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In this Thursday Teach-In, our focus will be Migration and Human Rights. Around the world, climate change is driving mass migration as water dries up, farmland turns to desert, shorelines erode, coastal areas flood, permafrost melts and ecosystems can no longer support the communities they once could. And it is going to get much much worse. As far back as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration – and we’re seeing this projection come true. The latest estimates predict as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

This is a climate and human rights crisis. Climate migrants routinely face life threatening hardship, discrimination and repression in their search for safety for their families, and often those most vulnerable to changing climate and extreme weather lack the resources to migrate, so remain in harm’s way. As a global society, we must do better.

At the same time we’re working to slow climate change, we also have to work to update our understanding and policies around migration. Climate migrants, or climate refugees, should be recognized and made welcome in receiving countries, and be granted the rights to rebuild their lives with safe and dignified work, free from fear of deportation and with a path to citizenship.

Who are we, as a people, as a country, if we turn our backs rather than open our hearts to our global neighbors seeking shelter and safety for their families, as any of us would do in their shoes? Join us to learn more about climate migration, human rights and what we can do to address this growing challenge.

We are so excited to have Saket Soni and Rev. Fletcher Harper join us to talk about the link between Migration, Human Rights and Climate.