Climate migration is a subset of climate-related mobility that refers to movement driven by the impact of sudden or gradual climate-exacerbated disasters, such as "abnormally heavy rainfalls, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones". Gradual shifts in the environment tend to impact more people than sudden disasters. The majority of climate migrants move internally within their own countries, though a smaller number of climate-displaced people also move across national borders.

Climate change gives rise to migration on a large, global scale. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that an average of 20 million people are forcibly displaced to other areas in countries all over the world by weather-related events every year. Climate-related disasters disproportionately affect marginalized populations, who are often facing other structural challenges in climate-vulnerable regions and countries. As a result, climate-related disasters are often described as a threat multiplier that compounds crises over time and space. The 2021 White House Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration underscored the multifaceted impacts of climate change and climate-related migration, ranging from destabilizing vulnerable and marginalized communities, exacerbating resource scarcity, to igniting political tension.

Few existing international frameworks and regional and domestic legal regimes provide adequate protection to climate migrants. However, as the UN Dispatch noted, "people who have been uprooted because of climate change exist all over the world — even if the international community has been slow to recognize them as such." As a result, climate migration has been described as "the world's silent crisis," contrasting its global pervasiveness with its lack of recognition and investigation. Estimates on climate-related displacement vary, but all point to an alarming trend. The number of people displaced by climate-related disasters is forecast to top 200 million by 2050. The World Bank projects that there will be 216 million climate migrants by 2050. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) projects there will be 1.2 billion climate migrants by 2050 as a result of ecological threats, including conflict and civil unrest. The UN International Organization for Migration has cited that there may be up to 1 billion climate migrants by 2050.

Causes

Climate migrants refer to those who engage in movement driven by the impact of sudden or gradual climate change, such as "abnormally heavy rainfalls, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones". The intensification of natural disasters caused by climate change, has the potential to impact many populations, leading to a significant number of climate migrants. Over the past 50 years, the frequency of disasters has increased by a factor of 5. In addition to more frequent and severe disasters, global warming-induced rising temperatures will lead to more prevalent droughts and snow and ice melting, resulting in higher sea levels.

Gradual shifts in the environment tend to impact more people than sudden disasters. Between 1979 and 2008, storms impacted 718 million individuals, whereas droughts affected approximately 1.6 billion. Sudden climatic events like severe storms and natural disasters may destroy critical infrastructure, flood neighborhoods, disrupt transit systems, overburden medical centers, cause food and water shortages, destabilize energy plants, and jeopardize human health and well-being. These events can severely harm communities, making recovery a challenging process. Gradual impacts, such as famines, droughts, and other resource shortages and economic damages brought about by climate change may cause conflict, political instability, climate gentrification, and accumulated negative health effects due to exposure to unhealthy environments. Droughts and slowly rising temperatures, have more mixed effects, but are more likely to lead to longer-term changes.

Rising sea levels are a frequently addressed concern in environmental discussions. Sea levels are estimated to rise between 3 to 6 feet by 2100. This means that, progressively, land areas will become submerged. To put it in perspective, on average each year, the sea level has risen 3.7 mm. These data reveal significant threats to coastal cities and ecosystems, potentially displacing many humans.

Climate justice and adaptation
Climate adaptation projects in preparation for climate hazards and as a response to climate change may increase the climate resilience of communities. By bolstering resilience, such projects may reduce the degree of migration people feel compelled to undertake due to climate-related challenges. Varying levels of investment are made in supporting the adaptation, resilience, and mobility of neighborhoods, municipalities, and nations in the face of climate change and consequent environmental migration. This is especially important to consider since small island states, rural populations, people of color, low-income communities, the elderly, people with disabilities, coastal urban populations, food and housing insecure households, and developing countries are especially vulnerable to the worst effects of the climate crisis and therefore to environmental migration. Just as individuals and countries do not contribute equally to climate change, they also do not experience the negative effects of the crisis equally. Both short- and long-term impacts of climate change bring under-prepared communities environmental harm and exacerbate existing inequities.  People with livelihoods tied to the environment, like those in agriculture, fisheries, and coast-dependent businesses, are also at risk of relocation or job loss due to climate change. If communities cannot adapt adequately, migration might emerge as the primary response.

Climate migrants may migrate internally within their own country or to another country in response to climate change. Most climate migration is internal, meaning movement occurs within an individuals own country, and they do not cross international borders. In 2022 alone, weather-related events led to nearly 32 million internal displacements. In poor countries where individuals are more vulnerable to disasters due to inadequate climate adaptation, individuals will also often lack resources for long-distance migration.

In some cases, climate change constrains migration and people may lose the means to migrate, leading to a net decrease in migration. The migration that does take place is seen as voluntary and economically motivated. In some cases climate change could also exacerbate economic insecurity or political instability as causes for migration beyond temperatures and extreme weather events. Who moves and who stays when affected by climate change often falls along lines of race and class, as mobility requires some amount of wealth.

Gentrification

Global statistics
In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that the greatest single consequence of climate change could be migration, 'with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought'.

The most common projection is that the world will have 150–200 million people displaced by climate change by 2050. Variations of this claim have been made in influential reports on climate change by the IPCC  and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, as well as by NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace Germany (Jakobeit and Methmann 2007) and Christian Aid; and inter-governmental organisations such as the Council of Europe, UNESCO, and UNHCR. There has even been an estimate as high as 1.2 billion attributing climate migration to ecological threats, including conflict and civil unrest. This acknowledges that such ecological challenges might instigate conflicts, such as regions disputing over water access. Other reports with more conservative estimates focus solely on the direct effects of climate.

Francois Gemenne has stated that: 'When it comes to predictions, figures are usually based on the number of people living in regions at risk, and not on the number of people actually expected to migrate. Estimates do not account for adaptation strategies [or] different levels of vulnerability' (Gemenne 2009: 159). However, Hein de Haas has argued that to link the climate change issue "with the specter of mass migration is a dangerous practice based on myth rather than fact. The use of apocalyptic migration forecasts to support the case for urgent action on climate change is not only intellectually dishonest, but also puts the credibility of those using this argument - as well as the broader case for climate change action - seriously at risk". He argued that while "climate change is unlikely to cause mass migration" this also overlooks the fact that the implications of environmental adversity are most severe for the most vulnerable populations who lack the means to move out.

While climate-related migration is often framed as a remote issue, extreme weather events are already forcing people out of their homes in many parts of the world. In 2021, storms, floods, landslides, wildfires and droughts triggered 23,7 million internal displacements (i.e. displacement within a country), according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. This makes up for 60% of all internal displacements that year.

In 2018, the BBC reported that "UN figures indicate that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women".

Statistics by region
Climate-induced migration is a highly complex issue which needs to be understood as part of global migration dynamics. Migration typically has multiple causes, and environmental factors are intertwined with other social and economic factors, which themselves can be influenced by environmental changes. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognized that climate change and environmental harm frequently "interact[] with other drivers of displacement" that fit into the established refugee definition.

Additionally, it is maintained that the poor populate areas that are most at risk for environmental destruction and climate change, including coastlines, flood-lines, and steep slopes. As a result, climate change threatens areas already suffering from extreme poverty. "The issue of equity is crucial. Climate affects us all, but does not affect us all equally," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates at a climate conference in Indonesia.

Africa
Africa has 80% of the world's refugee population and this number is only set to increase with climate change. Africa is one of the world regions where environmental displacement is critical largely due to droughts and other climate-related eventualities. The United Nations Environment Programme noted that "No continent will be struck as severely by the impacts of climate change as Africa." Most of the countries in Africa were ranked most vulnerable to climate change and least likely to adapt to its impacts. Existing conflicts, poverty, and displacement in Africa may draw attention away from climate migrants, but it is important to understand that these interrelated challenges often exacerbate the difficulties of those forced to move due to environmental factors.

Drought has become a pressing issue with climate change, and with at least one-third of the population in Africa living in drought prone areas, many of these people are vulnerable. Thus, drought conditions are expected to change the lives of nearly 100 million Africans by 2050. As drought intensifies, it exacerbates desertification, further diminishing the amount of habitatble land. Land degradation caused by desertification will have an impact of agricultural productivity, decreasing food security. The connection between desertification and food insecurity is evident in the Sahel region, where between 14.4 and 23.7 million people faced hunger in 2020 and 2021.

Aside from droughts, other parts of Africa experience intensified storms and flooding due to monsoon seasons. In Sudan in 2014 flooding from a storm displaced 159,000 individuals. In Somali, seasonal rains caused flash flooding in 2023 which displaced nearly a 250,000.

Middle East
The Middle East is combatting a severe refugee crisis and climate change is set to be influential in creating even more refugees. The leading country in the refugee crisis is Syria, largely due to social conflict. Since 2011, over 14 million Syrians have been displaced. The drought between 2007 and 2010 played a role in exacerbating the Syrian conflict. This period experienced the most severe drought on record, leading to significant agricultural setbacks and prompting numerous farming households to relocate to cities. The drought acted as a catalyst, leading to the Syrian civil war. Such environmental stresses have underscored the idea that many Syrians can be viewed as climate migrants, given that climatic factors indirectly fueled the onset of the Syrian civil war.

