Reading Assignment:
Climate Refugees
One of the most striking and underreported looming problems with global climate change is the potential for climate refugees. These are people who have to leave their homes as they become uninhabitable due to changes in weather or flooding from the rise in sea level. This reading assignment looks at two specific populations facing this very real possibility: the people of Shishmaref Island in Alaska, and the country of the Maldives.
This assignment covers excerpts from two chapters of Climate Refugees, written by Collectif Argos, a group of reporters, and published in 2010. The following excerpt is reprinted by permission of The MIT Press.
Essential concepts: Global warming, climate refugees, coral bleaching, erosion, sea level rise.
Reading Passage: Download a .PDF of the excerpts here.
