Climate change will displace millions. Here's how we prepare

It was about two years
after Hurricane Katrina

that I first saw the Louisiana flood maps.

These flood maps are used
to show land loss in the past

and land loss that is to come.

On this particular day,
at a community meeting,

these maps were used to explain

how a 30-foot tidal surge
that accompanied Hurricane Katrina

could flood communities like mine
in south Louisiana

and communities across
the Mississippi and Alabama coast.

It turns out that the land we were losing
was our buffer from the sea.

I volunteered to interact
with the graphics on the wall,

and in an instant my life changed
for the second time in two years.

The graphic showed
massive land loss in south Louisiana

and an encroaching sea,

but more specifically the graphics showed
the disappearance of my community

and many other communities
before the end of the century.

I wasn't alone at the front of the room.

I was standing there with other members
of south Louisiana's communities --

black, Native, poor.

We thought we were just bound
by temporary disaster recovery,

but we found that we were now bound
by the impossible task

of ensuring that our communities
would not be erased by sea level rise

due to climate change.

Friends, neighbors, family, my community:

I just assumed it would always be there.

Land, trees, marsh, bayous:

I just assumed that it would be there
as it had been for thousands of years.

I was wrong.

To understand what was happening
to my community,

I had to talk to other communities
around the globe.

I started in south Louisiana
with the United Houma Nation.

I talked to youth advocates
in Shishmaref, Alaska.

I talked to fisherwomen
in coastal Vietnam,

justice fighters in Fiji,

new generations of leaders

in the ancient cultures
of the Torres Straits.

Communities that had been here
for thousands of years

were suffering the same fate,

and we were all contemplating
how we would survive the next 50.

By the end of the next century,

it's predicted that
more than 180 million people

will be displaced due to climate change,

and in south Louisiana,

those who can afford to do so
are already moving.

They're moving because
south Louisiana is losing land

at one of the fastest rates on the planet.

Disappearance is what my bayou community

has in common with
other coastal communities.

Erasure is what communities
around the globe are fighting

as we get real about
the impacts of climate change.

I've spent the last 14 years
advocating on behalf of communities

that have been directly impacted
by the climate crisis.

These communities
are fighting discrimination

within climate disaster recovery,

and they're also trying to balance
mass displacement of people

with an influx of others

who see opportunity in starting anew.

Since 2005, people
have been called "refugees"

when they leave when they're displaced
by climate disaster,

even when they don't cross
international borders.

These terms, these misused terms

that are meant to identify the other,

the victim,

the person who is not supposed to be here,

these terms are barriers

to economic recovery,

to social integration

and to the healing required from
the climate crisis and climate trauma.

Words matter.

It also matters how we treat
people who are crossing borders.

We should care about how people
who are crossing borders today

to seek refuge and safety
are being treated,

if for no other reason than it might
be you or someone you love

who needs to exercise
their human right to migrate

in the nearby future.

We must start preparing
for global migration today.

It's a reality now.

Our cities and our communities
are not prepared.

In fact, our economic system
and our social systems

are only prepared to make profit
off of people who migrate.

This will cause rounds
of climate gentrification,

and it will also penalize
the movement of people,

usually through exploited labor

and usually through criminalization.

Climate gentrification that happens
in anticipation of sea level rise

is what we're seeing in places like Miami,

where communities
that were kept from the waterfront

are now being priced out
of the high ground

where they were placed originally

as people move away from the coast.

These folks are being moved,
forced to relocate away

from the social and economic systems
that they need to survive.

Climate gentrification also happens
in the aftermath of climate disaster.

When massive amounts
of people leave a location

for an indefinite amount of time,

we see others come in.

We also see climate gentrification happen

when damaged homes are now "green built,"

but now have a higher value,

generally outside of the reach
of black and brown and poor people

who want to return home.

The price difference in rents,
or the ownership of a house,

is the difference between
being able to practice your right,

your human right
to return home as a community,

or be forced to resettle somewhere else

less climate resilient,

less expensive,

and alone.

