "How do we Survive" podcast instead.

I really wanted to like this book. I agree with some of the basic premises she uses to base the book around (climate change, challenges of preventing it, and possible consequences of it.) But the approach of it is rather bizarre. She takes the worst possible outcomes which are far from a certainty and says "this will definitely happen".

Not only that but when she says "studies show..." a lot of time she doesn't cite her sources and when you go and track down the sources a lot of times it's a "we're doing back of the napkin math here, no one can really estimate this accurately at this point and time."

And when she talks about potential solutions, it's like she Googled "climate migration", and "climate solutions" and just made a bulleted list without reading any of the articles about which are science fiction, which are based on practical science that's being implemented, and which we've made baby steps for, but may not ever be practical.

[Kevin Halter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nomad Century by Gaia Vince is an eye opening and for me sad read.
The main premise of the book is that rising temperatures and the accompanying results will necessitate that large portions of the global population will need to relocate in order to survive. It is one of the first books that I've read which deals with things in a fairly pragmatic manner not arguing for a belief in Climate Change but instead addressing the ramifications of that change in an anthropological view.
The book itself is not all doom and gloom and the author gives some very good advice on ways that things can change and possibly recover, BUT we need to be prepared if things get worse. The author has hope that things can still be slowed or changed but as a reader, I'm sad to say, that I'm no longer sure I share that optimism. The author also offers suggestions for government and global changes that would help facilitate the Great Migration of billions of people over the coming decades.
Thank you to #NetGalley, #FlatironBooks, and Gaia Vince for the ARC of #NomadCentury.

[Mona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super wichtiges Buch, aber die hohe Infodichte geht teils auf Kosten des Leseflusses, gerade am Anfang hat sich auch viel wiederholt. Die Auswirkungen auf die politischen Strömungen durch schlecht gemanagete Migration sind mir leider zu kurz gekommen. Das letzte Drittel, wenn es um nachhaltiges Wirtschaften geht, wird dann wieder besser. Trotzdem bin ich froh, das Buch gelesen und viel gelernt zu haben. 3,5*

[Jake · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nomad Century has been published and received with much fanfare and critical acclaim in certain quarters. However, this acclaim should be viewed with suspicion. While the book is often well written, it's claims bold and it's prognosis of the state of climate mitigation seems fair it is poorly researched, lacks engagement with a gigantic literature on migration, let alone the burgeoning and complex literature on climate and migration.

Vince's core argument is that attempts to mitigate the climate crisis are failing and this is likely to leave vast areas of the world close to uninhabitable for large periods of the year. She suggests the response to this, for many people, will be to migrate to more accommodating regions, particularly in the Global North. The first part of this is not particularly controversial, however in theorising massive South to North migration Vince ignores much research that suggests this is unlikely to be the case. The failure of the great climate migration to materialise has many causes, but one of the key reasons is migration isn't as simple as just a push and pull cost benefit analysis. Instead, people often migrate to where people they know are, and migrants are not always acting off perfect information, with evidence of migrants moving to areas more environmentally vulnerable than the places they left.

While migration is at the core of the argument Vince continues the techno-utopianism of her previous work annoyingly writing what technologies 'will', 'would' and 'can' do in the future with little attention to the dynamics of the markets, histories and politics of technological development. The belief that technologies will in the future magically shake of the dynamics of the past, for example their connection to exploitative capitalist practices of production is dangerously naïve at best. For explorations of climate futures and their political economy see Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future.

In terms of the quality of the research and referencing the book is shockingly poor. For example in one case where Vince describes a literature review of papers on climate and migration, what she provides is a working paper on migration and development. Elsewhere, much of what she describes is not cited at all. Equally, much of what she cites is grey literature produced by lobbyists, think tanks and journalists, often with dubious credentials for example the far-right US based Cato Institute which is somewhere between a think tank and lobbying group. The paucity of her referencing means it is very hard to take any of her claims very seriously, and raises major questions about the work.

She warns the reader that much of what she will suggest is radical and to bear with her, and her research. This is hard to do as it is of such poor quality. What she suggests is radical, but there is no radical or critical assessment of the processes of politics or economics that have led to such a failure of climate mitigation and one is left feeling that similar explorations of politics and economics would be needed to overcome the xenophobia and nationalism that stands in the way of massive global migrations.

