When the North Becomes the Refugee

We like to think of Europe — especially Northern Europe — as safe. Stable. Civilized. A place people flee to, not from.

But what if that changed?

In 2015, when millions of Syrians fled war and devastation, Europe wrestled with its conscience. Politicians argued about whether they were “migrants” or “refugees,” as if changing the word could soften the truth: these were people who had lost everything. Borders hardened. Camps overflowed. Families were met not with open arms, but with suspicion, bureaucracy, and barbed wire.

At the same time, scientists were sounding alarms about something far less visible, but no less dangerous: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — a vast system of ocean currents that keeps Northern Europe warm — was showing signs of serious weakening. A 2019 study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found it was at its weakest in more than a thousand years. Since then, new research suggests it could abruptly collapse as soon as the mid-2050s.

What would that mean? It would mean winters in Northern Europe far colder than anything we’ve experienced — a climate not unlike northern Canada. It would mean crops failing, energy grids overwhelmed, and life itself becoming unsustainable. And it would mean us, the safe and stable North, becoming the ones packing bags, crossing borders, and praying for a welcome.

This reversal is the heart of my novel MALI, part of the Victims of Hothouse Earth series. In it, the AMOC abruptly shuts down, turning Northern Europe into a frozen wasteland. The only chance of survival is to flee south — into a world already grappling with heatwaves, droughts, and its own fragile stability. My characters face the same walls, suspicion, and political games that Syrians, Afghans, and many others have faced on Europe’s doorstep.

I wrote MALI because I wanted to make this scenario real — not in charts and climate models, but in human lives and faces. To ask: When the roles are reversed, will we learn empathy? Or will we repeat our mistakes?

The climate crisis is not a distant problem for someone else in some other place. One day, it could be our turn to knock at the door.

Read MALI and imagine yourself on the other side of the border.