If climate change gets out of control, will the US try to annex Canada?

[Blue3]

Let's say some of the worst-case scenarios for climate change begin to come true around 2050/2060. Climate change wrecks the global ecosystem, the tropical zones near the equator become near-inhabitable, desertification intensifies and storms become more common and destructive. Global economics begins to collapse into continental and regional economies again.

Looking at a map of the world, we can see 2 places that have a lot of space, a lot of resources, and would become much more hospitable if global warming were to happen: Canada and Russia. Islands like the UK, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, and Japan wouldn't be able to support a huge influx of new people especially with the collapse of international trade, and Australia would just become even more desertified. Perhaps Argentina and Chile, but that's a rather narrow strip of land and includes deserts.

Russia is on another continent, across the Pacific and Arctic oceans from the US. It's a nuclear power, its people don't speak English... and its most immediate concern would be the climate refugees from China, India, the Middle East, and possibly western Europe. As well as possible invasions from China, India, and Europe.

Canada, however, is directly to our north. It's already well-integrated with the US, is large and not that populated, and has a common language and culture. I could definitely see it becoming one of the "vital interests" of the United States to annex Canada, probably through great diplomatic and economic pressure and the implication of military action.

Does anyone else see this becoming the case? How else might climate change affect US politics, or international politics, if it truly gets really bad this century?

[Former President tack50]

If that happens, the nukes will start flying soon and we will all be dead. Just like Fallout predicted

[emailking]

There could be mass migrations over time to northern latitudes, possibly on the order of hundreds of years. Countries may split and/or merge or reform, and new boundaries form as a result. If enough Americans move to Canada, it may be they annex us.

[longtimelurker]

It has even been suggested that the fringes of Antarctica may be colonized, either in an "organized" fashion by governments or people striking out on their own, by the end of the century.

[Koharu]

It depends. If the US continues on its current course of leadership, especially in the executive, maybe. If the legislature does its job re: oversight, then maybe not.

The thing to remember is that the US has no claim whatsoever on Canadian soil, unlike historically with annexation where claims were many or in the case of Texas where the people mostly wanted to join the US for protection against Mexico.

I could see Canada requesting assistance or an alliance of some sort if other nations actually started to encroach on their sovereignty, but as for large amounts of climate refugees, I think they'd try their best on their own.

[7,052,770]

It would definitely make sense for Canada and the USA to be part of the same country, as we're already so integrated, but obviously we can't just annex them unilaterally.

[Person Man]

It really depends on how bad it gets. My guess is that it will be on the levels of what globalization did as the world became more or less rebuilt by 1970. I admit that’s the optimistic scenario.

The best case scenario is that nothing happens and the worst case scenario is that world becomes like the Mesozoic in a few hundred years. Some people say that because the sun is now more luminous than it was in the Mesozoic Era, the outright habitability of the planet might be jeopardized. In my mind, neither of these things will happen.

I could see that the amount of ariable land remains constant as the polar ice caps and tundra becomes pine forests and tall grass fields. A lot of the current boreal and hemiboreal areas might become like the south today and a lot of the subtropics might become fully tropical. This may or may not offset beaches being 10 feet below water or places like Texas, Wyoming, Andalusia, or Pakistan being entirely dried out or places like Arizona or Libya being too hot for water to remain liquid in direct sunlight....but hey! Chicago will be like Tennessee and be the biggest nonflooded city and Orlando won’t have any more of those freak bomb cyclones in January anymore!

[AndyHogan14]

Annexing Canada unilaterally (essentially a conquest) would not be good; Canada should only join the US (or vice versa) through the consent of the population living there. That said, I am strongly in favor of an economic union with Canada as soon as it is politically feasible. There is absolutely no reason why there cannot be a customs union and common economic market between the two countries with complete freedom of movement (yes, I want an EU-style union between the US and Canada but without the common currency).

[Person Man]

Annexing Canada unilaterally (essentially a conquest) would not be good; Canada should only join the US (or vice versa) through the consent of the population living there. That said, I am strongly in favor of an economic union with Canada as soon as it is politically feasible. There is absolutely no reason why there cannot be a customs union and common economic market between the two countries with complete freedom of movement (yes, I want an EU-style union between the US and Canada but without the common currency).

There are practical needs for this but also some practical opposition as well. Both countries are hard to get into from each other. My guess is that about a quarter of the population in both the US and Canada can’t go into each other. This is mainly that people don’t want each other’s “trouble makers” or even petty “pains in the asses” who have relatively recently been caught doing things though are not serious, are particularly tasteless.

[brucejoel99]

Is this... is this a serious question that's seriously being asked in a serious manner?

[Blue3]

Is this... is this a serious question that's seriously being asked in a serious manner?

If climate change truly gets as bad as some predict, the US will lose a lot of farmland and sources of freshwater, while Canada will still be thinly-populated, abundant with resources, and an improving climate.

If climate change truly gets as bad as some predict, why on earth wouldn't the US apply pressure to force Canada into a union with the US and then annexation? It would be within our vital national security and economic interests.

[brucejoel99]

Is this... is this a serious question that's seriously being asked in a serious manner?

If climate change truly gets as bad as some predict, the US will lose a lot of farmland and sources of freshwater, while Canada will still be thinly-populated, abundant with resources, and an improving climate.

If climate change truly gets as bad as some predict, why on earth wouldn't the US apply pressure to force Canada into a union with the US and then annexation? It would be within our vital national security and economic interests.

Because it's a stupid, self-centered proposition to act as if we're just entitled to go about annexing our closest ally who also happens to be the world's second largest country; because it'll never legitimately get as far as annexation (maybe a union, but not outright annexation); & because we're neither as hegemonic as we like to think we are or as the world likes to claim we are?