This book is poorly researched, misguided and a potentially dangerous distraction from important discussions about climate, migration and the crises of the 21st century. It is a shame that Vince has managed to generate so much engagement for a book that offers so little.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The science is irrefutable now; we have looming the biggest catastrophe that mankind has faced. Though some still choose to deny it, clinging to the conspiracy theories that abound, that this is merely a blip in the climate of the planet. In the context of the Earth’s 4.5 billion year history, it is no time at all, but the effects will still affect us all.

Last year (2022) parts of the Indian sub-continent reached a shade under 50C and we even saw 47C in Europe. The heat cause wildfires, droughts and flash flooding in other parts of the world. Most importantly it showed us the places where people are not going to be able to live in the very near future.

But what is being done about it? Well sweet FA at the moment…

There is a lot of hot air, ironically, but very little concentrated and focused effort to curb our addiction to fossil fuels and keep that global temperature rise under that critical 1.5C. What is needed is a global effort to manage and mitigate the problems that will be coming our way. One of the biggest is going to be the migration of people fleeing from their homes and looking for somewhere to live.

In this equally fascinating and terrifying book, Vince writes about how human migration and our adaptability are what made us so dominant on this planet. She lays out the reasons why we should see migration as a positive and not a negative and how the influx of people will actually solve a lot more problems that it will cause. There are numerous examples of systems that countries have adopted that have worked and how we can apply those to other countries in the more temperate lands.

This book by Gaia Vince should be essential reading for most politicians. Sadly I can’t see them doing it though, as they are too compromised by the rich and powerful who have a vested interest in keeping the present system. I fear that it will lead to huge conflicts as people are left with no choice in what they had to do to survive.

Whilst I can’t say this was a book that I liked, who can find any cheer in the impending climate doom? It was a book that I thought was really well written and comprehensive in its outlook. The masses of people suffering because they cannot live in the place they were born and being forced to move to the parts of the planet that can support them is going to make for troubled times and we need to have proper plans in place to deal with it.

[Camelia Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

The gist (in no particular order):

1. Migration is a part of human history and homosapien’s adaptive edge; 2. Climate change will make a lot of places (mostly global south) inhabitable therefore migration (to North America and Europe, rich and relatively less affected by climate change) will intensify; 3. Race is an arbitrary concept, therefore race based immigration policy is racism; 4. Economically, rich countries will need more migrants because of their aging population; 5. Rich countries have benefited economically and socially from immigrants in the past and they have a duty to help those in need; 6. Rich countries’ current immigration policies will become more and more costly.

Therefore, to deal with disasters caused by climate change, the author argues:

1. A new mindset regarding immigration is needed, alone with new global immigration policies; 2. Open border does not mean getting rid of nation states; 3. On the contrary, strong nation states with good governance are necessary to manage large scale migrations. It is clear that both rich countries and strong nation states with good governance refer to the democratic countries in North America and Europe, not countries like Russia who will probably be the biggest benefactor of climate change.

Immigration is always a contentious issue. I agree with the majority of the author’s arguments, although I find the open border plus strong nation state argument effectively an oxymoron. Mass migration caused by climate change will happen. Rich countries must learn how to manage. However, it’s all very well to argue on paper, but when it comes to individual feelings, no amount of economical data will persuade those who feel their way of life is threatened. Simply by labeling them racist will help no one. If the human race were any good at learning from history, the current man-made climate problem wouldn’t have happened. Alas, we are forgetful creatures terrible at long term planning and excellent at fighting each other.

[Philipp]

Absolute Leseempfehlung - schenkt dieses Buch eurer Familie, Freundinnen und Freunden.

Der Aufbau ist schnell erklärt:

1. Wie wird sich die Klimakatastrophe in den nächsten 75 Jahren global auswirken?
2. Wie hat sich globale Migration in tausenden von Jahren verändert und was ist nun zu erwarten?
3. Was muss geschehen, damit wir als Menschheit die Katastrophe bestmöglich überstehen können?