Another cause of environmental distress in the Middle East is extreme heat. With its hot desert climate, the Middle east is predicted to reach summertime temperatures as high as 46 °C by 2050. These soaring temperatures have already occurred, although rarely, and have labeled parts of the Middle East as unlivable for humans. Such extreme conditions are expected to increase the number of climate migrants, as people search for cooler and more habitable regions.

Asia and the Pacific

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, more than 42 million people were displaced in Asia and the Pacific triggered by sudden onset natural hazards during 2010 and 2011, more than twice the population of Sri Lanka. This figure includes those displaced by storms, floods, and heat and cold waves. Still others were displaced by drought and sea-level rise. Most of those compelled to leave their homes eventually returned when conditions improved, but an undetermined number became migrants, usually within their country, but also across national borders.

A 2012 Asian Development Bank study argues that climate-induced migration should be addressed as part of a country's development agenda, given the major implications of migration on economic and social development. The report recommends interventions both to address the situation of those who have migrated, as well as those who remain in areas subject to environmental risk. It says: "To reduce migration compelled by worsening environmental conditions, and to strengthen the resilience of at-risk communities, governments should adopt policies and commit financing to social protection, livelihoods development, basic urban infrastructure development, and disaster risk management."

Africa is also one of the world regions where environmental displacement is critical largely due to droughts and other climate-related eventualities.

Due to rising sea levels, as many as 70,000 people will be displaced in the Sundarbans as early as 2020 according to an estimate by the Center for Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University. One expert calls for restoring the Sundarbans' original mangrove habitats to both mitigate the impacts of rising seas and storm surges, and to serve as a carbon sink for greenhouse gas emissions.

650 families of Satbhaya in Kendrapara district of Odisha, India who have been displaced by sea level rise and coastal erosion have been a part of the state government of Odisha's pioneering approach to planned relocation at Bagapatia under Gupti Panchayat. While this approach makes provision for homestead land and other amenities, provisioning for livelihoods like agriculture and fishing which are the mainstay for the relocated populations is needed.

In Minqin County, Gansu Province, "10,000 people have left the area and have become shengtai yimin, 'ecological migrants'". In Xihaigu, Ningxia, water shortages driven by climate change and deforestation have resulted in several waves of government-mandated relocations since 1983.

In 2013 a claim of a Kiribati man, Ioane Teitiota, of being a "climate change refugee" under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) was determined by the New Zealand High Court to be untenable. The Refugee Convention did not apply as there is no persecution or serious harm related to any of the five stipulated convention grounds. The Court rejected the argument that the international community itself (or countries which can be said to have been historically high emitters of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases) were the "persecutor" for the purposes of the Refugee Convention. This analysis of the need for the person to identify persecution of the type described in the Refugee Convention does not exclude the possibility that a people for countries experiencing severe impacts of climate change can come with the Refugee Convention. However, it is not the climate change event itself, rather the social and political response to climate change, which is likely to create the pathway for a successful claim. The New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal and the High Court, "there is a complex inter-relationship between natural disasters, environmental degradation and human vulnerability. Sometimes a tenable pathway to international protection under the Refugee Convention can result. Environmental issues sometimes lead to armed conflict. There may be ensuing violence towards or direct repression of an entire section of a population. Humanitarian relief can become politicised, particularly in situations where some group inside a disadvantaged country is the target of direct discrimination". The New Zealand Court of Appeal also rejected the claim in a 2014 decision. On further appeal, the New Zealand Supreme Court confirmed the earlier adverse rulings against the application for refugee status, with the Supreme Court also rejecting the proposition "that environmental degradation resulting from climate change or other natural disasters could never create a pathway into the Refugee Convention or protected person jurisdiction". Teitiota appealed to the UN. In January 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee "ruled against Teitiota on the basis that his life was not at imminent risk," but also said that it was a human rights violation to force refugees to return "to countries where climate change poses an immediate threat."

In 2014 attention was drawn to an appeal to the New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal against the deportation of a Tuvaluan family on the basis that they were "climate change refugees", who would suffer hardship resulting from the environmental degradation of Tuvalu. However the subsequent grant of residence permits to the family was made on grounds unrelated to the refugee claim. The family was successful in their appeal because, under the relevant immigration legislation, there were "exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian nature" that justified the grant of resident permits as the family was integrated into New Zealand society with a sizeable extended family which had effectively relocated to New Zealand.

North America

Canada
Climate change has increased the likelihood and the intensity of wildfires in Canada. The wildfires have posed immediate dangers to several regions, and the ensuing smoke has affected even more regions. 20% of those exposed to the smoke report a worse health due to the poor air quality. Approximately 13% of the population in Canada are considering to migrate due to increase in wildfires strength and occurrence. In Alberta, it is 16%, and in British Columbia 19%. Women under the age of 35 are the most likely to migrate.

California

California is confronting a growing forest and wildlife crisis due to wildfire. California has historically been vulnerable to wildfires – at least a third of the worst wildfires in US history have occurred in California. However, climate change – specifically, warmer temperatures and more intense drought seasons – in recent years have dramatically increased the size and intensity of wildfires in the state. More than half of the 20 largest California wildfires in modern history occurred between 2018 and 2022. The 2020 wildfires were particularly devastating, burning down more than 4 million acres of land, destroying thousands of buildings, and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes.

Evidence suggests that only a small percentage of those affected by the wildfires choose to stay. Only several thousands of the 27,000 residents affected by the 2018 Sierra Nevada fire chose to remain and rebuild. The others chose to migrate either to other parts of California or out-of-state. They face special difficulties with relocation due to lack of fire insurance policies and the state's lack of affordable housing. The state estimates at least 2.5 million homes are needed in the next eight years to catch up to demand.

Alaska

There have been 178 Alaskan communities threatened by erosion of their land. The annual temperature has steadily increased over the last fifty years, with Alaska seeing it double (compared to the rate seen across the rest of the United States) to the rate of 3.4 degrees, with an alarming 6.3 degrees increase for the winters over the past fifty years. Many of the communities residing in these areas have been living off the land for generations. There is an eminent threat of loss of culture and loss of tribal identity with these communities.

Between 2003 and 2009, a partial survey by the Army Corps of Engineers identified thirty-one Alaskan villages under imminent threat of flooding and erosion. By 2009, 12 of the 31 villages had decided to relocate, with four (Kivalina, Newtok, Shaktoolik, and Shishmaref) requiring immediate evacuation due to danger of immediate flooding along with limited evacuation options.

However, relocation is proving difficult because there is no governmental institutional framework that exists for the aid of climate refugees in the United States. The Obama administration promised to fund $50.4 billion to help with relocation efforts in 2016.

Louisiana
Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, home to the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw First Nation, is being depopulated with federal grant money, due to saltwater intrusion and sea level rise.  This Indigenous Nation residing on the Isle de Jean Charles is facing the effects of climate change. The resettlement of this community of around 100, exists as the first migration of a total community in the state of Louisiana. This state has lost almost  of its coast within the last 87 years and now an alarming rate of almost  per year is disappearing. In early 2016, a 48-million-dollar grant was the first allocation of federal tax dollars to aid a community suffering from direct impact of climate change. Louisiana has lost land mass comparable to the size of the state of Delaware revealing land mass loss that is at a rate faster than many places in the world. The resettlement plan for the Isle de Jean Charles is at the forefront of responding to climate change without destroying the community that resides within.

Washington state

Native American tribes located on the outer coast of the state of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, such as the Quinault Indian Nation village of Taholah, and the Shoalwater Bay Tribe, have been increasingly vulnerable to encroaching sea levels, storm surges and intense rain causing landslides and floods. In response, the Quinault Indian Nation conducted a vulnerability assessment and devised a comprehensive relocation plan to move two of its villages – Taholah and Queets, home to 660 tribal members – to higher ground way above the tsunami and flood zones. However, relocation is expensive and only possible with federal funding – it is estimated that moving the 471-member Shoalwater Bay Tribe up the mountain could cost half a billion dollars. The Department of the Interior, under the Biden Administration, has created programs designed to help relocate communities affected by climate change and is assessing which tribes to allocate funding to first.

Central America and the Caribbean

The people of Central America and the Caribbean are repeatedly faced with severe weather events and climate change will only exacerbate this issue. A large portion of this region lies along the "Dry Corridor", an arid region that includes areas of Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. The dry corridor is predicted to expand with the onset of climate change. It is currently home to approximately 10 million people, half of whom are subsistence farmers. From 2009 - 2019, two million residents in the dry corridor have experienced hunger because of extreme weather events caused by climate change. Natural weather patterns such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or simply "El Niño", can make dry conditions in this region more extreme. Wet periods following an El Niño weather event can bring torrential rain that results in major flooding and catastrophic landslides. Multiple studies have shown that climate change could result in more frequent extreme El Niños.

