Climate Migration -The Latest American Shift
Challenges as Opportunities
Author’s Note - At the View from 30,000 Feet we are presenting stories about signals on the cultural and political horizon that will transform the way we work and live and that will determine out place in the world. As a publication focusing on the future our goal is to help individuals, small businesses, corporations, and social institutions prepare for the future and to shape it proactively. The key is to see these changes not so much as threats but as opportunities to make the world a better place.
The Practicality of Optimism
In this post we focus on the way in which climate change currently affects Americans and what the weather report for the future portends. When writing about the environment it is easy to be pessimistic but that doesn’t really help. According to Hannah Richie at Vox.com,
“…Scaring people into action doesn’t work. That’s true not just for climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity loss, but for almost any issue we can think of. We need optimism to make progress — yet that alone isn’t enough. To contend with environmental crises and make life better for everyone, we need the right kind of optimists: those who recognize that the world will only improve if we fight for it.”
New Zones of Habitability
ProPublica, in a 2020 article “New Climate Map Shows a Transformed United States,” defines a new habitability zone from the Atlantic seaboard through north Texas and Nebraska, skipping over to the California coast.
“According to new data from the Rhodium Group analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume coastlines and dangerous levels of humidity will swamp the Mississippi River valley.”
One of the proposed solutions is to facilitate the migration of people and industry in a proactive manner. It is also important to remember that mass migration and waves of immigrants and refugees have been a consistent feature of the United States since its inception. The first was the great sweep westward over two hundred years. Industrialization shifted African Americans and other workers to centers in the South and then to the northeast. Government policies favoring railroads and settlement led to the mass importation of northern Europeans. Unrest in Europe and other parts of the world have led to waves of newcomers.
The following excerpts are taken from The Bold Idea to Move Millions to Climate Havens an essay by Justin H. Vassalo in Noema Magazine, September 27, 2023. (Emphasis added)
“…other reports suggest that more than one billion people will become refugees because of the impacts of a warming planet on developing countries, which may exacerbate or even precipitate civil wars and interstate armed conflict.”
A 2020 report by ProPublica, meanwhile, estimates that at least 13 million Americans will be forced to migrate from coastal areas and that wildfires and other natural catalysts could potentially multiply that amount significantly.
New York Mayor Eric Adams [declared] that the current migration wave will “destroy” the city…[The mayor] channeled deep-seated fears about whether U.S. cities can absorb new migrants amid the ongoing crises of homelessness and food insecurity.
In his essay, Vassalo advocates for providing incentives for people to relocate to regions with lower populations and more livable temperatures. He cites the harmful effects of rising temperatures not only on individuals but its effects on business efficiency and profitability. Clearly, many communities can adapt to a greater or lesser extent, but the result is not optimal. Vassalo also makes the concerning point that President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act shifts funding for major projects in zones of the southeast and southwest that are at higher risk of climate change.
Specifically, Vassalo mentions the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, the less humid regions of the Upland South. These areas have existing communities and infrastructure. They have been de-industrialized and are open to new information age industries and services.
“Planned migration must be part of a comprehensive reinvestment strategy for places formerly hit hard by globalization that may now present an opportunity for renewed economic resilience.”
Adapting to Sea Rise
Despite the projected impact of rising sea levels, moving away from coastal zones is not really possible nor desirable. There are ways to adapt and to flourish. You can take a closer look at the projected effect of rising oceans on the United States and coastal communities at the interactive NOAA Sea Level Rise Viewer.
Although the areas look small and on the fringe of the continent, 126 million or about 40% of Americans live in areas that will be affected by rising sea levels. In 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that global sea level will rise by 52 cm (20.5 inches) to 98 cm (38.6 inches). These early efforts did not factor in the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice shelves. More recent studies put the projected rise at more than 2 meters or more than 6 and half feet.
About 9 to 12 million people in these areas will be affected directly by the end of the century. The ripple effects (pun intended) will be significant since the flooding will affect shipping, transportation, energy installations, commercial fishing, tourism, heavy industry, and housing. Saltwater intrusion into freshwater sources - below ground aquifers and above ground rivers and streams - will reduce supplies of water for drinking and irrigation as well as taking prime agricultural land out of production.
We can mitigate the disruption by preparing for it now in our building and development efforts. Federal and state policies can provide incentives to move or harden infrastructure. This redevelopment effort can be done in sustainable ways to create more resilient communities and strong economies.
Regardless of how well we manage this transition in our country, we are part of a larger human ecosystem with migrants pressing on our southern border. A policy of creative integration - a more nuanced immigration policy that goes beyond a policy of exclusion - could be a beneficial part of climate-based relocation. This is not necessarily an open border policy, but it does require a foreign policy based on climate change mitigation. We should also anticipate a northward migration by Americans into southern Canada as the temperate zone moves north.
The Basic Work Remains
Of course, the basic work of managing global warming remains an imperative. Internal migration in the United States is a reaction, but it can become a conscious response. Suitable state and federal policies can make it positive or at least less harmful. It can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental hazards if done properly. However, these dislocations will occur in other parts of the world as well and the effects will not be benign. Current mass migrations in the Mediterranean, the English Channel, and the southern border of the United States prove this point. Although these movements are caused by economic, and political upheaval, they are also movements of people facing the early disruptions of climate change. This will only grow over time and a constructive solution is necessary.
The big question will be how quickly the climate will change and how severe the changes will become. According to the World Economic Forum, current scientific thinking about the point of no return depends on the tipping point of various facets of climate. Will the Greenland and Antarctica ice shelves melt quickly if the global temperature rise more than 1.5 degrees centigrade or will they take much longer and survive an increase of 2 degrees centigrade? How quickly will ocean currents be affected at current temperature increases?
Taking Action - Making a Difference
Hanna Ritchie in the Vox article cited above mentions areas of positive change.
“Despite abundant technical agency, humanity is alarmingly short of psychological agency: belief in one’s personal ability to help. A 10-country survey study in the Lancet, a British medical journal, found that more than half of young people ages 16-25 feel afraid, sad, anxious, angry, powerless and helpless about climate change.”
Ritchie cites the good news.
“The prices of solar and wind power, as well as of batteries for storing low-carbon energy, have all plunged. Global deforestation peaked decades ago and has been slowly declining. Sales of new gas and diesel cars are now falling. Coal is starting to die in many countries. Government commitments are getting closer to limiting global warming to 2°C. Deaths from natural disasters — despite what news about climate change-related fires and hurricanes might appear to suggest — are a fraction of what they used to be.”
We’ve Got This
From our origins in Africa, the development of the human species has been predicated on movement. We have proven to be an adaptable species, moving into a variety of habitats and surviving the last ice age. Our ability to endure and to thrive has brought us to this moment of ecological crisis but the same traits will move us beyond it.