Das Buch ist durchgehend informativ und reiht einen spannenden Aspekt an den nächsten, ich habe mir lange nicht mehr so viele Notizen zu einem Buch gemacht. Obwohl ich mich für gut informiert halte, hatte ich auf jeder Seite das Gefühl, etwas Neues zu lernen. Vor allem werden viele Talking Points geliefert, die in hitzigen Diskussionen zu den Themen Klimawandel und/oder Migration sehr nützlich sein können.
Die Autorin ist gerade zum Ende hin für mein Gefühl dann doch sehr (techno)optimistisch, aber wenn man sich dessen bewusst ist, kann man es gut einordnen. Auch werden einige Fakten häufiger wiederholt, aber das stört kaum. Sehr schade fand ich persönlich, dass der Systemfrage im Hinblick auf kapitalistische Produktionsweisen fast kein Raum gegeben wurde. Die Verteilungsfrage und Ungleichheit wurden dafür aber gelegentlich kritisch hinterfragt.

Alles in allem ist es trotzdem ein großartiges Sachbuch, das ich jedem nur ans Herz legen kann. Es hilft vor allem enorm bei der Einordnung des aktuellen Diskurses - wenn es nicht so dramatisch und traurig wäre, könnte man über die absurde Kurzsichtigkeit in aktuellen Diskussionen rund um Schuldenbremse, kaputtgesparte Sozialsysteme und kriminalisierte Seenotretter nur den Kopf schütteln. Der Diskurs ist vergiftet von konservativen und rechten Ideologen, die unsere Zukunft Hand in Hand mit der BILD und Lobbyverbänden verspielen, um kurzfristige Profite zu generieren.

Darum: Lest bitte dieses Buch.

[Sille · Rating 3 out of 5]

Väga tahaks, et kohalikud kliimamuutuse eitajad (eriti kui nad on ühe teatud erakonna toetajad, sest eriti nende jaoks on siin muudki potentsiaalselt silmi avavat) seda loeks, kui mitte muul põhjusel, siis äkki vähemalt natukene avarduks see vaatenurk “mis kliimamuutusest te räägite, minu akna taga on küll juulikuus seitseteist kraadi sooja”.
Raamat on väga huvitavat ja rahutuks tegevat mõtteainet pakkuv, ent autori välja pakutud ideede suhtes olen ma küll ülimalt skeptiline. Nähes, kui palju me (= inimkond) suudame praegu või oleme üldse kunagi ajaloos suutnud koostööd teha selleks, et kòigil maailma inimestel oleks mugav ja turvaline elu, siis ei, kahjuks arvan ma, et 4-kraadine temperatuuritõus koos kõigi selle kohutavate tagajärgedega ei too kaasa olukorda, kus me võtame end seninägematuks koostööks kokku ning tulemusena kogu maailma elanikkond elab põhjas kõrgtehnoloogilistes linnades süsinikuneutraalset elu. Ma arvan kahjuks siiski, et tulemuseks on kaos ja konfliktid.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts by talking about immigration through climate change which has already started happening. Vince has good discussion points on why immigration is not bad, and actually improves the country they are entering. There is discussion on what we have been doing and what we should be doing along with the consequences of what will happen if we do little or nothing. This is a very thought-provoking book on many hot button topics.

I received an audio copy of these book thought NetGalley for an honest review.

[Teodora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read about how migration could be the key to a stable and fair future in the context of climate change. At the same time, it is quite dense and difficult to digest. Here are some takeaways:
- People relocating is a natural human behavior; migration is a successful survival adaptation.
- Places where people currently live will be uninhabitable; we must ensure a safe, fair process for migration, overseen by a global agency with real powers.
- We need to redirect the productive capacity of society to address climate change and the looming demographic crisis.
- Migration is an economic, not a security issue; it drives economic growth and reduces poverty. So instead of fighting it, we should embrace and prepare for it.
- Rich countries and poor countries must invest in alliances that increase training and education, and climate resilience. Rich countries are facing demographic decline, whereas there’s a population boom in the poor countries. Both sides could benefit from cooperation.
- Decarbonizing our societies must be done urgently and globally, including through taxation and incentives.
- Ice melt and coral reef loss are already dangerously accelerating: solar reflectivity, such as cloud brightening, should be deployed without delay, and other technologies to reduce temperatures should be explored.
- We must work urgently to reverse the destruction of ecosystems and restore biodiversity to build resilience and protect natural systems.

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ive read about climate change and migration.

