Climate Change Impact Will Include More Asylum Seekers In Cooler Countries, Study Says

The impact that climate change can have is nearly universal. It pervades every aspect of human and animal life, making the planet uninhabitable by the day. One of the most alarming results of the increasingly hostile weather patterns of Earth is the increase in the number of refugees fleeing to countries with cooler temperatures.

Climate change is known to affect everything from agriculture to the frequency of natural disasters like storms and floods. According to new data in a study published in Science, the increasing levels of daily discomforts will force populations in tropical areas to flee to cooler nations. This means more refugees seeking to find asylum from the threat of heatwaves and starvation.

“When temperatures in the source country deviated from a moderate optimum around 20°C that is best for agriculture, asylum applications increased. Thus, the net forecast is for asylum applications to increase as global temperatures rise,” the study reads.

Normally, those seeking asylum in Europe and other Western countries are running away from brutal dictators or to escape genocide. There are also those who seek protection in exchange for offering testimony against crime syndicates and the like.

However, with the increasing threat of climate change, new kinds of refugees are also popping up. There are entire islands disappearing under rising sea levels, for example, as well as regions that have become uninhabitable due to the increasing frequency of wildfires or drought.

As Futurism notes, the resilience of humans has a limit. In the past, entire civilizations adapted to change by building better infrastructure, bending nature to their will, or finding new ways to survive. Unfortunately, climate change is basically the full might of nature bearing down on the species. In a few decades, some areas will simply be impossible to live in for humans or any living creature.