Food security issues are expected to worsen across Central America due to climate change. In August 2019, Honduras declared a state of emergency when a drought caused the southern part of the country to lose 72% of its corn and 75% of its bean production. It is predicted that by 2070, corn yields in Central America may fall by 10%, beans by 29%, and rice by 14%. With Central American crop consumption dominated by corn (70%), beans (25%), and rice (6%), the expected drop in staple crop yields could have devastating consequences. The World Bank predicts that by 2050, climate change-induced migration could displace 1.4 - 2.1 million residents of Central America and Mexico. The highest estimate is that worsening droughts and flooding from climate change could displace up to 4 million people in the region by 2050.

Several weather events in the 21st century have displayed the devastating effects of the El Niño weather pattern and have led to mass displacement and hunger crises. In 2009, extreme drought hit the Dry Corridor, followed by Hurricane Ida. The storm affected forty thousand people in Nicaragua and left thirteen thousand homeless. El Salvador received up to  of rain in two days, causing massive landslides which killed 190 people and displaced ten thousand more. In 2015, due to the strongest El Niño in recorded history, hundreds of thousands of Central American subsistence farmers lost a portion or the entirety of their crops. Throughout 2014 and 2015, El Salvador alone saw over $100 million in damage to crops. In Guatemala, the drought caused a food shortage that left 3 million people struggling to feed themselves, according to a 2015 report authored by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP). The Guatemalan government declared a state of emergency as the drought and high food prices led to a hunger crisis during which chronic malnutrition was common among children. By the end of June 2016, it was estimated by the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that 3.5 million people required humanitarian assistance across El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The western highlands of Guatemala are particularly susceptible to climate change, affecting the region's predominantly Indigenous population of subsistence farmers. The main crops, potatoes and maize, have been under increasing pressure as hard frosts in the region have become more frequent since 2013. Hard frosts can kill a whole season's worth of crops at once. At lower elevations, new pests are becoming more prevalent and there has been decreased rainfall. In 2018, 50% of the 94,000 Guatemalans deported from the United States and Mexico were from these western highlands.

The IOM/WFP report also showed the ways in which food insecurity led to migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Pointing out that there are millions of Central Americans living abroad (with over 80% in the United States), the report stated there is a positive correlation between food insecurity and migration from these countries. It also confirmed that crises related to hunger and violence are exacerbated when the region heads into the second consecutive year of an extreme drought. In their conclusions, the authors definitively found that food insecurity has led to migration in these countries. Despite this evidence, the ramifications of extreme weather and climate change have rarely been discussed in relation to Central American migrants and it requires more research to prove their direct link.

South America

Many sources analyzing migration in South America have found multiple types of linkages between climate change and its effect on migration. The effects and results vary based on the type of climatic change, socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics of migrants and the distance and direction of the migration. Since most climate migration studies are done in the developed world, scientists have called for more quantitative research within the developing world, including South America. Migration in South America does not always increase as a result of increased environmental threats but is affected by factors such as climate variability and land suitability. These migrations happen either gradually or suddenly but are typically directed from rural to urban areas. Inter-provincial migration is shown to not be as heavily influenced by environmental changes whereas migration outside of the country of origin is heavily influenced by environmental changes. The results of a climactic event catalyzing migration change depending on the onset of the event, however, climate change related events such as drought and hurricanes augment or increase youth migration. Youth are more likely to migrate as a response to climate-related events. As a result, children who have been displaced are found to travel shorter distances to find work in rural destinations versus further to an urban area. The increase in interest in this topic in the past decade has called for a measure called preventive resettlement. The cases in which preventive resettlement appear appropriate is typically discerned by local and governmental bodies. Others call for an increase in social programs to both prevent and help in a migration event.

Active sea-level rise resulted in the relocation of the people of Enseada da Baleia, a coastal community located on Cardoso Island in southeastern Brazil. The government offered the residents the ability to either relocate to another community on the island or a city on the mainland. Most residents chose to move to a new location that was more inland on the same island and paid for their own expenses of relocation with little government assistance. Brazilian lawyer Erika Pires Ramos argues that the dilemma faced by the residents of Enseada da Baleia illustrates how climate migrants are invisible throughout much of Latin America. Governments must first recognize and identify groups of climate migrants in order to better help them.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that today nearly 11 million South Americans are currently resettling or migrating due to recent and ongoing natural disasters, some of which are climate-induced. Collecting and maintaining data on climate migrants remains a major obstacle for South American governments in preparing and anticipating for migration flows from future climate-induced disasters. Peru passed a national climate change law in 2018 that mandates the government, led by a multi-agency group, to create a plan to mitigate and adapt to future climate migrations. Uruguay already has its own "national resettlement plan" for climate-induced migrations in place.

A few countries like Argentina and Brazil, offer a "disaster-related emergency visa". In Argentina, the visa came into effect in 2022 includes relocation, housing and integration support provided by civil society.

Some Kuna people, such as those in the settlement of Gardi Sugdub, have decided to relocate from islands to the mainland of Panama due to sea level rise.

Europe

Estimates put the number of displaced persons in Europe from climate-related events at over 700,000 in the last ten years. Most of the continent's climate-related catastrophes are a result of either flooding or wildfires.

The European Union has yet to adopt any continent-wide convention on the status of migrants displaced by climate-related events.

Record droughts caused by climate change in part of the Middle East are increasingly seen as a significant contributing factor to regional unrest and mass migrations to Europe.  While the role of climate change in exacerbating internal domestic unrest is still being widely debated, there's increasing empirical support for the argument that climate change acts as a security threat multiplier in developing countries. Back-to-back unprecedented droughts plagued Syrian farmers from 2006 to 2011, resulting in mass migrations from the countryside to the cities where existing infrastructure came under strain. This internal migration further exacerbated the growing unemployment and inequality and was one of the main driving forces leading to the Syrian Civil War. Over one million Syrians have fled the country since the war began, largely resettling in neighboring Turkey.

Due to the 2014 Balkan flooding (which is considered to be linked to climate change), some people in Bosnia and Herzegovina migrated to other European countries.

Moldova, with a large rural population dependent on subsistence farming, is one of Europe's most vulnerable countries to the threat of climate change. Increasing erratic weather patterns may lead to crop failures and mass migrations to neighboring countries. In 2010, devastating floods completely submerged the village of Cotul Morii in central Moldova resulting in the evacuation of 440 families. Government authorities mandated that Cotul Morii be reconstructed in a new location 15 kilometers away from the original village which the government officially abandoned. Despite this, over 60 families chose to remain and rebuild their community in the original village even with a lack of running water or electricity. Climate migration researchers emphasize the growing importance of a "right to voluntary immobility". There are often very sensitive and complicated issues at play when making the decision to relocate an entire population from their home, and many residents may choose to voluntarily opt-out of government efforts.

In Wales, the village of Fairbourne has been cited as an area particularly vulnerable to sea level rise. The local Gwynedd Council has described it as impractical to protect from rising sea levels and proposed managed retreat.

Political and legal perspectives

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) expects the scale of global migration to rise as a result of accelerated climate change. It, therefore, recommends policymakers around the world to take a proactive stance on the matter. Despite the scale of climate migration, current legal protections across the world are ineffective in protecting climate migrants.Few existing international frameworks and regional and domestic legal regimes provide adequate protection to climate migrants. Typically, climate migrants are not legally recognized as refugees and therefore do not enjoy international and domestic refugee law protections. In the Americas, instead of being granted refugee status, individuals displaced by environmental factors are offered humanitarian visas or complementary protection, which do not always provide permanent residence and citizenship pathways. Although the term 'refugee' is legally incorrect, the definition of climate change refugee has be created to address the crisis. Every individuals affected by environmental harm still deserves protection and aid on humanitarian grounds.

A report from the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) therefore recommends the creation of new legal pathways to safety for people moving in the context of climate change and environmental degradation. IRAP's report also recommends that governments develop stronger humanitarian protection for people who are forcibly displaced in a changing climate. The report emphasizes that strengthening the legal protections for climate-displaced persons should be preemptive with increased options for these persons before environmental disasters occur.

The International Law Commission (ILC) provides guidance on the legal protections that climate-displaced persons should enjoy when disasters strikes. ILC's Draft Articles on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters advocates for mass displacement to be included in the definition of "disaster". The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) recently decided cases wherein the Committee asserted that "the ICCPR obligates states not to return people fleeing life-threatening climate change impacts." In one of these cases, Teitota v. New Zealand, the UNHRC held that "individuals and groups who have crossed national borders could file subsequent petitions against deportation to the UNHRC, after exhausting domestic options, based on climate change impacts that violate the right to life." In January 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that "climate refugees fleeing the effects of the climate crisis cannot be forced by their adoptive countries to return to their home counties whose climate is posing an immediate threat."

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)  argued that people who will be forced to move due to climate change currently have no adequate recognition in international law. The EJF contends that a new multilateral legal instrument is required to specifically address the needs of "climate refugees" in order to confer protection to those fleeing environmental degradation and climate change. They have also asserted that additional funding is needed to enable developing countries to adapt to climate change. Sujatha Byravan and Sudhir Chella Rajan have argued for the use of the term 'climate exiles' and for international agreements to provide them political and legal rights, including citizenship in other countries, bearing in mind those countries' responsibilities and capabilities.