[Mr Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘A great upheaval is coming. It will change us, and our planet.’

Vince tackles the elephant in the room with regards to the climate emergency with a refreshing frankness. Climate migration and the protective regulations surrounding migrants need to be front and centre, as tens of millions continue their migration.

Vince makes the early point, that as a species, we have always been migrants. ‘Migration will save us, because it is migration that made us who we are.’ She argues that ‘a radical rethink’ is required and that ‘Migration is not the problem; it is the solution.’

This is not a simplistic nor naïve proposal by Vince, suggesting that millions of migrants would simply converge of countries that are least impacted by the climate crisis, but rather an admission that as a species, we have always moved and adapted to our environment. ‘Migration is our way out of this crisis. Migration made us. This might be hard to see in the context of today’s geopolitical identities and constraints, where it can feel like an aberration, but, viewed historically, it is our national identities and borders that are the anomaly.’
With numbers of migrants estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, the attitudes and ideology that we have been taught about migrants is tackled well in this book. Vince urges us to look beyond the narratives of country borders and to recognise that we are a global species, with global responsibilities. Although fully aware of the narrowing window for action, she delivers the clear positive argument that we can be bystanders, or that we can be active participants in the solutions. She states, ‘Human movement on a scale never before seen will dominate this century and remake our world….
Have no doubt, we are facing a species emergency – but we can manage it. We can survive, but to do so will require a planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken.’

The Four Horsemen of the Anthropocene

Vince takes the time to describe the situation that humanity has placed itself in and with a wonderfully titled chapter (above), outlines the risks, challenges and impacts of the Four Horsemen of fire, heat, drought and flood. She outlines that, ‘Fire, heat, drought and flood will transform our world this century.’ With news stories almost on a daily basis on these four amplified risks, it is hard to disagree with her analysis- especially now, with tens of millions of people displaced owing to floods in Pakistan. She persuasively argues that ‘We are leaving the sanctuary of an unusually stable climatic era in Earth’s history- one which enabled crops to be grown and the flourishing of human civilizations.’ Into a world which has already reached 420 parts per million, the highest that it has been for at least the past 3 million years and one which will likely hit 450ppm by 2032. She castigates countries and companies who are ‘not making anywhere near enough progress to meet the pledged emissions standards.’ Climate attribution studies are already concluding that extreme weather events are many times more likely as a result of human caused climate change and are on the increase. Vince argues convincingly that, ‘A liveable planet is not a lost cause. It is still within our agency to turn this around and we must try. Every degree of temperature rise we avoid, the safer we will be; every tenth of a degree matters.’

Global and social cooperation is a must

As Vince states that migration will be essential to human survival, collaboration and social cooperation need to embedded within ideologies and beliefs. She highlights the recent judgment in 2020 where ‘the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that climate refugees cannot be sent home, meaning that a state would be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returns someone to a country where – due to the climate crisis – their life is in danger.’ Our shared humanity and shared reminder that we only have this one Earth, need to be paramount. Legal protections for climate migrants, whether moving from repeated drought or flood zones, need to be enshrined. Accepting and accommodating migrants enriches societies and countries Vince points out, as she details GDP increases that occur and increased rights that are developed by policies that are accommodating. ‘Decades of anti-migration rhetoric and misinformation means there is massive misconception in rich nations about the basic facts of migration.’ Decoupling the political and arbitrary lines on maps that ‘define’ identity and recognising that the world faces a crisis which can only be solved through cooperation and a shared sense of humanity is the necessary step.

Diverging on geoengineering
I finally found myself disagreeing with Vince on her views on geoengineering, though I accepted the moral position from where she was coming. She accepts the dangerous uncertainty of geoengineering when she says ‘If we turned down the temperature of the planet, fewer people would be forced to migrate, and those who have been displaced could return. However, the methods for doing so, known as geoengineering, are mostly untried and controversial.’ Her reasons for at least keeping an open mind on geoengineering are certainly laudable and centred in the needs of migrants.
‘For me, the morally right thing is to do whatever we can so that our fellow humans can live in a safe climate where they have enough to eat. This will mean helping those living in danger and hardship to migrate to safety; and reducing global temperatures so that climate stability is restored.’ To continue to quote her fully ‘It means all efforts for cooling must be considered, with the more feasible all propelled forward.’

