Wrong way to move
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:21 pm
Science has provided America with a decent idea of which areas of our country will be most devastated by climate change, and which areas will be most insulated from the worst effects.
Unfortunately, it seems that US population flows are going in the wrong direction – new census data shows a nation moving out of the safer areas and into some of the most dangerous places of all.
To quote Planes, Trains and Automobiles: we’re going the wrong way.
The Census Bureau’s new map of the last decade’s population trends shows big growth in the west and on the coasts – and declines in the inland east coast and Great Lakes region.
Now compare that map to ProPublica maps documenting the areas most at risk of extreme heat, wildfires and flooding, and you see the problem. While there has been some recent anecdotal evidence of pragmatic climate migration, overall the census data shows America’s population growth is shifting out of areas that may be the best refuges from the most extreme effects of climate change, and into many areas that are most at risk.
Put another way: if climate change were an enemy in a war, America is not fortifying our population in the safest places – the country’s population is moving into the areas most at risk of attack.
Some of the examples are genuinely mind-boggling. For instance, upstate New York is considered one of the country’s most insulated regions in the climate crisis – and yet almost all of upstate New York saw population either nearly flat or declining. At the same time, there were big population increases in and around the Texas Gulf coast, which is threatened by extreme heat and coastal flooding.
Similarly, Philadelphia is comparatively well situated in the climate crisis – but it saw only modest population growth of 5%. It was surpassed on the list of biggest cities by Phoenix, which saw an 11% population growth, despite that city facing some of the worst forms of extreme heat and drought in the entire country.
And then there is south Florida, which saw Miami clock in a 10% population increase despite the possibility that large swaths of the city could soon be underwater. Compare that to a place like Vermont, where the population growth was flat.
This isn’t to blame Americans for moving to climate-threatened regions – after all, population growth and decline is often driven by the quest for necessities such as affordable housing and jobs. But the census data illustrate a trend that has been exacerbated by public policy.
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