Global perceptions from possible countries of asylum
Acceptance of the possibility of environmental migrants may be influenced by other challenges that confront a nation. In Canada, there is public interest in policies that foster planning and accommodations. On 20 September 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada told the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants that plans just for resettlement would not be enough. Sweden which had allowed refugees to seek asylum from areas of war in an open door policy has changed to a policy that is more deterrent of asylum seekers and is even offering money for asylum seekers to withdraw their requests. The United States, which was warned under the Obama administration to prepare for climate change and consequent refugees, had more difficulties in doing so under former President Donald Trump, who denied the reality of climate change, signed executive orders dismantling environmental protections, ordered the EPA to remove climate change information from their public site, and signaled his administration's unwillingness to anticipate environmental refugees from climate change.

A nation grants "asylum" when it grants someone freedom from prosecution within its borders. Each country makes its own rules and laws of asylum. The United States, for example, has a system recognized by federal and international laws. France was the first country to constitute the right to asylum. The right to asylum differs in different nations. There is a still fight for the right to asylum in some areas of the world.

In 2021, a French court ruled in an extradition hearing to avoid the deportation of a Bangladeshi man with asthma from France after his lawyer argued that he risked a severe deterioration in his condition, due to the air pollution in his homeland. Heavy floods affected Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in July 2021.

The Biden administration in the United States released several intelligence agency reports in 2021 that sketched out in sweeping language the risks climate change poses to global stability. The reports emphasize the destabilizing effects climate change will take on developing countries including massive rises in food insecurity, worsening droughts, fires and flooding, and sea level rises. Some of the most vulnerable countries, the report concludes, are Guatemala, Haiti, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq; countries with weak state institutions that are located in especially climate-vulnerable regions of the world. In February 2021, President Biden signed an executive order "directing the National Security Council to provide options for protecting and resettling people displaced by climate change".

In an updated report on climate migration released in October 2021, the Biden Administration detailed how the United States government should work to aid and assist climate migrants around the world. The report points to the use of U.S. foreign assistance through active humanitarian support, technical expertise, and capacity building and calls for increased funding to achieve these goals. Emphasizing the "complex interplay between climate change and migration", the report orients the government's focus to focus on climate migration as a single issue, demanding greater attention and focus in the coming years.

Perspective of countries taking immigrants
In the UK, research is being done on how climate change's impact on countries that are emigrated to will vary due to the infrastructure of those countries. They want to put into place policies so that those who have to migrate could go throughout Europe, and have solid emergency planning in place so that the people being displaced would have a swift and quick plan of escape once their environment can no longer handle inhabitants-slow or sudden onset. The end goal of this work is to determine the best course of action in the event of various environmental catastrophes.

Planning for climate migrants
Planning for climate migration, a subset of environmental migration, entails preparing for the desertion of geographically vulnerable areas as well as for the influx of vulnerable communities into largely  urban areas. In addressing current issues of environmental migration and preparing for forthcoming ones, experts call for interdisciplinary, locally-informed, equitable, and accessible approaches. Cities can explore what being "migrant friendly" might look like, such as offering job training programs, affordable and livable housing, access to green spaces, accessible mass transit systems, and resources to overcome language or cultural barriers. Special investment in both resources and information dissemination can help accommodate the diverse needs of people with disabilities and mental health conditions – both in the immediate moment of a disaster, where some emergency response and early warning systems may not be audiologically or visually accessible, and in the aftermath. Investments in flood barriers and other infrastructure for adaptation can provide physical protections against severe weather. Incorporating these considerations into planning conversations now can assist cities in preparing for the worst effects of climate change before some of the scenarios for climate migration come to occur.

Sustainable development, emergency response mechanisms, and local planning can help mitigate the consequences of climate migration. Mitigation may be too late for many, leaving planned migration as the only option. For people whose livelihoods are closely linked to the stability and health of their environment – like farmers and fishers – migration may become necessary for survival. A recent New York Times and Pulitzer Center article on the issue notes that "by comparison, Americans are richer, often much richer, and more insulated from the shocks of climate change. They are distanced from the food and water sources they depend on, and they are part of a culture that sees every problem as capable of being solved by money...Census data show us how Americans move: toward heat, toward coastlines, toward drought, regardless of evidence of increasing storms and flooding and other disasters...The sense that money and technology can overcome nature has emboldened Americans." This disparity is reflected in the coastal real estate market and development projects. Addressing climate migration issues and climate change as a whole may involve reimagining how, where, and why municipalities develop and urbanize for the future.

In an article written for The Guardian, Gaia Vince outlined what the future of climate migration would look like and how countries can prepare. She cites research from the United Nations estimating that in the next 30 years, over 1 billion climate and environmental migrants will be uprooted from their homes, largely from countries in the Global South. Developed nations in North America and Europe, with aging and declining populations, will benefit from accepting and assimilating these climate migrants into their societies, she argues. Climate migration can be a solution to many of the world's problems, rather than just a problem, according to Vince. Currently, there is no global body or organization devoted exclusively to the issue of climate migration, however, Vince argues that new climate-friendly policies are still possible. Vince points to the rapid European response to enact open-border policies and right-to-work laws for Ukrainian refugees fleeing the 2022 war as an example. The policies arguably saved millions of lives and enabled the migrants to avoid the convoluted and slow-acting bureaucratic hurdles that exist for migrants from other countries. Vince argues that the Ukrainian migrant policy provides a blueprint for how developed countries can adopt policies and contingency plans for climate migrants in the future.

Society and culture
A documentary entitled Climate Refugees was released in 2010. Climate Refugees was an Official Selection for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. More recently, Short Documentary Academy Award Nominee, Sun Come Up (2011), tells the story of Carteret islanders in Papua New Guinea who are forced to leave their ancestral land in response to climate change and migrate to war-torn Bougainville. Since 2007, German artist Hermann Josef Hack has shown his World Climate Refugee Camp in the centers of various European cities. The model camp, made of roughly 1000 miniature tents, is a public art intervention that depicts the social impacts of climate change.

Various works of ecofiction and climate fiction have also featured migration. One of these is The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, which focuses on climate displacement and migration within the American Southwest.

See also

 Environmental migrant
 Effects of climate change on human health
 Managed retreat
 Space and survival
 Climate change
 Sea level rise

References

Further reading

External links
 Climate Change, Environment, and Migration Alliance
 World Refugee & Migration Council (2021) 'Solutions for the Global Governance of Climate Displacement'

Environmental issues
Refugees by type
Effects of climate change

Climate migrant


The "From Hell" letter is the name given to a letter mailed in 1888 by a man who claimed to be the killer known as Jack the Ripper.

Many letters that were claimed to be from the killer were mailed in the time of the Ripper murders. But the "From Hell" letter is thought as one of the few writings from the serial killer. It should be noted that its author chose not to sign it with the pseudonym, "Jack the Ripper", distinguishing it from the earlier Dear Boss letter, the Saucy Jack postcard and their imitators.  Also, the "From Hell" letter is written at a much lower literacy level than the other two. It is argued that a person with little or no education would spell words based on what they sound like and as the 'k' in knife is silent, an uneducated man would not likely know that the 'k' was there at all.

Postmarked on 15 October 1888, the letter was received by George Lusk, then head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, the following day.

The reason this letter stands out more than any other is that it was delivered with a small box containing a human kidney, preserved in alcohol. One of Catherine Eddowes' kidneys had been removed by the killer. Medical opinion at the time was split on whether the kidney was likely to have been the same as the one taken from Eddowes. Some officials thought the organ could have been acquired by medical students and sent with the letter as part of a hoax.

Texts
The text of the letter reads:

Loss of letter
The original letter, as well as the kidney with it, have been lost along with other items that were originally contained within the Ripper police files. It is possible that one or both was kept by an official as a souvenir of the case. The image shown here is from a photograph taken before the loss of the letter.

Related pages

 From Hell, a graphic novel, which takes its title from the "From Hell" letter.
 From Hell, a film based on the graphic novel.

References

 Casebook: Jack the Ripper article on the Ripper letters
 Jack the Ripper: Letters From Hell, by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, Sutton Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0-7509-2549-3

1888

From Hell letter


The hidden-ear frog or earless water-holding frog (Ranoidea cryptotis) is a frog from Australia. It lives in the Kimberly region in the Ord and Fitzroy Valleys.  It lives in Western Australia and small parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory.

The adult male frog is 3.4 to 4.6 cm long.  The adult female frog is 3.6 to 4.8 cm long.  This frog has a round body and a small head.  It does not have any webbing on its front feet.  This frog can be gray or brown.  Adult frogs can have a mottled pattern.  It has five stripes running across its body from the sides.  They can be bright orange in color.

This frog waits for wet weather before it lays eggs.  It lays its eggs in pools of water.  The water can be very hot, 40°C.  It can be white and full of clay.  The tadpoles can be 4.6 cm long.  They have five rows of teeth, two on the top and three on the bottom.  The tadpoles take about one month to become frogs.

References

Pelodryadidae

Hidden-ear frog


Dyana Williams (born November 9, 1953), a native New Yorker, is a radio and music industry professional, journalist, community activist, artist development and media coach, and documentarian, as well as the founder of Influence Entertainment and co-founder of the Pennsylvania-based non-profit advocacy organization, the International Association of African American Music Foundation (IAAAM Foundation).