Vince begins to close her arguments by exploring the food and water crises, accepts that these will lead to conflicts and explores options that could be considered. Her final points are that colossal migration is inevitable, but how we respond to it is not. ‘The question is whether we will manage the transition through calm preparation or wait until hunger and conflict erupt – an unconscionable outcome that would endanger us all.’



The absurdity of migration

This is not a text about reducing emissions, nor about corporate blame. This is a text that simply acknowledges where we are and looks for future management of an inevitable problem. Vince makes the repeated point that simply being passive bystanders, responding to the latest climate disaster with a wringing of the hands, is no longer an acceptable or palatable choice. ‘But today we lack a coherent plan; we are simply experiencing our world heating up, and reacting to each new shock – each drought, each typhoon, each blazing forest, each heaving boat of migrants – with a new patch-up.’

Her final point is that it is absurd that we have reached this point, but that it would be even more absurd if we continued to ignore the mass migration of people.

‘It is absurd that we are considering the mass migration of billions of people. It’s absurd that we are continuing to heat the planet, knowing the consequences.
Migration is inevitable, often necessary, and should be facilitated. But a situation in which billions of people are forced to leave their homes because parts of the world have been made unliveable is a tragedy. To a degree, this situation is not yet inevitable.’

‘Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come, in yours and my discharge’

[John Kaufmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book, in my mind, was more about refugees in general than anything specific about climate refugees. And it was more about how they can benefit their host countries, why we shouldn't be afraid, etc. Good for what it was -- but don't expect much about how climate change is impacting particular countries and which portion of those populations it is affecting (other than the opening chapter, which gives some climate context).

[Bernardo Ercoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Climate change is a problem, especially for poor countries and denatality is a problem especially for rich countries.
The author here explain her thesis which is simply as that: be the people free to migrate. Of course migration has to be regulated, facilitated and organized - a sort of action that governments have to embrace rather than a reaction to a phenomenon which it happens anyway. And it is not an isolated happening due to climate change: people (i mean, the whole human species) have roamed on the planed since it has been created. We are made to migrate and climate change will be another reason to do so.

It is plenty of examples, both from recent times and from ancient era. It gives suggestions and ideas and there is no previous knowledge required.

I personally changed my view about immigration thanks to this book, I've always overlooked the open-border policy but now I understand that it creates temporary issues in the short terms where governments failed to organize migratory flows/

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine Lektüre, die als Basiswissen für den Klimawandel und die Migration taugt. Stellenweise ist das Buch etwas populistisch, was es aber vielleicht auch braucht, um gegen den Klimawandel kämpfen zu können und für Migration einzutreten. Wirtschaftspolitische und klimatechnisch ein sehr wichtiges Buch.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many years ago, some fellow teachers and I organized a mock election for a group of high school students. One of the candidates, an extremely bright young woman, gave an incredible speech, eviscerating the ludicrous and draconian rules and proposing several reforms that would have greatly improved the atmosphere of the school. My colleagues and I were certain she would win when a pair of boys who’d done no preparation, got up and gave a vapid, jokey presentation that was downgraded by us but won them the election. That’s what this book reminded me of: horrible statistic after horrible statistic, followed by perfectly sensible and more importantly feasible proposals for mitigation if only there wasn’t that thing called human nature. This is a powerful, important book that everyone should read. I just wish I believed her solutions were possible.

