The Hill published an article Monday claiming human-caused climate change is responsible for at least some of the tidal wave of illegal immigrants flowing daily over the U.S. Southern border. The available evidence falsifies this claim.
Climate conditions did not change between the Trump and Biden presidencies.
The present flow of illegal aliens entering the United States is a result of President Joe Biden’s shift to a more welcome immigration policy from that enforced by President Donald Trump, not climate change.
The Hill article is titled “How to manage migration intensified by climate change.” “While some of the current migrants are fleeing violence and may qualify for protection under our asylum law, it is becoming clearer that at least part of what we are seeing at our Southern border is the result of climate change,” asserts The Hill.
In particular, the article cites crop-damaging drought in Guatemala and El Salvador, along with hurricanes striking Honduras, as proof that human-caused climate change is forcing people to flee their homelands.
Contrary to the impression left by The Hill, history shows it is not uncommon for hurricanes and tropical storms to strike Honduras. Data show Honduras is “brushed or hit” by hurricanes every 4 years on average.
Some decades have been busier than others. For example, hurricane strikes were especially common during the 1890s, the 1930s, the 1960s, and the 1970s—each cooler time-periods than now.
Among the worst hurricanes ever to strike Honduras came in 1934, nearly 90 years of climate change ago.
As reported in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 Interim Report observes there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.”
The U.N.’s observation is reflected in the figure below, showing global hurricane and tropical storm frequency since 1970.
Some Hondurans may have decided to leave for America after having their homes destroyed or lives disrupted by hurricanes that struck in 2020. However, there is no evidence climate change caused, exacerbated, or made those storms more likely.
The Hill’s claim that drought in El Salvador and Guatemala is causing crop failures, forcing many of its people to illegally migrate to the United States, is equally false.
The IPCC reports with “high confidence” that precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere during the past 70 years, and it reports having “low confidence” about any negative trends globally.
Crop production can vary greatly from year to year, but the data show crops are becoming more productive and easier to grow as the Earth continues its modest warming.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) provides detailed data on crop production throughout the world.
According to UNFAO data, Guatemalan crop yields have been consistently improving throughout the past 50 years.
As the chart below shows, El Salvador is enjoying similarly increasing crop yields as the earth modestly warms.
Millions of people flee their homelands each year, but the causes remain what they have always been – war, political persecution, and poverty rather than climate change.
Refugees now, as they always have, are leaving their countries in pursuit of a better life for their children and themselves. The Hill is wrong to say otherwise.
Read more at Climate Realism
The article talks a lot about warming improving crop yields. Though I’m sure this has some influence, the earth has only warmed about one degree since 1900. The big environmental factor in improved crop yields his higher levels of carbon dioxide. There are also factors such as improved agriculture practices. This includes fertilizer made from natural gas.
It is very obvious that the increase in illegal immigration is the perception that Biden will be more sympathetic than Trump was. It is very typical for Democrats to take an item that they are responsible for, and shift the blame to something they don’t like.
The Hill is sounding like a tabloid like the National Enquire or the Weekly World News but so is the NYT’s and Washington Post the Talking Heads and the rest of the M.S. Media scoundrels