Green Thinking: Climate and Refugees
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does climate change force people to flee their homes and livelihoods? Does it cause wars that create refugees? Dr Helen Adams and Professor Michael Collyer explain how various factors are at play, from resources, to politics, to family ties.
Dr Helen Adams is an environmental social scientist based at King’s College, London. Her research looks at the interactions between humans and climate change, well-being and resources.
Professor Michael Collyer is Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex. He works on the relationships between people and places, migration and displacement. Collyer is a member of the ESRC network ‘Urban Transformations’ which showcases research on cities, you can read their blog posts here: https://urbantransformations.ox.ac.uk/news-debate/
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.7 | Hello, I'm Des Fitzgerald and welcome to this episode of Green Thinking, |
| 0:40.3 | where we're looking at new research that sheds light on new stories like this one. |
| 0:44.3 | It nestles quietly between the inland fringe of Snowdonia and the Irish Sea. |
| 0:52.3 | The roofs, more or less at sea level, behind the shingle that has always |
| 0:56.9 | held back the ocean. This is Fairbourne. To the north, the majestic and deceptively gentle |
| 1:06.4 | Modach Estuary borders the village. If the village is abandoned to the sea, then there goes my livelihood. |
| 1:13.6 | I mean, people are obviously going to ask questions. |
| 1:15.6 | Where am I going to live? Who's going to fund it? |
| 1:17.6 | You know, when is this going to happen? |
| 1:19.6 | What's going to trigger it to happen? |
| 1:21.6 | They produced a shoreline management plan without any engagement and involvement |
| 1:26.6 | with the people whose lives were going to be affected. |
| 1:30.3 | People in Fairbourne, many of them English retirees, nonplussed by the council's decision to demolish and clear the entire place |
| 1:41.3 | because it's too costly to defend against rising seawater. |
| 1:46.0 | In Council jargon, Fairbourne will be decommissioned. |
| 1:50.0 | Gwyneth Council told us the village is uniquely vulnerable, below sea level 24 times a year and that will increase. |
| 1:58.0 | But they said destroying it is not considered likely for at least 30 years. |
| 2:02.6 | The Council insists it's worked hard on liaison down the years. |
| 2:06.6 | That was a Channel 4 news report from 2019 on the plight of some of the first people in Britain displaced by climate change. |
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