[Antonio Nunez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gaia Vince’s Nomad Century is a scary, compelling and disturbing book. We all know (even climate change deniers must know) that global warming is real, since we all feel it, and we know it brings massive forest fires and other extreme weather events. There is no longer any reasonable doubt that this is the case. What many of us haven’t considered is that these changes if they progress as they are likely to do, will bring among their unwelcome consequences massive migrations from the places most negatively impacted by climate change (the equatorial zone) to the northern hemisphere, including parts of it that so far have been few people’s favorite destinations, such as northern Canada, Greenland and Siberia. These migrations will happen because many tropical regions will become unlivable for human beings. This is a powerful prediction, one that is very likely to materialize, as places with human presence for tens or thousands of years become deserted. So Vince attempts to frame migration not as a security concern but as a great opportunity to solve the rich North birth dearth and also to reduce human inequality and poverty. Because these migrations will happen, since we very likely won’t be able to limit global warming to safer limits, it makes sense to prepare for them. Here, she is on more solid ground: if a disaster will happen, we should be as prepared as possible to minimize its effects. Then she discusses many practical matters, such as preparing cities for the immigrants, integrating them into productive activity, maximizing the upside for them and for the host society, defusing the hostility of locals. Her discussion of the future of foodstuffs is dispiriting, since most of the time most of us will be forced to become vegetarian, except for occasional treats of insect-based protein. At least she has the good sense to conclude that no democratic society is likely to vote itself into deliberately shrinking its economy for environmental or humanitarian reasons. She praises an immigrant integration program in an Italian city, while decrying that immigrants are expected to be thankful to the host nation whereas in fact being allowed to immigrate is their right under several international conventions which, although correct legally, is also infuriating and unreasonable. She stops short of proposing open borders and there doesn’t seem to be any immigration she doesn’t like, perhaps with a few tweaks. She proposes an international body with binding powers over national governments to make these decisions. All I say is, good luck with that. I can see it happening in a few years. Or not. This is a weakness of the book: she says what she thinks must be done and often says cogent and interesting things, but she seems to be tone deaf to the viability of her proposals. Developed countries are unlikely to invite millions of third worlders to move in with them, as they are unlikely to spend billions preparing for their arrival or to spend billions helping the worst off out of a sense of responsibility for having caused global warming. Americans haven’t even gotten around to indemnifying the descendants of slaves, and slavery ended 160 years ago. In fact, countries are probably more likely to withdraw from international agreements mandating they welcome refugees and other migrants and to retreat behind walls both physical and legal to avoid them. It probably won’t work, and it will hurt both the migrants and the rich countries, but it is likely to be so, human nature being what it is.

While I agree that migrations will happen, I have a much less rosy view of them than does the author. My country (Colombia) has generally been a source of migrants rather than a recipient, until recent times when we have been forced to receive over 2.000.000 refugees from the Venezuelan failed state. We have also become a transit point for immigrants from all over the world who aim to get into the US via Mexico. While former migrations (of Italians, Jews and Arabs, mainly) to our country did enrich our culture and improve our economy, I have failed to see similar benefits in the more recent ones. Massive migrations driven by economic crises are more likely to turn bad than more selective ones happening at various times and in various places (most of our current migrations are arriving to our largest cities, mainly the capital).

It seems climate-driven migrations would be more similar to the massive “bad” migrations than to the selective “good” migrations. Vince does not see this. She even praises the famous “Mariel” migration from Cuba into the US in 1980 without even mentioning that many of the migrants were common criminals that Castro set upon the US. She ignores the fact that many third world countries (including Colombia) have large and well established criminal organizations that tend to take advantage of the trust of the host country. This is already happening in many European countries, most notably The Netherlands, which has been riven by narcotic organization violence in recent times. She doesn’t address how to prevent more unlovely aspects of migrant cultures, such as forced marriages, honor killings and ritual genital mutilations from moving in along with the migrants. She simply assumes these habits will rot away in the presence of a superior liberal culture. That this hasn’t happened in European countries after decades of migration, she doesn’t consider. She says that the second generation of immigrants is much more likely to imbibe the local values than fall prey to extremism, but this doesn’t consider the many cases where the opposite happens: where the parents are more secular and the children more ideological. Her assumption that, because fertility has dropped beyond replacement point, rich societies need immigrants to take up the slack is spot on, but she doesn’t seriously engage with concerns about what short is people these will be. As a result of recent migrations and as a resident in one is the premier melting pot cities (London), the author has nothing bad to say about it, which is understandable. Yet it may fail to convince people in dissimilar situations, which I expect is not a small number.

This is not to say that Vince isn’t right, migrations will intensify as a result of climate change. Appealing to high minded motivations (such as reducing global inequality and extreme poverty, preserving life and helping those hurt by the rich countries’ policies) is of course reasonable, although these arguments are unlikely to convince the large groups that voted for Brexit and elected (and may yet reelect Trump). She also appeals to self interest on part of the rich countries, that is probably a better bet.

