BIOMES: Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History Chair, South Asian Studies Council, MacMillan Center, presents "Why does migration matter for environmental justice?"

About the Seminar:
The IOM projects that 1.5 billion people will be displaced by the effects of climate change between now and 2050. In the global North, a lot of the media coverage of “climate migrants” or “climate refugees” is alarmist, with the spoken or unspoken assumption that most of them will be at the gates of the wealthiest countries, demanding to be let in. That simply isn’t true. Most people in the world will go where they have connections, kin, attachments, networks, support, affiliations. Where people will go, that is to say, is shaped by their histories. We cannot think of environmental justice without thinking about migration: who can, and can’t move in the face of escalating risks to their homes, and where can they go? And we cannot think about migration without thinking about history—and, for most of the global South, that means thinking about the legacies of empire.

About the Series:
Over the last fourteen years, the Yale School of the Environment has held a weekly seminar series, called BIOMES, which has been the School’s flagship forum for bringing cutting-edge research and impactful work to the community. BIOMES stands for ‘Bridging Issues & Optimizing Methods in Environmental Studies”

The series is a community-sourced and student-led effort designed to bring different perspectives to YSE’s main stage.