Williams has worked for over four decades in radio and on television. She hosted a weekly broadcast, Afternoon Delight, on Radio One's Classix 107.9 and co-hosted Soulful Sunday with Derrick Sampson. Williams was an entertainment correspondent for Chasing News with Bill Spadea on Fox 5 in New York and My9NJ. Williams serves as a frequent commentator in TV One's docu-series Unsung.

Career

Early years
Williams started her professional broadcasting career when she was hired in 1973 by radio boss, Bob "Nighthawk" Terry to join the staff of 96.3 WHUR-FM in Washington D.C.. Her radio handle was Ebony Moonbeams. Two years later, legendary radio icon, Frankie Crocker hired Williams at Inner City Broadcasting's 107.5 WBLS-FM in her hometown, New York City. In 1978, she became the first African American/Latina woman rock DJ at the ABC FM affiliate, WRQX-FM. Williams made a move to television when she became an arts and culture contributing reporter for P.M. Magazine on the CBS affiliate, WDVM. After moving to Philadelphia in 1980, Williams established a show called "Love on the Menu" for 105.3 WDAS. Williams also did freelance entertainment reporting for Black Entertainment Television, and served as a music consultant for The Soul of VH1 where she interviewed prominent recording artists. Closely associated with "TSOP" (The Sound Of Philadelphia) and Philadelphia's jazz and soul artists, she produced and narrated The Philadelphia Music Makers in 1990. It aired on the Philadelphia PBS outlet, WHYY. As a writer, Williams has contributed to The Philadelphia Tribune, Billboard Magazine and The Philadelphia New Observer.

Later years
In 1990, Williams and Sheila Eldridge launched the Association of African American Music Foundation (IAAAM Foundation) to promote and preserve Black music.   Williams co-wrote House Concurrent Bill 509, which recognized African American accomplishments in music and helped established African-American Music Appreciation Month originally started as "Black Music Month". In 1997, Williams earned her B.A. degree in television, radio and film from Temple University, graduating cum laude.

Williams frequently lectures about African-American music and popular culture to universities, colleges, and music conferences throughout the United States and around the world. Williams has been interviewed by CNN's Anderson Cooper, Tavis Smiley, and Tom Joyner among others. The recipient of numerous awards and recognition, Williams has received citations from: the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's House of Representative: State Senator David P. Richardson, December 9, 1987, a proclamation from Congressman Chaka Fattah, February 11, 2000, a Liberty Bell from Mayor John F. Street, March 18, 2000, City Council City of Philadelphia Citation from Councilman-At-Large, W.Wilson Goode, Jr., November 8, 2003, City of Philadelphia Citation from Mayor John F. Street, May 28, 2003 and was honored with Dyana Williams Day in the City of Philadelphia by Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and all members of the City Council, November 6, 2008. The Southeastern Pennsylvania March of Dimes presented Williams with the 2006 Achievement in Radio A.I.R Award for the Best Weekend Show in Philadelphia, November 1, 2006. Dyana has been a frequent on air commentator on the award-winning and highly acclaimed music documentary series, Unsung, on the TV One network. She also served as co-executive producer of the Teddy Pendergrass Unsung episode. In 2011, News One listed Williams as #7 on the "Top 20 Black Radio Jockeys of All Time" and RadioFacts.com recognized her as #8 on the "Top 30 Black Women in Media." In 2014, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, presented a proclamation to Williams for her dedication and effort to augment the Philadelphia slogan: The City of Brotherly Love, adding Sisterly Affection, acknowledging the inclusion of women.

She is on the board of the National Museum of African American Music.

Personal life
Williams is mother to Caliph Gamble, Isa Salahdeen Gamble and Princess Idia Gamble, from her former union with Grammy award-winning songwriter/producer and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Kenny Gamble.

References

External links

Influence Entertainment Official Website
Dyana Williams on YouTube
Dyana Williams on IMDb
https://www.vibe.com/2019/06/black-music-month-history
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-music-month-co-founder-dyana-williams_n_5433853
https://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20140603_Who_ya_gonna_call__Dyana_Williams_.htm
https://newsone.com/1093115/top-20-radio-jockeys-of-all-time/
https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/dyana-williams-40

Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
1953 births
Temple University alumni

Dyana Williams


Hakai Magazine in an online magazine which publishes short and feature-length journalistic stories on topics related to coastal science, ecology and communities. It was established by the Hakai Institute in 2015, which is funded by the Tula Foundation. The magazine is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The founding editor of the magazine is science journalist, Jude Isabella. The magazine also publishes film and book reviews.

Contributors
Regular contributors to Hakai magazine include

 Brian Owens,
 Heather Pringle,
 Darcy Dobell,
 Zach Zorich,
 Elizabeth Preston,
 Ilima Loomis,
 Hannah Waters,
 Michael Allen,
 Steve De Neef,
 Gord More,
 Jason G. Goldman,
 Larry Pynn and others.

Occasional contributors include
 Ryan Schuessler,
 James Thomson,
 Sheryl McFarlane,
 Jessica Wynne Lockhart,
 Eli Kintisch,
 Geoffrey Giller,
 Briony Penn,
Cameron Walker,
 Anne Finkbeiner,
 Anne Casselman,
 Alexandra Ossola,
 John H. Tibbets,
 Isabelle Groc,
 Steven Ashley,
 Andrew Lawler,
 Lorraine Boissoneault and others.

References

Environmental magazines
Science and technology magazines published in Canada
Online magazines published in Canada
Magazines established in 2015
Magazines published in British Columbia
2015 establishments in British Columbia
Mass media in Victoria, British Columbia

Hakai Magazine


Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English television presenter, film critic, radio personality, and journalist. Between 2004 and 2010, she presented Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two on weeknights on BBC Two. Since 2010, she has co-presented Strictly Come Dancings main results show on Sunday nights with Tess Daly on BBC One and since 2014 she has been co-host with Daly on the Saturday night live shows, following the departure of Sir Bruce Forsyth. She has twice been nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance for her work on Strictly Come Dancing.

Winkleman was also the presenter of the BBC's Film..., replacing Jonathan Ross after his move to ITV in 2010.

1972 births
British television presenters
English journalists
English television presenters
English writers
Living people
People from Hampstead
People from London

Claudia Winkleman


The lilac-crowned amazon (Amazona finschi), also known as lilac-crowned parrot, Finsch's parrot or Finsch's amazon, is a parrot endemic to the Pacific slopes of Mexico. Also known as Finsch's amazon, it is characterised by green plumage, a maroon forehead, and a violet-blue crown and neck.

The binomial of this bird commemorates the German naturalist and explorer Otto Finsch.

In 2006, BirdLife International classified this species as vulnerable. In 2014, IUCN uplisted this species to Endangered.

Description

The plumage of an adult lilac-crowned amazon is primarily green with yellowish underparts and black edging. The forehead is a maroon colour with a light blue-lilac neck, nape, and crown. The cheeks and ear coverts are a greenish yellow that lacks the edging that is present in most of the plumage. The primary feathers are dark blue with the secondary feathers being green while being tipped with the same dark blue colouring. Furthermore, the initial five secondary feathers have a bright red speculum on the edge of the feathers. The wing coverts, the underside of the flight feathers, and the tail are green while the tail is tipped with a yellowish colouring similar to that of the cheeks and ear coverts. Their beak, orbital rings, and legs are a pale brown-grey colouring. The irides of adult lilac-crowned parrots are amber-coloured.

Juvenile lilac-crowned amazons are visually similar to their adult forms except for minor differences. One difference is that the iris of juveniles is a dark brown as opposed to the amber colouring that is found in adults. The other major difference is that there less maroon coloured feathers on the forehead of juveniles. After about one-year juveniles begin to acquire these adult features.

Range and habitat
The lilac-crowned amazon's endemic range spans along the pacific coast of Mexico, beginning in southeastern Sonora and southwestern Chihuahua down to southern Oaxaca. In Sinaloa and northern Nayarit the geographic range of the lilac-crowned parrot is above 375 meters of elevation and does not reach sea level until southern Nayarit, where it remains so through Jalisco and Oaxaca.

The lilac-crowned amazon's natural habitat in Mexico is often threatened. The decline in population size has been recorded in almost all of its natural habitat locations. Based on a collection of data and resident accounts, Amazona finschi population range has decreased by 20% due to habitat loss.

An increasingly growing population of approximately 100 individuals is found in Southern California, especially in the San Gabriel Valley and Orange Country. This increase could also be attributed to a more reliable source of measurement of population than in past years. These populations often are found in residential areas and occasionally in nesting groups with red-crowned parrots in native conifer forests or non-native captive plants.

Breeding
The lilac-crowned amazon's breeding season is from February to June. They have a 28-day incubation period and a 60-day period of nestling growth. They tend to nest in the natural cavities of trees in dry forests. Females have a clutch size ranging from 1-4 eggs which usually results in an average brood size of 1.8 nestlings and a reproductive output of 0.99 fledglings per egg-laying female. Ultimately outcomes of reproductive efforts result in 0.70 independent young per egg-laying pair.

These low success rates could be attributed to the climate variability in dry forests, which could have an effect on clutch size, reproductive output and success.