Except for a brief reference to a massive migration in prehistoric times that resulted in the death of 90% of the residents of the invaded territory, she does not seriously consider the risks that migration will produce, particularly if improperly managed. She could have told the story of Roman emperor Valens and a barbarian Gothic tribe, the Thervingi. In 376 AD the Thervingi, whose territory was under pressure from invaders (sorry, migrants) from the Asian steppes, requested the emperor to allow them to settle on the empire’s border, they offered to fight on the empire’s behalf against other, even more fearsome, barbarians. Their request granted, the Thervingi’s entry into the empire was not a success. They had to ford a swollen river, where many died, and when they arrived there was not enough food or shelter for them, since their numbers had been underestimated and local commanders took advantage of them and sold them at inflated prices the food that the emperor had ordered be given them for free. The Thervingi, whose weapons had not been confiscated as was the policy, revolted and other barbarians, the Greuthungi, took advantage and crossed the border. There followed years of war, that ended with emperor Valens’s death. The empire never recovered. The Goths were allowed to settle as a group on their own largely self ruled territory, where they became a threat to the security of the empire and eventually contributed to its division and downfall. It’s easy to image something like that happening as a consequence of the near future climate migrations, if they are mishandled, which they probably will be, human nature being what it is.

[Wendelle]

This book shows that the projections for life in the coming century are extremely grim and dire. There is an awaiting biodiversity crash, and with even moderate estimations of temperature rise predicting 4 degrees by 2100, entire bands of the tropics will be difficult to inhabit. This book aims to make the argument for the moral and economic imperative of welcoming, managing, and facilitating international migration towards poleward countries (North America, Europe) as a response to the climate crisis.

[Al Siew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bleak, repetitive, could've been a blog post.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

“People are moving, ready or not. We can and must prepare” (p. 137). What’s happening in Kiribati now is the near-future for many hundreds of millions more, and possibly a billion or more. As the tropic zone widens and warms, as heatwaves, droughts, and fires increase, and as sea levels rise and reservoirs dry up, large swaths of the global population will be in motion due to unlivable regions, food insecurity, resource scarcity, and the search for dignified employment to feed their families.

“The mass migrations this century will be dominated by people from the poor, climate-ravaged world moving to the richer world, countries whose wealth has largely been enabled by changing the climate. This then is an opportunity to deliver some social justice, while benefiting both host and migrant populations with new growth. Cities need migrants in order to flourish, but immigration must be properly managed and supported—it needs to be a cooperative effort. There is great efficiency in cooperation, which is why evolution tends towards favouring it. This means global agreement on safe, legal pathways for migration, and mechanism to share the upfront social economic costs of a large influx of new citizens. It’s astonishing there isn’t a coherent strategy of matching people globally to jobs, education, and housing—something easy enough to do in our digital world. It is time to create one” (pp. 291-2).

Gaia Vince, honorary senior research fellow at the Anthropocene Institute at University College London, categorically neuters all the old tropes posed by the anti-immigrant factions (all too often aligned with insipid “nationalism” bellowed by the grey-haired) and backs it all with multinational reports and longitudinal studies. Change is inevitable, and you don’t need to be a history professor to understand this. Can we collectively plan for the future and try to ensure the betterment of all life on Earth? Or will greed, ignorance, myopia, and selfishness win out? We need to learn to live with less, but also to be grateful for a future free of fear.

The world failed with the pandemic. We can not roll back globalization, but we can directly transform it into something better. What if all the server farms used to pump disinformation and stupid GIFs across the globe were dedicated to matching workers with employment, from farm laborers to computer coders, nursing assistants to cello players? Vince seeks a planetary government body and a reinvention of strong, inclusive nation-states to make this work. We need dire transformations in city design, transportation, energy, food production, and our relationship with the Earth. This takes policy. Policy is forged by politicians. Politicians are directly influenced by special interests (and nominally by their constitutes). The voting citizenry is influenced by a thousand different things, much of it garbage. This causal tree is ultimately the root problem. Can a better informed citizenry elect competent, capable politicians who then enact and enforce a reboot of planetary policy?

I refer back to my asteroid hypothesis repeated often in these reviews and its possible ability to galvanize the human collective into more forceful, immediate action. We failed with the pandemic, but would we fail with an asteroid too? Don’t look up.

