Review of Nomad Century by Gaia Vince

The author begins her clear and concise book with a stark warning. 

“People are finally beginning to face up to the climate emergency. However, while nations rally to reduce their carbon emissions, and try to adapt at-risk places to hotter conditions, there is an elephant in the room: for large portions of the world, local conditions are becoming too extreme and there is no way to adapt”.

 She then offers a solution which also addresses an increasingly toxic issue in politics, and in doing so provides hope rather than despair. 

Vince  summarises the current reality of run-away climate change as others have done, and agrees with the need for economies and lifestyles to change in order to limit the extent of the coming catastrophe. She concludes however that even with maximum mitigation – renewable energy, changes to transportation and to the way food is produced and buildings constructed – the most realistic scenario is that global temperatures will rise by 3-4 degrees centigrade by the end of the century, making large swathes of the world uninhabitable. Crucially these places are where most of the world’s population currently live. What is required, she argues, is managed migration from the Global South to a newly defined Global North. In the latter (north of the 45 degrees North Parallel) the climate will remain comfortable for human habitation and economic activity. Below this line, which is approximately the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole, conditions will become increasingly intolerable and impossible. Below this line lie all of the world’s 20 largest cities and indeed most of the United States. 

 People are already beginning to move themselves, with global heating and environmental destruction already threatening lives and livelihoods. Uncontrolled mass migration will inevitably increase as conditions get worse in the global south. Far from seeking to restrict it governments, working co-operatively in a body which would be a true United Nations, should seek to promote and support mass migration, to provide, among other things, the workforce for a ‘smart agriculture’in the optimum climate conditions of the Global North. 

Fully recognising the extent of the challenge Vince is encouraged by examples of the rapid construction of new cities, particularly in China. The world needs a 

“ global agreement on safe, legal pathways for migration, and mechanisms to share the upfront social economic costs of a large influx of new citizens. It’s astonishing there isn’t a coherent strategy of matching people globally to jobs, education and housing- something easy enough to do in our digital world. It is time to create one”. 

I suspect that Vince is not really astonished at the lack of a coherent strategy, given that she certainly appears to recognise the realities of existing power structures and ideologies. There is however an obvious need for a global champion for the solution she suggests. How about the Global Greens?

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