COMMENTARY | Portland is incapable of handling today’s homeless crisis; just imagine the future
Cities, counties and states need a public planning process, including stakeholders, to mitigate the coming mass migration crisis. This is a challenge of character. We cannot rely on a humane response from federal officials. Described below are reasons the need is urgent.
The arctic ice cap and glaciers worldwide are melting. The oceans and atmosphere are warming. Droughts and floods are decreasing food production while making some areas unsustainable for human habitation. Scientists are shocked, worried or funded by the fossil fuel industry. We are experiencing abrupt climate change.
We have passed the tipping point of melting permafrost and methane bubbling up from the Eastern Siberian Shelf of the Arctic Ocean. The natural feedback loops are now driving the changes. Paul Beckwith is a climate systems scientist who has created hundreds of 15-minute YouTube videos describing a myriad of aspects abrupt climate change entails.
We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, and habitat is decreasing. The Arab Spring began as people became desperate for food they could afford. System collapse was followed by war. Millions of refugees fled the chaos to Europe. Central America is in its fifth year of drought. Farmers are abandoning the land to march north in hopes of surviving. They arrive at our southern border by the thousands. The numbers will increase and we have no plan locally to deal with the masses of refugees.
California will also be a source of desperate people as the aquifers dry up.
Currently, Portland seems incapable of dealing with a few thousand homeless people. What happens when tens or hundreds of thousands of people with little more than the clothes on their back are occupying Portland?
We need local planning in an open process at the city, county and state levels. A crisis is coming in the near future. It is not something we want left up to the federal government. Their plan is the Patriot Act, and that would be ugly. Think of the current border mess times a thousand.
The darkness is falling, with a quickening few thought possible. When those who never internalized humanity, never grew to love others as themselves, seize power and erode the constitutional protections of human rights, we cannot sit by mumbling to ourselves. It is a time for action. Planning for what is to come is the very least that must be done.
Dan Newth is a longtime Street Roots vendor.
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