Bumbling along as we are:

“We would face the likelihood of an enormous loss of life, of terrible wars and misery, as the wealthy erect barriers against the poorest. We see this devastating situation occurring in a far smaller way today—we cannot allow such calamitous chaos at the scale expected in a few decades. Quite apart from the moral abhorrence, there would be no peace for any of us. Instead, we must come together as a global society [as a federation of nation-states] to address this human-made problem. We are a planetary species, dependent on a single shared biosphere. We must look afresh at our world and consider where best to put its human population and meet all of our needs for the sustainable future. Doing so requires a radical rethink” (p. 14).

It most definitely does, and Greta Thunberg nailed it at the Youth4Climate conference in September of 2021. “Climate change is not only a threat, it is above all an opportunity to create a healthier, greener, and cleaner planet which will benefit all of us.”

[Lizzie (Dizzy Lizzie’s Book Emporium) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for access to the audiobook of Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World by Gaia Vince in exchange for an honest review.

“Consider this future world with empathy for your elderly self.”
“Climate change is everything change, because climate is the fabric on which we weave our lives.”

If you’re looking for a far more hopeful alternative book to Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, look no further than Nomad Century. The author carefully paints a picture of how the world will change with the devastating effects of climate change, and what will accomplish as humans to not only survive, but thrive.

I appreciate the author’s statement that most people will become plant based over the next 10 years without even thinking about it. I’ve been saying this with such frustration for so long! How do we reduce use of single use plastics? Stop making them available. How to we reduce meat consumption? Stop making it available. How do we eat produce in its appropriate season? Stop making non-seasonal fruits and vegetables available. Is this going to take massive systemic change? Yes. Is it possible? Absolutely yes. If the COVID pandemic has taught us anything, it is that humans are extremely adaptable. We will quickly get used to buying only what is available, which will effortlessly be better for the environment, AND, most critically, take the decision out of consumer’s hands. The proposed changes and adaptations to our current cities felt reasonable, realistic, and attainable in the here and now. I am so tired of the doom and gloom surrounding much of discussion of climate change, and I'm ready for changes to become a reality. Gaia Vince made positive change seem possible and inevitable. We CAN and WILL do this together.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a better person after having read this book - that I am certain of. I will be walking the world more aware and sensitive to my environment and the people around me. I will embrace immigrants with every bit of love I possess. This book has changed me. It is both inspiring and powerful, but also disheartening and cruel. The author makes it seem like it is all but inevitable that we will reach a point of no return, and sadly she is probably correct. She tries her best to infuse hope into this at every turn, but the constant barrage of facts that make it seem unlikely that we will ever turn the world around made it hard to digest this. I had to read it in short spirts because it was affecting my mood so deeply. This has a lot of practical solutions that our world should be implementing. and in some parts of the world they are, but not as many as we need to be. This was well researched and PACKED with facts, history, and climate solutions. This was an excellently written, although not easily read due to the heavy nature of what's written.

[Kelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay so I think if I hadn’t studied climate change I would have found this more fascinating, but the author really painted a vibrant picture of why people will need to migrate due to climate change, and what both the uninhabitable parts of the earth and the new, diverse northern cities could look like by 2100.

I really enjoy being able to imagine what global society could look like post-climate crisis (if you love fiction that tackles this topic such as Monica Byrne‘s The Actual Star, then you would be into this book too!). I think she offers quite straightforward methods to achieve these possible realities, but I did find her overly optimistic and disliked that she didn’t dive that deeply into the darker aspects of our society that could very likely prevent us from ever saving ourselves.

It was a much quicker read than I expected, and I definitely recommend it even though overall I was hoping for a little more depth.

[Carlene Walterhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her book, Nomad Century, environmental journalist Gaia Vince discusses the impacts of climate change on our world and ways we can move toward a better collective future. She helps dismantle common fears about human migration (that immigrants are a drain on resources, violent criminals, certain people ‘belong’ in certain countries etc.), and assures readers that it is not only beneficial to welcome Climate-driven migrants (showing how immigrants contribute to GDP, innovation efforts etc.), but that it is imperative to our survival as a species (“people will have to move to survive.”). Gaia Vince was able to describe climate change in a more engaging way than other authors I have read. She also balances reporting the devastating, real environmental/migrant crisis situations while also instilling hope and sharing about solutions (both involving and outside of migration) already underway and those we could work to implement in the future.