Aviculture

Hand-reared lilac-crowned amazons can be quite friendly in captivity and can learn quite a vocabulary, even though they are not known as talkers. They make good companion parrots.

References

External links

 Overview of Amazona finschi from Neotropical birds.

lilac-crowned amazon
Birds of Mexico
Feral parrots
lilac-crowned amazon
Taxa named by Philip Sclater
Birds of the Sierra Madre Occidental
Birds of the Sierra Madre del Sur

Lilac-crowned amazon


Jacques Teyssier (born 31 October 1955 in Annonay, Ardèche, Rhône-Alpes † 25 July 2009 in Berlin) was a French and German citizen, and a German LGBT rights activist.

Life
From 1996 to 2008 Teyssier was member of the board of directors of the Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland, LSVD (lesbian and gay association  in Germany). From 1997 to 2005 he was treasurer of the LSVD. In 2009 he was appointed Honorary Chairman of the LSVD in recognition of his life achievements for this organization. He represents his organisation within ILGA and ILGA-Europe. One of his achievements was the recognition of LSVD by the UN (ECOPSOC). He was also involved in the building of the Human Rights organisation Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation.

Since 1992 he lived with his partner Volker Beck, a German politician and one of the most famous gay activists in Germany. They lived in Cologne, Paris and Berlin. In 2008 after 16 years of partnership they registered their partnership according to the German law. 1977/8 he served in the French army as officer in the secret service of the airforce. He studied at the Grande École de Management et de Commerce: EM Lyon – ESC in Lyon and worked for a German pharmaceutical company. He represented a pharmaceutical company in the Near East and was General Directeur of Madaus France.

Teyssier took part in the Gay rights events in Warsaw, locally known as the "Parada Rowności" (Equality Parade) in 2005 and 2006 and also in Moscow in 2006 and 2007. He represented the LSVD on these events.

Teyssier died of cancer in Berlin in 2009.
Speaking from Moscow, Nikolai Alekseev, Moscow Pride Chief Organizer said about the death of Mr Teyssier: "It will be hard for me to return to Berlin without meeting him, seeing his smile and also quarrelling on our activism stories around a glass of wine. Volker and Jacques were always very supportive of our work, not only in words, but also in their actions. I feel terribly sad".
"Jacques and Volker stood together against hatred, and in support of their LGBT brothers and sisters across the world.  Jacques' passion and spirit will be missed by the many friends and colleagues he made along the way," said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute.

A commemoration minute was held for him at the Human Rights Conference of the OutGames. The City of West Hollywood adjourned its Meeting on 17 August 2009 to honor the memory of Teyssier.

External links

References

1955 births
2009 deaths
People from Annonay
Emlyon Business School alumni
Gay politicians
German LGBT rights activists
French LGBT rights activists
French Air and Space Force personnel
Deaths from cancer in Germany
20th-century French LGBT people
20th-century German LGBT people

Jacques Teyssier


Alberto Francesco Alesina (29 April 1957 – 23 May 2020) was an Italian political economist. Considered one of the most cited supporters of austerity policies in the 2000s, he wrote about economics and political science.

Background and professional life
Alesina was born in Broni, Lombardy, Italy. He obtained his undergraduate degree in economics from Bocconi University.

From 2003 to 2006, Alesina served as Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He was the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard. He visited several institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tel Aviv University, University of Stockholm, The World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2006, Alesina participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project.

He published five books and edited more. His two last books were The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline (2006, MIT Press), and Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference (2004, Oxford). He was a co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics for eight years and associate editor of academic journals. He published columns in newspapers around the world. He was a founding contributor of the online economic policy and research journal Voxeu.org and of Lavoce.info.

Alesina's work covered a variety of topics, including:
 Political business cycles
 The political economy of fiscal policy and budget deficits
 The process of European integration
 Stabilization policies in high inflation countries
Currency unions
 The political economic determinants of re-distributive policies
 Differences in the welfare state in the US and Europe
 Differences in the economic system in the US and Europe
 The effect of alternative electoral systems on economic policies
 The determination of the choice of different electoral systems

Alesina was a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts), the  Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, and the Econometric Society. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.

Death
Alesina died from a suspected heart attack on 23 May 2020, while hiking with his wife, Susan. In 2021, Harvard University renamed its political economy workshop in Alesina's honor.

Austerity
Alesina was an influential proponent of austerity during the Great Recession. He argued that austerity can be expansionary in situations where government reduction in spending is offset by greater increases in aggregate demand (private consumption, private investment and exports). A credible fiscal consolidation would reduce private actors' uncertainty and lower the risk premium. Assuming that Ricardian equivalence and the Permanent income hypothesis hold, actors' expected future wealth would increase and induce them to consume more.

In October 2009 Alesina and Silvia Ardagna published "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes Versus Spending", a much-cited academic paper aimed at showing that fiscal austerity measures did not hurt economies, and actually helped their recovery. On 6 June 2013, U.S. economist and 2008 Nobel laureate Paul Krugman published "How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled" in The New York Review of Books, noting how influential these articles have been with policymakers, describing the paper by the 'Bocconi Boys' Alesina and Ardagna (from the name of their Italian alma mater) as "a full frontal assault on the Keynesian proposition that cutting spending in a weak economy produces further weakness", arguing the reverse.

More recently, studies by the IMF and others have cast doubt on the methodological underpinning of Alesina's work, and conclude that the evidence is more likely to suggest a contractionary effect of fiscal consolidation.

Selected publications

Books
 1995. Partisan Politics, Divided Government and the Economy (with Howard Rosenthal). Cambridge. Description & TOC and preview.
  1997a. Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy (with Nouriel Roubini & Gerald D. Cohen). MIT Press.  Description and chapter-preview links.
 1997b. Designing Macroeconomic Policy for Europe (with Olivier Blanchard  et al.), CEPR, London.
 2003. The Size of Nations (with Enrico Spolaore). MIT Press. Description and chapter-preview links.
 2004. Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference (with Edward Glaeser). Oxford. Description, and "slide-show" summary, and chapter-preview links via "select" click.
 2006. The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline (with Francesco Giavazzi), MIT Press. Description, Introduction , preview.

Articles

Press + to enlarge small-font links below.
 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 102(3), p pp. 651–678.
 1988b. "Macroeconomics and Politics," NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3, pp. 13–62.
 1991.  "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?" (with Allan Drazen), American Economic Review, 81(5), pp. 1170–1188.
 1993. "Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence" (with Lawrence H. Summers), Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 25(2), p pp. 151–162.
 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth" (with Dani Rodrik), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109(2), p pp. 465–490.
 1995. "The Political Economy of Budget Deficits" (with Roberto Perotti), IMF Staff Papers, 42(1), pp. pp. 1–31.
 1996a. "Political Instability and Economic Growth" (with Sule Özler et al.), Journal of Economic Growth, 1(2),  p pp. 189–211

 1996b. "Income Distribution, Political Instability, and Investment," (with Roberto Perotti), European Economic Review, 40(6), pp. 1203–1228. Abstract.
 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations" (with Enrico Spolaore), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(4),  p pp. 1027–1056.
 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions" (with Reza Baqir & William Easterly), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(4), pp. 1243–1284.
 2000a. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?" (with David Dollar), Journal of Economic Growth, 5(1), p pp. 33–63.
 2000b. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities" (with Eliana La Ferrara), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), p pp. 847–904.
 2002a. "Who Trusts Others?" Journal of Public Economics, 85(2), pp.  207–234 (close Pages tab).
 2002b. "Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment" (with Silvia Ardagna et al.), American Economic Review, 92(3), pp. 571–589.
 2003. "Fractionalization" (with Arnaud Devleeschauwer et al.), Journal of Economic Growth, 8(2), p pp. 155–194.
 2004. "Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and Americans Different?" (with Rafael Di Tellab and Robert MacCulloch), Journal of Public Economics, 88(9–10), pp. 2009–2042 (close Bookmarks tab).
 2005a. "International Unions" (with Ignazio Angeloni and Federico Etro), American Economic Review, 95(3), p pp. 602–615.
 2005b. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance" (with Eliana La Ferrara), Journal of Economic Literature, 43(3), pp. 762–800.
 2007:3. "Political Economy," NBER Reporter, pp. 1–5 (press +).
 2010. "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending" (with Silvia Ardagna), in J. R. Brown, ed., Tax Policy and the Economy, v. 24, ch. 2, pp. 35–68.
2013. "On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough" (with Paola Giuliano and Nathan Nunn), Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2013; 128 (2) : 469–530.
 2015. "The Output Effect of Fiscal Consolidations" (with Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi), Journal of International Economics, vol 96, pages S19-S42.
 2016. "Ethnic Inequality" (with Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou), Journal of Political Economy, vol. 124(2), pages 428-488
 2016. "Birthplace Diversity and Economic Prosperity" (with Johann Harnoss and Hillel Rapoport), Journal of Economic Growth'', vol. 21(2), pages 101-138

References

External links
 Harvard Faculty page.
 Alberto Alesina at CSA Celebrity Speakers
 Stock Exchange Of Visions: Visions of Alberto Alesina (Video Interviews)
 Web site of Voxeu.org
 Web site of LaVoce.info
 Alberto Alesina talks about his new book, "The Future of Europe" with Jenny Attiyeh on the interview program ThoughtCast!

