How the climate crisis will move human populations within and across national borders is one of the most pressing humanitarian, social, and political questions we now face. As always, climate change doesn't function as an isolated factor here; rather it compounds and intensifies existing dynamics, in particular dynamics of inequality. Each new model appears to suggest a greater degree of displacement of humanity, with climate factors ranging from prolonged and severe drought and its impact on agricultural communities to the full scale loss of densely populated urban territory to sea level rise.

This conversation with leading journalists Somini Sengupta and Sarah Stillman addressed the wide-ranging and multi-scalar nature of climate displacements from the migrant workers carrying out dangerous disaster recovery efforts in the US to the millions of people displaced by recent floods in Pakistan. We offered pathways for meaningful civic action on this complex set of phenomena, and people with all levels of previous exposure to the subject area were warmly invited to attend. Ample time was allowed for audience Q&A.

The conversation was followed by a free reception with refreshments and wine.

Somini Sengupta is the International Climate reporter for The New York Times. She is a George Polk Award-winning international correspondent whose work tells the stories of people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. She has reported from a Congo River ferry, a Himalayan glacier, the streets of Baghdad and Mumbai, and many places in between. She has served as The Times’s bureau chief in West Africa and South Asia. Her book “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young,” was published in 2016 by W.W. Norton.

Sarah Stillman is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. She has reported on topics ranging from civil forfeiture to debtors’ prisons, and from Mexico’s drug cartels to Bangladesh’s garment-factory workers. She won the 2012 National Magazine Award for Public Interest for her reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan on labor abuses and human trafficking on United States military bases, and also received the Michael Kelly Award, the Overseas Press Club’s Joe and Laurie Dine Award for international human-rights reporting, and the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism. Stillman founded and directed the Global Migration Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Note: Vann Newkirk of The Atlantic was previously scheduled to participate in this panel discussion but due to unforeseen circumstances, was unable to join.