While I was in Iraq reporting on the occupation from 2003 to 2013, the man who was my primary interpreter was named Harb. Harb’s son miraculously managed to escape war-torn Baghdad and move to the U.S. with his wife and children. Both doctors, the courageous couple has managed to create a safe home and life for themselves and their children, along with Harb’s wife. (Harb is now deceased.) They live in Tampa, Florida.
My head swims while pondering the multilayered irony of Harb and his family. They all had to flee Baghdad when the violence escalated, as the occupation wore on. First, they fled to Damascus, until Syria imploded. Then they fled to Beirut. “Now I am a double refugee,” I remember Harb telling me, laughing (he always laughed at his tragedies), when we spoke during that time. He had by then managed to get all of his children out of Iraq, each of them now safely relocated to more stable countries. Then for roughly two years he and his wife sat in Beirut, waiting, until their visas to the U.S. finally came through, and they were finally able to join their son and his wife, and their grandchildren, in Tampa.
After two months with his son, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and wife, knowing all of his family, and his wife, were at long last safe, Harb’s huge heart finally gave out and he died.Now, as the seas rise and hurricanes intensify — thanks to the climate chaos fueled by events like the U.S. government invading and occupying Iraq so as to obtain and burn that country’s oil (not to mention the U.S. military’s gargantuan carbon footprint) — how long will Harb’s son and his family be able to remain in Tampa, until they are climate refugees? It won’t take too many feet of sea level rise for much of Tampa to become unlivable. Or perhaps sooner than that, one massive climate-disruption augmented hurricane and most of the city would be swamped by the storm surge alone.
Suffice it to say, all of us now, if we live long enough, are likely to become climate refugees at some point … whether it be from lack of food and water, rising seas, wildfires, smoke, or extreme weather events. For many, their time as climate refugees has already begun.