The climate crisis
is a much larger conversation

than reducing CO2 emissions,

and it is a much different conversation
than just extreme weather.

We're facing a shift
in every aspect of our global reality.

And climate migration
is just one small part,

but it's going to have ripple effects

in both coastal cities
and cities in the interior.

So what do we do?

I have a few ideas.

(Laughter)

First, we must reframe
our understanding of the problem.

Climate change is not the problem.

Climate change
is the most horrible symptom

of an economic system

that has been built for a few

to extract every precious value
out of this planet and its people,

from our natural resources

to the fruits of our human labor.

This system has created this crisis.

(Applause)

We must have the courage
to admit we've taken too much.

We cannot close our eyes to the fact

that the entire world is paying a price

for the privilege and comfort
of just a few people on the planet.

It's time for us to make
society-wide changes

to a system that incentivizes consumption

to the point of global imbalance.

Our social, political and economic
systems of extraction

must be transformed into systems
that regenerate the earth

and advance human liberty globally.

It is arrogance to think
that technology will save us.

It is ego to think that we can continue

this unjust and extractive approach
to living on this planet

and survive.

(Applause)

To survive this next phase
of our human existence,

we will need to restructure
our social and economic systems

to develop our collective resilience.

The social restructuring must be
towards restoration and repair

of the earth

and the communities
that have been extracted from,

criminalized

and targeted for generations.

These are the frontlines.

This is where we start.

We must establish a new social attitude
to see migration as a benefit,

a necessity for our global survival,

not as a threat
to our individual privilege.

Collective resilience means developing
cities that can receive people

and provide housing,

food, water, health care

and the freedom from overpolicing

for everyone,

no matter who they are,

no matter where they're from.

What would it mean if we started
to plan for climate migration now?

Sprawling cities or declining cities
could see this as an opportunity

to rebuild a social infrastructure
rooted in justice and fairness.

We could actually put money
into public hospitals

and help them prepare

for what is to come
through climate migration,

including the trauma
that comes with loss and relocation.

We can invest more of our time in justice,

but it cannot be for temporary gain,

it cannot be to help budget shortfalls,

it has to be for long-term change,

and it has to be to advance justice.

It's already possible, y'all.

After Hurricane Katrina,

universities and high schools
around the US took in students

to help them finish their semester
or their year without missing a beat.

Those students are now
productive assets in our community,

and this is what our communities,
our businesses and our institutions

need to get ready for now.

The time is now.

So as we reframe the problem
in a more truthful way

and we restructure our social systems
in a more just way,

all that will be left is for us
to reindigenize ourselves

and to conjure a power
of the most ancient kind.

This necessarily means
that we must learn to follow,

not tokenize, not exotify, not dismiss,

the leadership and
the traditional knowledge

of a particular local place.

It means that we must commit
to standards of ecological equity

and climate justice and human rights

as the basis, a base standard,

a starting point

for where our new society is to go.

All of this requires us to recognize
a power greater than ourselves

and a life longer
than the ones we will live.

It requires us to believe in the things
that we are privileged enough

not to have to see.

We must honor the rights of nature.

We must advance human rights for all.

We must transform from a disposable,

individual society

into one that sees our collective,
long-term humanity,

or else we will not make it.

We must see that even the best of us
are entangled in an unjust system,

and we must acknowledge

that the only way you're going to survive

is for us to figure out

how to reach a shared liberation together.

The good news is,

we come from powerful people.

We come from those who have,
in one way or another,

survived so far to be us here today.

This is reason enough to fight.

And take it from
your south Louisiana friend,

those hardest fights
are the ones to celebrate.

Let's choose to make this next phase
of our planetary existence beautiful,

and while we're at it

let's make it just and fair for everyone.

We can do this, y'all.

We can do this

because we must.

We must, or else we lose our planet

and we lose ourselves.

The work starts here.

The work starts together.

This is my offering.

Thank you for receiving it. Merci.

(Applause)