Expert Warns of Growing Wave of Mexican Environmental Refugees
by Eliza Barclay, Washington, D.C. 
on 12. 8.07
We are always a bit wary of the term "environmental refugee" because people's reasons for leaving their homes are often very complex and the amount of scientific research on the topic is still quite minimal. But there is a growing chorus, especially from the field of anthropology, of scholars concerned by the role the environment -- particularly climate change -- plays in forcing people out of their homelands. One of Mexico's most outspoken voices on the subject of environmental refugees is Úrsula Oswald Spring, who chairs the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security. In a recent presentation in Mexico City, Spring described how desertification, the lack of a good farming policy and the lack of motivation to combat global warming have accelerated the wave of environmental refugees in Mexico.
Spring noted that at least half of the one million Mexicans that migrate to the big cities or the United States each year do so because of poverty and environmental factors. Erosion, salinization and low prices for agricultural products not only make them vulnerable in terms of food security, but also destroy what they have to subsist on, she said.
"I think that every year there will be more refugees from environmental causes though the people will express it in economic terms," said Spring. "They'll say 'I don't have enough to eat, I don't have land to plant on.' These will be their most immediate expressions, but behind them will be a very complex and delicate environmental theme."
Experts are also increasingly concerned by the vulnerability of citizens to natural disasters, and how natural disasters can also create waves of environmental refugees. According to the National Center for Disaster Prevention, 39.6 million Mexicans live in zones of high and very high risk of disaster, near the ocean, ravines, slopes or riverbeds. :: Via Planeta Azul (Spanish link)
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Talk about "junk science." So now, global warming is why so many Mexicans are sneaking into the US? Give me a break. I guess that's why they give handbooks to the border crossers telling them how to get fake ID, how to sign up for welfare, how to milk the system for maximum benefit.
Anyone that argues that more population, especially from uneducated third worlders is better for the US environment is not playing with a full deck, and isn't really serious about tackling the problems we may have.
This article delivers new information about why mexicans are migrating to the U.S. However, it also seems to give them an excuses to do so illegally. There is no excuse.
"poverty and environmental factors"
at what ratio? 90% - 10%?
I fully support immigration (increasing legal, not illegal), but I don't see this as an environmental issue.
The lack of proper policy is not a problem exclusive to the environment erosion.
While basic education is still a huge problem (we are the last in oecd and did worse than last evaluation) Mexican education and social development programs lack of any sustainable programs.
Most Mexicans out of ignorance lack of any respect for their local ecosystem, and education system doesn't include a serious effort to include sustainability in the program. People pollute, indiscriminately consume energy, and most of all are not aware of global problems, including climate change...
This making urban problems even more delicate, for carbon emissions concentrate more and creating heat islands, etc. (migrations don't only aim to US, and no all migrants in US are mexicans bob)
Thankfully this is starting to change thanks to international guidance, it will take maybe two generations to create a green, sustainable culture.
Americans always give an excuse to address the real causes of problems. While taking opportunity of the cheap labor provided by illegal Mexicans that are doing things the white man don't want to do anymore, Americans keep growing a racist culture against the Latin community. Instead of shooting people on the boarder they should listening to experts like Mrs. Spring and help Mexicans overcome this problems, so maybe there would be less refugees trying to hop in illegally in the States.
Walk through one of those hardscrabble Mexican corn fields next to a severely eroded, dried up stream course and it's easy to see why people want to leave, for survival sake.
And the Pope keeps telling them no birth control allowed.