Well no, that assumption isn’t needed, the US being negatively impacted by climate change would make this even harder to deal with (lower crop production, local displacement from coastal cities, etc). But the fact is it’s not at the equator, where the problems will be the worst, where there may be growing regions that can no longer support human life, where this growing pressure has caused wars, and the direction people will be fleeing is away from the equator. In that situation will we really be in a position to address those people’s problems? How many of them before things just break down? 50 million? 300? It’s about viability and survival, not contempt.
Well no, that assumption isn’t needed, the US being negatively impacted by climate change would make this even harder to deal with (lower crop production, local displacement from coastal cities, etc). But the fact is it’s not at the equator, where the problems will be the worst, where there may be growing regions that can no longer support human life, where this growing pressure has caused wars, and the direction people will be fleeing is away from the equator. In that situation will we really be in a position to address those people’s problems? How many of them before things just break down? 50 million? 300? It’s about viability and survival, not contempt.