A USA Today Report from Bonn, Germany, headlined "Warming could cause greatest human migration ever" on 6/9/09 reported that "Global warming is uprooting people from their homes and, left unchecked, could lead to the greatest human migration in history, said a report released Wednesday." Notice, it said "could lead"--the word "could" implies that people are really just guessing here. "Estimates vary on how many people are on the move because of climate change, but the report cites predictions from the International Organization for Migration that 200 million people will be displaced by environmental pressures by 2050. Some estimates go as high as 700 million, said the report, released at U.N negotiations for a new climate treaty." When "estimates vary" it means that people really have no idea. "Researchers questioned more than 2,000 migrants in 23 countries about why they moved, said Koko Warner of the U.N. University, which conducted the study with CARE International. The results were 'a clear signal' that environmental stress already is causing population shifts, she said, and it could be 'a mega-trend of the future.'" Notice that "could be" again--just guessing. And yet, with all this guessing about things concerning which people have no idea, it is still "a clear signal"! "The report, 'In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement,' studies people in some of the world's great river deltas who could be subject to glacial melt, desert dwellers who are vulnerable to increasing drought, and islanders whose entire nations could be submerged by rising sea levels." Oh, it's "could be subject" again--just guessing. "The report said 40 island states could disappear, in whole or in part, if seas rise by six feet." Yes, "could" again, and notice the "if seas rise by six feet." What "if" they don't? "Melting glaciers in the Himalayas threaten repeated flooding in the Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow river basins, which support 1.4 billion people, or nearly one-fourth of humanity, in India, southeast Asia and China. After the floods will come drought when seasonal glacier runoff no longer feeds the rivers, it said." That part of the world has been undergoing severe flooding that has uprooted people for countless ages! "In Mexico and Central America drought and hurricanes have led to migrations since the 1980s and they will get worse, it said." And that part of the world has been undergoing alternate droughts and hurricanes for hundreds of years too. So far the USA Today article is short on actual fact and long on hyped-up claims. What is the goal of all this? "A draft text calls on nations to prepare plans to adapt to climate change by accounting for possible migrations." In other words, we have no idea what is going to happen, and we don't know what we're doing, but we have to do something right now, which will probably involve a lot of cost and pain for a lot of people just to prepare for a bunch of "ifs" and "coulds" which may never come.