Immigration is in the press and in our politics: people from Central and South America coming to our southern border, people from Syria fleeing to neighboring countries and to Europe. We tend to view immigration as something that is being foisted upon us, but what we don’t adequately appreciate is the other side of the coin – emigration. The person we view as an immigrant is also an emigrant – someone who is no longer able to live in their homeland. We attribute all this to political conflict, poverty, declining agricultural productivity, corruption, poor governance, and opportunism. But, if we drill down to the actual root cause, it is most often climate change. Belmont’s Monte Allen, a former senior director of development at CARE USA in this op-ed.
