ABSTRACT
In 2018, illiberal and repressive responses to migration have become political flashpoints around the globe. In the United States, human rights abuses inflicted on migrant minors, including the practice of forcibly separating children from parents at illegal border crossings, sparked an international outcry and a domestic backlash. On the other side of the Atlantic, the issue of migration has weakened the integrity of the European Union. Seen from the structural-dynamic viewpoint that guides sustainability science, global migration is an adaptive response by the victims of climate change to the consequences of global policies that are currently trending away from sustainability, thanks largely to US influence. Violence, war, and instability have always been part of history, and so have been the waves of migration that come with them. But the loss of carrying capacity in the Global South due to the anthropogenic carbon pulse of the Global North, especially by the US, is unprecedented.
