Where Will Humanity Move When the World Gets Too Hot? Mass Climate Migration & The Rise of Uninhabitable Regions with Sunil Amrith
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2025
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the next 25 years, the International Organization for Migration estimates that one billion people will be displaced from their homes due to climate-related events. From island nations underwater to inland areas too hot and extreme to sustain life, the individuals and communities in these areas will need somewhere new to live. Where will these people go, and how will this mass migration add further pressure to the stability of nations and the world?
In this episode, Nate is joined by environmental and migration historian, Sunil Amrith, to explore the complex history of human movement – and what it reveals about the looming wave of climate-driven migration. Sunil explains how the historical record shows migration has always been a defining feature of human life, not an exception. Together, they examine projections for future migration trends and the urgent need for acceptance, planning, and infrastructure to support the integration of new communities.
What lessons can we draw from past environmental crises that forced people to move, and how do today's challenges overlap or differ? How have countries historically responded to large-scale migration, and what long-term impacts did those choices have on their stability and prosperity? Ultimately, how might a more open and welcoming mindset help us face the unprecedented migrations ahead, as well as transform them into opportunities for survival, resilience, and shared thriving?
(Conversation recorded on August 14th, 2025)
About Sunil Amrith:
Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, with a secondary appointment as Professor at the Yale School of the Environment. He is the current Henry R. Luce Director of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. Sunil's research focuses on the movements of people and the ecological processes that have connected South and Southeast Asia, and has expanded to encompass global environmental history. He has published in the fields of environmental history, the history of migration, and the history of public health.
Sunil's most recent book The Burning Earth, an environmental history of the modern world that foregrounds the experiences of the Global South, was named a 2024 "essential read" by The New Yorker, and a "book we love" 2024 by NPR. Additionally, Sunil's four previous books include Unruly Waters and Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The International Organization of Migration estimate is that more than a billion people are going to be displaced from their homes between now and 2050, so just the next 25 years. |
| 0:08.9 | When we think about climate-related displacement, I think there's a certain assumption that global heating is going to cause millions and millions of people to be at the gates of US, Europe. |
| 0:20.6 | Actually, the IPCC estimates that 90% are going to be displaced domestically within their own countries. |
| 0:26.8 | Most of them are going to be destined for the megacities of the global south, |
| 0:30.9 | which are already under strain in terms of their infrastructure and their capacity. |
| 0:35.2 | The question for us now is what happens when that |
| 0:38.3 | return becomes more and more difficult because of the ecological conditions of home |
| 0:42.5 | become permanently altered and perhaps uninhabitable. You're listening to the great |
| 0:50.7 | simplification. I'm Nate Hagen's. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, |
| 0:56.7 | the environment, and human behavior all fit together |
| 0:59.4 | and what it might mean for our future. |
| 1:02.2 | By sharing insights from global thinkers, |
| 1:04.4 | we hope to inform and inspire more humans |
| 1:07.6 | to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification. |
| 1:16.8 | Today I'm pleased to be joined by Sunil Amrith, a professor of history at Yale University, |
| 1:23.8 | as well as a professor at Yale School of the Environment, where we discuss a topic I've been keenly interested in and exploring on the show, |
| 1:32.2 | which is human migration. |
| 1:34.8 | Sunil earned his doctorate at the University of Cambridge |
| 1:37.4 | and is published widely in the fields of environmental history, |
| 1:40.9 | the history of human migration, and the history of public health. His research focuses |
| 1:46.3 | on the movement of humans and the ecological processes that have connected South and Southeast Asia, |
| 1:53.1 | and is expanded to encompass global environmental history. In addition to teaching, |
... |
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