1957 births
2020 deaths
20th-century  Italian economists
21st-century  Italian economists
Bocconi University alumni
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Harvard University alumni
Harvard University faculty
Italian emigrants to the United States
Labor economists
National Bureau of Economic Research
People from Broni
Place of death missing
Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty

Alberto Alesina


Isobel Warren (born May 7, 1935) is a Canadian author and journalist. Her journalism background is in newspapers and magazines, radio and television. She was founder of "Hands Magazine", at that time Canada's only national craft publication, and served as its editor throughout the 1980s.  Assignments have included: Editor, CARP News; Producer, The Senior Report (TVO); Producer, On Top of the World (national TV series.)  She writes regularly for a variety of publications in Canada and the U.S., including the Toronto Star, Good Times, Forever Young and TravelScoop, and has appeared in the Medical Post, National Post, The Globe and Mail, Halifax Herald, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), the Cloverdale Reporter and the Rotarian, as well as in-flights, Atmosphere and Airborn.

She was co-founder of the Travel Media Association of Canada.   She is the author of On the go at 50 Plus, a handbook for mature travellers published in 1995, and co-author (with her husband, Milan Chvostek) of Florida, Eh?  A Canadian Guide to the Sunshine  State.   She writes a monthly travel column and many articles for the magazine Good Times, a Canadian 50-plus magazine.

She attended Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and the University of Montréal.

She was married to the late Canadian television producer Milan Chvostek, and is the mother of computer systems analyst Paul Chvostek and singer-songwriter Annabelle Chvostek.

References

External links
 Isobel Warren's main site
 Travel Media Association of Canada
 Good Times Magazine
 Annabelle Chvostek's site
 IT Canada's main site

Living people
Canadian columnists
Toronto Metropolitan University alumni
Canadian feminists
Canadian women journalists
Canadian women columnists
Canadian women non-fiction writers
1935 births

Isobel Warren


The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor riot of 1899 was the second of two major labor-management confrontations in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho in the 1890s. Like the first incident  seven years earlier, the 1899 confrontation was an attempt by union miners, led by the Western Federation of Miners to unionize non-union mines, and have them pay the higher union wage scale. As with the 1892 strike, the 1899 incident culminated in a dynamite attack that destroyed a non-union mining facility, the burning of multiple homes and outbuildings and two murders, followed by military occupation of the district.

The riot of 1899 resulted from the miners' frustrations with mine operators that paid lower wages, hired Pinkerton or Thiel operatives to infiltrate the union, and the refusal of non-union miners to join or strike.

Background

Miners strike of 1892

Angered by wage cuts, Coeur d'Alene area miners conducted a strike in 1892. The strike erupted in violence when union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. After several deaths, the U.S. army occupied the area and forced an end to the strike. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year.

The second military occupation, 1894
Pro-union sentiment remained strong in the area, and by 1894, most of the mines were unionized, represented by the Knights of Labor.

Violence erupted in the Coeur d'Alene district during the national Pullman railroad strike of 1894. Union members attacked non-union mines and workers. Forty masked men shot to death John Kneebone, who had testified against union miners in 1892. Others kidnapped a mine superintendent, and tried to blow up the powder house at the Bunker Hill mine.

Urged by the mine owners, the Idaho governor requested federal troops, supposedly to prevent interruptions in railroad service along the Northern Pacific route through the Coeur d'Alene area. President Grover Cleveland sent about 700 troops in July 1894. Major General John Schofield, determined to avoid embroiling his troops in a local labor dispute as they were in 1892, directed that the Army confine its mission to keeping the railroads running, and not take orders from state or local officials. The Army patrolled the railroad lines, and reported no disturbances or local opposition. The union members, wanting to avoid another military occupation, stopped the attacks on non-union targets.

The Army repeatedly reported that there were no disturbances of rail transport, and requested permission to withdraw the troops. The mine owners pressured the Cleveland administration to keep the troops in place. The mine owners eventually realized that the Army would not expand its mission beyond protecting the railroad, and dropped their opposition to withdrawal of the troops. The Army units left the Coeur d'Alene in September 1894.p. 163-165

In December 1894, the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine shut down rather than agree to the union demand of a uniform wage of $3.50 (~$ in ) per day. The mine reopened in June 1895, with nonunion labor paying $3.00 per day to miners and $2.50 to surface employees and unskilled underground labor. The company said that whenever the combined prices of lead and silver rose again to a certain point, they would restore the old wage rate.

Leading up to the 1899 clash
The Bunker Hill Mining Company at Wardner was profitable, having paid more than $600,000 in dividends. Miners working in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines were receiving fifty cents to a dollar less per day than other miners, which at that time represented a significant percentage of the paycheck. The properties were the only mines in the district that were not entirely unionized.

In April 1899, as the union was launching an organizing drive of the few locations not yet unionized, superintendent Albert Burch declared that the company would rather "shut down and remain closed twenty years" than to recognize the union. He then fired seventeen workers that he believed to be union members and demanded that all other union men collect their back pay and quit.

Dynamite Express
The strike by the union local at Wardner was not succeeding, and the nearby WFM locals, at Gem, Burke, and Mullan, feared that the other mine owners would cut wages to match those paid at the Bunker Hill mine. During the trial, these proved to be only rumors. The other WFM locals agreed to support the strike at Wardner. The officers of the WFM locals met and planned a massive show of force for April 29.

On April 29, 250 union members seized a train in Burke, northeast of Wallace; the engineer, Levi "Al" Hutton, later claimed at gunpoint. At each stop through Burke Canyon, more miners climbed aboard. In Mace, a hundred men climbed aboard. At Frisco, the train stopped to load eighty wooden boxes, each containing  of dynamite. At Gem, 150 to 200 more miners climbed onto three freight cars which had been added to the train. In Wallace, 200 miners were waiting, having walked  from Mullan. About a thousand men rode the train to Wardner, the site of a $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill mine. Witnesses later testified that the majority of those on the train knew nothing of any planned violence when they started out; they thought that it would be just a massive demonstration to intimidate the mine owners into recognizing the union. However, the union had distributed masks and firearms to between 100 and 200 of the men, who acted as if under military discipline. The pro-union Idaho State Tribune in Wallace wrote:
"At no time did the demonstration assume the appearance of a disorganized mob. All the details were managed with the discipline and precision of a perfectly trained military organization."

County sheriff James D. Young, who had been elected with union support, had ridden to Wardner on the train with the union miners. At Wardner, Young climbed atop a rail car, and ordered the group to disperse. His order was ignored, and he later said that any further attempt to restrain the miners would have been suicidal. State prosecutors claimed that Young had been paid off by the WFM.

Word had reached Wardner by telephone that the union miners were on their way, and most of the mine and mill workers had fled. The crowd ordered the remaining workers out of the Bunker Hill mine and mill. Once out, they were ordered to run, and some shots fired at them as they ran. James Cheyne was shot in the hip, then union miners shot more bullets into him as he lay on the ground; he died shortly after. One union man, John Smith, also called Schmidt, was mistakenly shot to death by other union men.

After carrying  of dynamite into the mill, the blast completely destroyed the mill. The crowd also burned down the company office, the boarding house, and the home of the mine manager. The miners re-boarded the "Dynamite Express" and returned the way they came. Working men gathered along the track, and according to the pro-union Idaho State Tribune, "cheered the [union] men lustily as they passed."."

Arrests

At the Idaho governor's request, President William McKinley sent in the Army. The majority of army troops sent to the Coeur d'Alene were African American soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Spokane, Salt Lake City, and other western posts. The 24th had distinguished itself in combat during the Spanish–American War, and was seen as one of the most disciplined Army units not then serving overseas. Bill Haywood criticized the U.S. government's attempts to turn whites against blacks. Haywood wrote: "it was a deliberate attempt to add race prejudice ... race prejudice had been unknown among the miners." Nevertheless, he wrote that the government's efforts weren't all that successful, as the miners' turn against the army outweighed any racial dispute.

State authorities used the troops to round up 1,000 men and put them into "the bullpen." The arrests were indiscriminate; Governor Steunenberg's representative, state auditor Bartlett Sinclair believed that all the people of Canyon Creek had a "criminal history," and "the entire community, or the male portion of it, ought to be arrested." The soldiers searched every house, breaking down the door if no one answered.

Mass arrests began on May 4, when 128 were arrested. More than two hundred were arrested the following day, and the arrests continued until about a thousand men had been arrested.p. 31

As Sinclair had ordered, they arrested every male: miners, bartenders, a doctor, a preacher, even the postmaster and school superintendent. … Cooks and waiters [were] arrested in kitchens, diners at their supper tables. … For desperate criminals, the men of Burke went quietly, the only gunshot was aimed at a "vicious watch dog."

