Our readers ask Umbra questions here and then vote for the question they want them to answer the most. That was the winning question last week.
Q.I’m not giving up … but if I moved where in the United States could I go to minimize climate change?
– Uncomfortable in a U-Haul
A.Dear discomfort,
So you are wondering where to go to escape climate change. This is a sensible impulse – climate change is competing with nuclear war for the greatest threat to human life in the history of our species’ existence. Every survival instinct that we have cultivated so far should understandably lead us to get away from it.
Let’s start by assessing the regions of the United States based on the basics of what we expect from climate change. We know the seas will swell and temperatures will rise. This endangers a large number of coastal cities with relatively warm climates, especially in summer – Miami, New Orleans, Norfolk, Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles. A 2017 paper in Nature Climate Change estimated that the 13.1 million people displaced from these cities by sea level rise could head for inland locations such as Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix.
So there you have it, restless! Let’s all go to Atlanta, Houston and Phoenix.
But wait a second: Hurricane Harvey gave an alarming preview of how Houston will fare in a climate-changed future. Phoenix is located in the middle of a desert with no reliable water source, where temperatures can rise to 120 degrees F in summer. And Atlanta is the third fastest metropolitan area in the country.
Forget these cities. What is a beautiful, temperate place? Never gets too hot or too cold, has a lot of water? Aha – the Pacific Northwest. Umbra’s home! After all, it is part of the rainforest.
But it’s a rainforest that has seen bigger, hotter, deadlier, and more unpredictable forest fires lately. Even a small increase in temperature has a negative effect on the moisture of plants and soil, which means that the forests dry out and become real tinder boxes. And we had warmer winters, which means less snow in the mountains and thus a less reliable water source for the region. (Oh, and a really devastating earthquake is long overdue, but that’s different from climate change.)
Hmmm … how about Alaska? Tons of snow. Very cold. Well, unless a spike in average temperatures has already begun to displace thousands of the state’s indigenous people along the coast. In addition, when the permafrost becomes less permanent, millions of ancient viruses and bacteria that humans have lost immunity to will be unearthed.
That’s hard math. Or maybe hard geography? I called Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation specialist and faculty member at Harvard Graduate School of Design, for a more informed perspective on where to limit their exposure to climate change.
His suggestion: places whose water does not depend on snow cover, groundwater aquifers or reservoirs. More specifically, these are rural, forested northern areas with plenty of clean water wells – that is, the upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan Upper Peninsula) and maybe parts of Montana. Justin Timberlake was up to something!
But if everyone moves to rural areas, changes the forest landscape and tax all these pristine wells, they won’t last long as climate strongholds.
“Well, exactly,” said Keenan. “There is nowhere to hide. I think you have to come to terms with what you think you are running away from. Are you trying to hit people for something? Are you trying to escape because there is danger and you are in danger? Are you running for your health or for your well-being? Then you have to put up with the fact that you are trying to make an economic investment decision where you want to use your limited resources. “
Resources, whether limited or huge, are the deciding factor here. I imagine that when you ask this question you have some means of picking up and moving around. That’s not the case for many people – you could say most people, considering nearly two-thirds of Americans have less than $ 1,000 in savings and the average long-distance move costs around $ 5,000.
But even if you put the money aside, moving is no small feat. You have to start a whole new life, build a new social circle. “You can try moving to one of these places,” Keenan said, “but you have to learn the position you put yourself in and you have to become a part of these new communities.”
Keenan said he got versions of your question almost daily – usually from “people at large institutional real estate funds, rich people who want to buy or already own land, or survivors”. And acquiring the ability to answer the question, “Which country will survive climate change?” Is a lucrative endeavor.
Not to put you to shame, but the fact that the unholy triad of insurance companies, real estate investors, and Silicon Valley is raising those concerns should hold you back a little.
When you realize that climate change is a huge, terrifying problem and you have the means to at least escape it – why not use those funds to remedy it instead, especially when you know it is impossible to escape ? By “fixing” I mean trying to make the place where you live, where you’ve made a home, where you have a sense of ownership and responsibility – and oh, let’s call it investment – more resilient to make climate change. Perhaps you are agitating for more storm-resistant infrastructure, local transport, green spaces.
Because the future is not certain, but escaping the problem ensures that it is.
Permanent,
umbra
PS If you want a preview of how climate change will affect every region of the United States, take a look at the map my colleagues have put together here.