Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval

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A girl walks through a cracked field after collecting drinking water from a pond in Satkhira, Bangladesh, March 2022. Some will move because their livelihoods have been destroyed by the changing climate, others will be refugees who have lost their homes to extreme weather events that have become more frequent and intense.

After a year in which wildfires, storms and floods have driven thousands from their homes, this book's warning about a rising population of climate migrants has a chilling resonance. A tour de force… Nomad Century should be on the reading list of anyone and everyone in any position of power. This book is a passion project born out of frustration for the way we are dealing with the biggest crisis humanity has faced in its history. Technology will help us, Vince argues, but we must also “shed some of our tribal identities” – such as nationalism – and “embrace a pan-species identity” as citizens of Earth. The Neukölln neighbourhood of Berlin, for instance, welcomed tens of thousands of refugees from Syria’s brutal civil war, creating new jobs and economic opportunities.Rich countries and poor countries must invest in alliances that increase training and education, and climate resilience. The result would be widespread and perpetual conflict across the world, and a tragic new chapter of suffering in human history. In a growing zone around the equator, temperature and humidity will be so high that people will be unable to prevent themselves from overheating through sweating, making it dangerous to undertake any strenuous activity outdoors.

Vince leaves the reader with more than a few sparks of hope * Herald * Gaia Vince's new book should be read not just by every politician, but by every person on the planet, because it lays out, much more clearly than any existing scientific assessment, the world we are creating through global heating. The climate crisis already has millions of people on the move, and that number will steadily grow higher till it breaks the political structures of the planet – unless, as the author suggests, we start now to remake those structures so they can cope, and indeed benefit, from the flow of humans that is now inevitable. Previously, I have held senior editorial positions at the science journal Nature, Nature Climate Change, and New Scientist magazine. Ice melt and coral reef loss are already dangerously accelerating: solar reflectivity, such as cloud brightening, should be deployed without delay, and other technologies to reduce temperatures should be explored. This isn't a distant or unrealistic prospect: climate models suggest we're currently heading towards a 3°C-4°C rise by the end of the century - less than three generations away.

And learn more about recent developments in migration movements and the labour market inclusion of immigrants in OECD countries with the latest International Migration Outlook 2022! The climate crisis already has millions of people on the move, and that number will steadily grow higher till it breaks the political structures of the planet - unless, as the author suggests, we start now to remake those structures so they can cope, and indeed benefit, from the flow of humans that is now inevitable. From Bangladesh to Sudan to the western United States, and in cities from Cardiff to New Orleans to Shanghai, the quadruple threat of drought, heat, wildfires and flooding will utterly reshape Earth's human geography in the coming decades. Nomad Century is a landmark work - terrifying in its message and urgency, but ultimately empowering in its conviction about a path forward.