What was called "the bullpen" was actually a number of structures. The first 150 prisoners were kept in an old barn, a two-story frame structure  and filled with hay. It was "still very cold in those altitudes" and the men, having been arrested with no opportunity to bring along blankets, "suffered some from the weather." As the barn became overcrowded, new prisoners were put in railroad boxcars. When both these became overcrowded, the prisoners were then forced to build a pine board prison for themselves, and it was surrounded by a six-foot barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. Conditions remained primitive, and three prisoners died.p. 171

The U.S. Army followed escaping miners into Montana and arrested them, returning them to Idaho, and failed to comply with jurisdictional or extradition laws. One man arrested and transported was a Montana citizen who had no connection to the Wardner events.

Two of the three county commissioners had been caught in the roundup, as had the local sheriff. These, too, were held prisoner. Later, a district court removed all of the county commissioners and the sheriff from office, charging that they'd neglected their official duties.

Most of those arrested were freed within two weeks. By May 12, 450 prisoners remained; by May 30, the number was  194. Releases slowed, and 65 remained incarcerated on October 10;p. 148-149p. 37,40,73 the last prisoners in the bullpen were released in early December 1899.

Aftermath
Arrangements with replacement officials installed by Sinclair demonstrated "a pattern."

The new regime's principal [sic] patronage—the fat contract for supplying food and drink to the bullpen's prisoners—had gone to Tony Tubbs, the former manager of Bunker Hill's boardinghouse, destroyed on April 29. Likewise, most of the thirty men Sinclair hired as special "state deputies" were either employees and former employees of the Bunker Hill Company or contractors for it. Among the most prominent was a saloonkeeper named W.C. "Convict" Murphy, who'd served time for horse stealing and cattle rustling. When Convict Murphy broke down people's doors, he was sometimes asked for a search warrant or other authority, at which he would draw a pair of six-shooters and say, "These are my warrants."

Emma F. Langdon, a union sympathizer, charged in a 1908 book that Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, who had been "considered a poor man," deposited $35,000 into his bank account within a week after troops arrived in the Coeur d'Alene district, implying that there may have been a bribe from the mine operators. Subsequent research appears to have uncovered the apparent source of this assertion. J. Anthony Lukas recorded in his book Big Trouble,

In 1899, when the state needed money for the Coeur d'Alene prosecutions, the Mine Owners' Association had come up with $32,000—about a third of it from Bunker Hill and Sullivan—handing $25,000 over to Governor Steunenberg for use at his discretion in the prosecution. Some of this money went to pay [attorneys].

Steunenberg was later assassinated by Harry Orchard who claimed to have been hired by the WFM.

In his autobiography, WFM Secretary-Treasurer Bill Haywood described Idaho miners held for "months of imprisonment in the 'bull-pen'—a structure unfit to house cattle—enclosed in a high barbed-wire fence." Haywood concluded that the companies and their supporters in government—intent upon forcing wage cuts and employers' freedom to fire union miners—were conducting class warfare against the working class. Peter Carlson wrote in his book Roughneck,

Haywood traveled to the town of Mullan, where he met a man who had escaped from the 'bullpen'. The makeshift prison was an old grain warehouse that reeked of excrement and crawled with vermin.

Thirty-four-year-old Paul Corcoran was the financial secretary of the Burke Miners Union and a member of the Central Mining Union. The State pursued charges against him. While he had not been at the scene of the riot, Corcoran had been seen on the roof of a boxcar on the Dynamite Express, and at multiple union halls along the route, rallying men on to Wardner. He additionally told the Burke mine manager Mr. Culbertson that his employees had left for the day and were on their way to Wardner, but would return in time for the night shift. The prosecution, whose salaries were paid by a $32,000 grant from the mine owners, argued that Corcoran should take part of the blame for planning the attack on the Bunker Hill mill and Sullivan mine. Corcoran was sentenced to seventeen years at hard labor. Eight more miners and union leaders accused of leading the attack were scheduled for trial on charges of murder and/or arson, but bribed an army sergeant to allow them to escape. Hundreds more remained in the makeshift prison without charges.

Meanwhile, Sinclair developed a permit system which would prevent mines from hiring any miner who belonged to a union. The plan was designed to destroy the unions in the Coeur d'Alene district after the violence and lawlessness of the last 7 years. General Henry C. Merriam of the U.S. Army endorsed the permit system verbally and in writing, resulting in considerable consternation at the McKinley White House.

The editor of one local newspaper, Wilbur H. Stewart of the Mullan Mirror, dared to criticize the bullpen and its keepers. Sinclair appeared at his door alongside a major and several soldiers with unsheathed bayonets. Sinclair declared,

I find that you have been publishing a seditious newspaper, inciting riot and insurrection, and we have concluded that publication of your paper must cease.

Stewart was taken to the bullpen, where he was assigned to garbage and latrine duty. However, the paper did not stop publication; Stewart's young wife, Maggie, continued to publish the weekly. Sinclair impounded her type, and she contracted with another sympathetic publisher to continue the news. Eventually Stewart was released under instructions to end the criticism. He sold the newspaper instead.

Many populist elected officials in Shoshone County were rounded up for their support of the miners. The town sheriff of Mullan, Idaho was arrested and sent to the bullpen.

May Arkwright Hutton, whose husband was the engineer on the dynamite express, wrote a book, The coeur d' alenes: or, A Tale of the Modern Inquisition in Idaho, about the treatment of the miners, and her husband, at the hands of the mine owners and the sheriff.

Both Huttons and Ed Boyce, head of the Western Federation of Miners, had invested in the Hercules silver mine before the 1899 war. After they had become wealthy mine owners, May Hutton sought to buy back all copies of her book. Ed Boyce quit the miners union to manage a hotel in Portland.

See also
 Coeur d'Alene miners' dispute (overview of both Coeur d'Alene incidents)
 Ed Boyce, WFM leader
 Frank Steunenberg, Governor of Idaho in 1899, assassinated in 1905
 Harry Orchard, later convicted of assassinating former Idaho Governor Steunenberg
 Steve Adams, accused accomplice of Harry Orchard, unconvicted or acquitted in three trials
 Bill Haywood, WFM union leader, later accused and acquitted of conspiracy to assassinate former Idaho Governor Steunenberg
 George Pettibone, WFM union supporter, later accused and acquitted of conspiracy to murder former Idaho Governor Steunenberg
 Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–04
 Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States

References

Further reading
New Politics, vol. 7, no. 1 (new series), whole no. 25, Summer 1998 by Steve Early
Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony Lukas

1899 riots
1899 labor disputes and strikes
Miners' labor disputes in the United States
Mining in Idaho
Riots and civil disorder in Idaho
African-American history between emancipation and the civil rights movement
History of civil rights in the United States
Internal wars of the United States
Political repression in the United States
1899
1899 in Idaho
Labor disputes in Idaho
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Western Federation of Miners
Labor-related riots in the United States

1899 Coeur d'Alene labor confrontation


Summerlicious and Winterlicious are two food festivals that are held each year in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Winterlicious runs during the first two weeks of February, typically one of the poorest times of the year in terms of restaurant attendance. Summerlicious occurs at the start of July, also a slow time for restaurants. During the events major restaurants from across the city offer a limited menu of prix fixe dinners at a discount from typical prices. Currently the prices are $23, $28 or $33 for lunch and $33, $43 or $53 for dinner, with drinks and gratuity extra.  Originally when the festival started, lunches were $15, $20, $25, while dinners were $25, $35, $45.

The promotion originally began in 2003 with 35 restaurants participating. Based on similar events in other cities it was designed to boost the restaurant trade at a slow time of the year. It was further promoted as part of the efforts to help Toronto recover from the tourism decline that followed the SARS epidemic in 2003. The event has since grown rapidly, becoming a popular semiannual event. In 2009, 150 restaurants were invited to participate in Winterlicious.

The event is run by the special events department of the city, and the city selects which restaurants are allowed to participate. There are several rules for becoming a participating restaurant, including certain price standards, a clean health inspection record, and good reviews from prominent Toronto restaurant review guides. It is also closed to chains. There is considerable demand to be included in Winterlicious. While the prices are discounted, participating restaurants see three to four times as much business. Non-participating restaurants are also correspondingly hurt during the event. Final invitations are at discretion of the city, which has been accused of choosing the largest and most prominent of the city's dining locations at the expense of smaller local ones. A number of other restaurants offer similar prix fixe combinations without participating in the promotion, but use different (though often similar) names to avoid infringement of the city's official marks.

Despite the large number of attendees and the stiff competition for restaurants to be included, the event is also regularly criticized. Customers complain about smaller food portions and lower ingredient quality. Restaurant workers complain about being overworked and forced to deal with over large numbers of uneducated diners.

Even with these criticisms, the licious promotions remain a very popular program and provide an opportunity for restaurants to make money during a typically otherwise slow time of the year. In Winterlicious 2009, 180,000 meals were served over 2 weeks, resulting in $12 million in economic impact for the City of Toronto.

References

External links
Summerlicious - Official site
Winterlicious - Official site

Cuisine in Toronto
Semiannual events

Summerlicious and Winterlicious


A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. Generally, cantons have fewer people and are smaller than other administrative divisions like counties, departments, or provinces.

Cantons exist in many countries. The best-known cantons and the most politically important are those of Switzerland. The Swiss cantons are semi-sovereign.

Canton (country subdivision)