Climate Migrants: On the Move in a Warming World
“Most experts agree that by 2050, at least twenty-five million people—roughly the population of Texas—will be climate migrants. Some think that if emissions continue unchecked, up to one billion people could be forced to move. […] The actions that the world takes in the next few decades will determine how many people are driven from their homes by climate change.”
This nonfiction text addresses the issue of climate migration, people leaving their homes due to climate change, through specific stories from various threatened communities. Rich with quotes, facts, images, and definitions, it is organized into five chapters. The first four are about different types of threats: permafrost melting in remote Arctic villages; flooding in the Pacific Islands, particularly Kiribati; drought across the countries of the Sahel desert; and coastal superstorms from New Orleans to Bangladesh. Each chapter tells stories about specific people from that community, focusing on their efforts toward climate adaptation, while explaining key climate science concepts along the way. The final chapter addresses scientific, economic, and political strategies for mitigating climate change, as well as the global implications of mass migration for cultural identity and conflicts.
Climate Migrants: On the Move in a Warming World helps students understand the various ways that climate migration is already affecting our world today. It functions as a lens for considering how climate change is likely to damage human communities in the future. Some of the most powerful examples in the book come from developing countries such as Kiribati, where we learn about the disproportionate effects on Pacific Islanders compared to their miniscule contribution to the problem (see environmental justice). At the same time, the author also links these impacts to developed countries such as the United States, such as the coastal superstorm Hurricane Sandy or wildfires and droughts in California. The final chapter’s emphasis on the social, cultural, and political impacts of global migration (including the 2015 European migrant crisis) also highlights how resettlement can disrupt the receiving communities. Together, the chapters illustrate the global scope of the disruptions and displacements faced by climate refugees, as an implicit argument against the idea that climate change will only affect polar bears or those on the other side of the world.
While this book serves as a warning, it also traces specific strategies people are using to mitigate and adapt before taking the most serious step of migration. Readers learn about local adaptation efforts, such as how agroforestry can help combat desertification, or how replacing vulnerable developed areas with wetlands can help buffer coastal storms. The book addresses fossil fuel divestment and the contrast between carbon taxes and cap-and-trade. The choice to cover these kinds of topics helps students understand the possibilities and limitations of all these strategies to help prevent greater displacement as we barrel headlong into a warming world. As an introduction to climate change through the lens of its effects on human communities, this book could be an excellent resource either for teachers to guide middle-grade students through a whole-class excerpt or as a springboard for high-school students to conduct research independently.
©2026 ClimateLit (Sarah Outterson-Murphy)
Publisher: 21st Century Books, 2017
ISBN: 9781467793414
Pages: 88
Lexile Score: 1230
Format: Nonfiction
Topics: Agroforestry, Carbon Budget, Climate Adaptation, Climate Change, Climate Migration, Climate Refugees, Climate Science, Drought, Environmental Justice, Feedback Loops, Flood, Mitigation, Ocean Acidification, Sea Level Rise, Superstorms, Wetland Ecosystems
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