On this episode of Through the Human Geography Lens, hosts Terri Ryan and Gwyneth Holt talk with Dr. Chelsea Cervantes De Blois, lead climate security expert at the US Department of State.

00:55 Defining Human-Environmental Systems

Coupled Human-Environment Systems

Modelling Climate and Conflict

Tracking climate migration patterns at ClimateMigration.org

Report on internal displacement in a changing climate here.

02:20 Migration drivers: Social, political, economic, cultural, demographic, ecological, and sometimes infrastructure.

02:45 Research on ethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan and the associated "system" relationships

The 2021 PhD dissertation on Kyrgyzstan by our guest, Dr. Cervantes De Blois, is here.

05:05 Understanding the data you have, and whether it's the data you need.

06:15 A major problem in assessing climate migration data: a lack of standardization for describing a climate refugee.

A discussion of the definition of "climate refugee"

08:15 A lack of comprehensive datasets requires creative thinking.

09:50 People may not realize that they're in the middle of a climate-driven migration

Award-winning July 2020 New York Times Magazine long-form interactive article on Climate Migration

10:35 Counting the "invisibles"

Risks of missing the invisibles in environmental migration research (2021 Nature article, open-access)

11:55 Recognizing a "mental migration" in reporting, and standardizing tools and terms for climate migration across shared disciplines.

A seminal discussion of Migration Psychology

13:30 Why is this topic, climate migration, important across so many disciplines?

14:35 Why not just devise better tools and methods? Why is standardization difficult?

COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, 06-18 November 2022

What, really, is a PhD Dissertation? Useful description from Purdue University.

"The more you learn, the less you actually know"

17:20 "Mixed Methodist" as a human geographer. Extracting definitions

18:40 Climate-Migration nexus framework

Exploring the Climate Change, Migration, and Conflict Nexus

21:25 Hopes for the Climate and Migration event at State on 15 November.

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