A Climate-Conscious Lent: 'Climate apartheid' or 'welcome the stranger'?

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In 2017, David Wallace-Wells wrote in The Uninhabitable Earth that with diminished resources and increased migration caused by flooding, "social conflict could more than double this century." And a 2018 World Bank report concluded that water scarcity, crop failure and rising sea levels could displace 143 million people by 2050.

The report focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, which represent 55% of the developing world's population. Unsurprisingly, the poorest and most climate-vulnerable areas are expected to be hit hardest. "The great paradox of climate change," the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America states, "is that those least responsible for the emission of pollutants harmful to the earth will be most severely affected and least able to adapt to changing conditions."

The World Bank makes three key recommendations: "Cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to reduce climate pressure on people and livelihoods; transforming development planning to factor in the entire cycle of climate migration (before, during and after migration); [and] investing in data and analysis to improve understanding of internal climate migration trends … at the country level."

In 2019, Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned in a report that climate change threatens to undermine progress the world has made in the past half-century on development, poverty, global health and human rights.

"The risk of community discontent, of growing inequality, and of even greater levels of deprivation among some groups will likely stimulate nationalist, xenophobic, racist and other responses. The impacts of the climate crisis could increase divisions," the report said. "We risk a 'climate apartheid' scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer."

Drought and severe storms are already pushing people away from their homes in places like Honduras, which suffered two strong hurricanes in rapid succession in 2020. Many will head to the southern U.S. border in search of better opportunities, despite the last U.S. administration's harsh stance on immigration and asylum. The question is how the country will respond now.

"How did our country reach the point where we are tear-gassing mothers and children [seeking asylum]?" Jesuit Fr. James Martin wrote in 2018. "One reason is because of the widespread myths about these brothers and sisters of ours." The myths, he said, are that "They are 'illegals.' … We cannot afford them. … They are mainly criminals." Those generalizations are untrue, he says, adding that we must "remember what Jesus said about welcoming the stranger."