America Confronts its IDP Problem

IDP or Internally Displaced Population is a term that was once used to describe groups of civilians forced to leave their homes to seek refuge elsewhere in war-torn countries such as Iraq and Syria.

Aleppo, Syria is a prime example. One of the oldest cities in the world, said to date back to 5,000 B.C., Aleppo was a prime target in the Syrian civil war. The city was besieged, shelled and bombed between 2012 and 2016. Assad was notorious for blasting neighbourhoods with "barrel bombs." Many died. Many fled. Those who fled were internally displaced persons.

While civil war hasn't broken out yet in the United States, America is facing the problem of citizens, IDPs, being driven out of their homes by climate change - floods, drought, sea level rise, wildfires. Last month the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report explaining the case for proactive measures to relocate displaced Americans.

An article in Scientific American suggests America could be looking at a migration of the sort the US experienced in the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.

It's not just ocean communities weighing relocation options. Santa Rosa, Calif., considered retreating from parts of the wildland-urban interface after the Tubbs Fire burned much of the city in 2017. The idea lacked sufficient funding and public support, leading to other adaptation approaches, GAO said.

Since 2005, Congress has allocated nearly a half-trillion dollars in disaster relief to communities struck by hurricanes, fires, floods and droughts, according to GAO. And the pace of spending has quickened, with nearly $200 billion in taxpayer money spent since 2015. It has not been a good investment, according to GAO and other disaster experts. 

To break the budget-busting cycle of climate disaster and reconstruction, GAO said the government should assist communities in identifying options for retreat. Such work should be coordinated through a single agency or program where communities can glean sound information and advice about their options.

The report notes that indigenous and impoverished Americans are the most vulnerable and hardest hit.

There has been a flood of studies and reports recently focusing on our warming world. Some predict that certain populated regions could become uninhabitable before this decade is out. That could include parts of Central America and the Caribbean.  The New Yorker looked at the climate crisis in Guatemala and how that country is depopulating.  Honduras is similarly afflicted. The World Bank expects 2 million migrants will try to flee Central America in the coming decades. What then? Where will those people go? Many Americans are ill disposed to accommodate climate refugees and the burden of having to deal with internally displaced populations could harden existing attitudes.