On the move
Climate change is displacing people and destabilizing communities.
By Christian Uva ‘26
By 2050, 216 million people will be forcibly displaced from their homes due to climate change, according to the World Bank. When they find new homes, either within their country or in another country, they have to adjust to new cultures and ways of life. “If people do have to relocate for whatever reason, how do we let them become part of our community?” asked Maryanne Loughry, a Sister of Mercy and senior advisor for BC’s Office of Global Engagement’s Jesuit Refugee Service. “We’re at risk of making oases that don’t relate to each other.”
Loughry was one of four panelists who spoke to more than 30 attendees on Feb. 11 at the third installment of the “Climate is Every Story” series, Forced Migration and Changing Communities, where journalists and BC faculty discussed the growing impact of climate change on where people live.
Reuters immigration reporter Ted Hesson, (BC ‘02), who moderated the panel, recalled a Colombian family he met in Washington, D.C. in 2022, who had immigrated through Central America after their house in the mountains near Medellín was destroyed by an unexpected landslide following heavy rains. Hesson learned that the landslides had become more common in recent years after a period of drought. Although he wasn’t reporting specifically on climate change, he said,“I could see how that climate factor clearly played a role in their decision to come and take on a very difficult trip.”
Communities across the world are reckoning with lands and homes prone to climate-related disasters like these. Meera Subramanian, a freelance journalist and author who has reported in the U.S. and India, said that climate change creates new risks, many people are increasingly seeing “migration as an adaptation.” Some Palisades wildfire victims, for instance, have moved from California to Idaho to avoid worrying about wildfires continuing to happen. “It’s so complex because … people are being forced to migrate and people are choosing to migrate,” Subramanian said.
Photo by John Sexton ’26.
Others stay in place, even with that risk in mind. Loughry, who has researched climate-induced displacement in the Pacific, said that some people choose to stay and tend to their ancestors’ graves. “I think our narrative here in the U.S. is that everybody wants to come to the U.S.,” Loughry said. “And I just wanted to say there are some people who maybe would like to have [a] better life, but what they want to do is to be on their own land.” In collectivist societies, she added, leaders may make the choice to stay or leave on behalf of their group.
Receiving communities don’t always welcome people displaced by climate change. María Piñeros-Leaño, an associate professor in the School of Social Work whose research focuses on mental health in Latino immigrants, said many Puerto Ricans who had to move to south Florida following Hurricane Maria were discriminated against by other Latinos. “They’ve mentioned that even other Puerto Ricans that are more established have not provided…the welcoming environment that they would have expected,” she said.
A similar story is found in Colombia, where Piñeros-Leaño said the population increased by 2% between 2016 and 2020, partly due to a large influx of Venezuelan immigrants, putting strain on the country’s infrastructure. Venezuelan immigrants, she said, face discrimination from Colombians and show high levels of depression as a result.
Photo by John Sexton ’26.
Hesson saw similar responses to a growing Haitian population in the small Rust Belt town of Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Some white residents resented the changing demographics, and President Donald Trump even targeted the town in a speech.
But both Hesson and Piñeros-Leaño saw another side of this story, examples of communities adapting and working together when faced with challenges. Hesson found that the elementary school’s French teacher integrated Creole into the curriculum to make Haitian students feel welcome. Piñeros-Leaño said that community interventions in Colombia brought Colombian and Venezuelan youths together, allowing them to set aside their differences and bond over food and other parts of their culture. “Colombians in the end said, ‘Well, it was a great experience. It was really nice to find common ground with Venezuelan migrants,’” she said.