[Dr. Arch]

Preposterous, the level of self-absorbed privilege it takes to just passingly propose invading and undermining another ALLIED country to solve the problems that this country is creating today.

It's disgusting that most who have responded here have not outright condemned this line of thought and have instead proceeded to discuss it in earnest.

[Blue3]

Preposterous, the level of self-absorbed privilege it takes to just passingly propose invading and undermining another ALLIED country to solve the problems that this country is creating today.

It's disgusting that most who have responded here have not outright condemned this line of thought and have instead proceeded to discuss it in earnest.

Lol, you think I would support it?

[Cassandra]

I can imagine a fascist US government looking to Canada for Lebensbraum. The more likely Anschluss scenario, in my opinion would revolve around securing Alberta's tar sands once US shale production declines far enough that this country is facing serious energy shortages.

[Ban my account ffs!]

No we shouldn't and we wont annex Canada.

The great majority of climate science papers that predict the most gloomy outcomes by the year 2100 rely on the RCP 8.5 scenario as laid out by the IPCC in its most recent Climate Assessment Report in 2014.  RCP stands for Representative Concentration Pathway and the number refers to the amount of the increase in energy at the earth's surface as a result of human activities by 2100 in terms of watts per meter squared.  So this scenario, being one of four drawn up by the IPCC, represents an increase of 8.5 watts per meter squared of energy at the earth's surface, resulting in a warming of ~3.7*C in the average global temperature.

There are 3 other scenarios, RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 6.0.

Each scenario was proposed in terms of the amount of forcing that human activity would cause on our climate by the year 2100 (meaning they simply picked the 2.6, 4.5, 6, and 8.5 numbers out of a hat based on the likelihood of the climate reaching these thresholds by 2100).  The RCP 8.5 scenario, which most heavily publicized studies by the media focus on, is actually very unlikely to occur.  The timeline of policy actions by the global community assumed to reach the RCP 8.5 scenario are not realistic, and break away from many long-standing trends in human development (including some that have been improving for over a century).

RCP 8.5 assumes high population growth to 12.3 billion, almost no further action to reduce emissions, slow economic growth (25% less than the RCP 2.6 high mitigation scenario), a dramatic slowdown in technological innovation, a reduction in energy efficiency resulting in huge increases in electricity production, and a significant increase in the proportion of energy that we derive from coal.  (rising from ~45-60% over the next 80 years).

It is basically the "f**k it, we're gonna burn the sh**t out of that coal" and stop innovating technologically!  scenario.

When you simply extrapolate the current trajectories for these factors from now, you end up with a scenario by 2100 somewhere between the RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.0 scenario, which predict a warming of 1.8-2.2*C.  In a high mitigation scenario like those being proposed by individual states and governments around the world, the RCP 2.6 scenario becomes likely and we would be able to keep global warming at a total of 1.5-2*C from pre industrial times.

[Ban my account ffs!]

As for what would likely happen to our ecological biomes in a world that is up to a few degrees celsius warmer:

None of these but the RCP 8.5 scenario pushes us beyond the warmest era of the previous interglacial, which was ~3*C warmer.  Global sea levels were higher during this time (as shown by the stranded fossil coral reefs all over the world) and Scandinavia was an island.

This warmer climate did not feature the vast desertification or uninhabitable tropics that some of the scare stories claim will happen.  In fact, the tropical forests of Africa were much larger.  The Sahel was a seasonal tropical forest and the Sahara was mostly savanna and warm grassland.

Tropical forests weren't as plentiful in South America because the Andes Mountains would act in such a way that the increased trade winds due to the warmer climate near the equator would promote heavier, more frequent precipitation near the mountains but suppress thunderstorm formation in northeast Brazil.

In North America the forest/tree line was further west near Lubbock Texas instead of Dallas and temperate forests reached much further into Canada and the deep south had more of a savanna climate likely due to less fall/winter/spring precipitation and more summer precipitation but also more evaporation, promoting warm grasslands and woodlands.

Western Alaska would've had much more forest cover but the interior reaching into the Yukon featured more of a "northern plains" climate because while warmer weather promotes more precipitation, the mountains would still block much of the precipitation from Gulf of Alaska storms.

In the west, coastal California would be drier and warmer... but the interior west would have much more monsoonal precipitation in the summer, leading to warmer scattered woodlands, grasslands, and desert vegetation areas.

Basically:  Agriculture would have to adapt but we wouldn't be sh**t out of luck. 

[Mopsus]

No, but China might (depending on whether they’re satisfied with Siberia, Australia, and New Zealand).

[brucejoel99]

No, but China might (depending on whether they’re satisfied with Siberia, Australia, and New Zealand).

No.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I think the IPCC is optimistic. Without drastic action, there's not going to be time for gradual moves. But I don't expect annexation of Canada. I expect mega-scale geoengineering to start getting seriously and publicly discussed within a decade.

[Senator Incitatus]

Canada is already a de facto vassal state. Why bother letting them vote?

[Ye We Can]

We could and should, Canada should have never been allowed to exist

[emailking]

Preposterous, the level of self-absorbed privilege it takes to just passingly propose invading and undermining another ALLIED country to solve the problems that this country is creating today.

It's disgusting that most who have responded here have not outright condemned this line of thought and have instead proceeded to discuss it in earnest.

It's just being realistic. The US has already tried to invade Canada 3 times. That wasn't good either. Whether you think it's good or not, it could happen. I'm not going to apologize for hypothetical behavior that might take place in the distant future. As I said, I think the more likely scenario (not that it's likely either) is a de facto invasion from movement of persons, and formally Cananda annexes what's left of the US.

[RI]

We really should regardless of global warming. #5440orfight

[ProudModerate2]

Is this... is this a serious question that's seriously being asked in a serious manner?