Parts of the US are getting dangerously hot. Yet Americans are moving the wrong way
Category: Environment/Climate
Via: hallux • 3 years ago • 19 commentsBy: David Sirota and Julia Rock
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
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.
For instance, weak zoning and land-use laws have encouraged a population explosion in the fire-prone wildland-urban interface , areas near forests and other vegetation. Likewise, federal flood-insurance subsidies have encouraged continued construction in coastal areas threatened by flooding. And corporations have not yet been forced to disclose their climate risks to investors, which potentially allows them to make investment and location decisions without factoring in such vulnerabilities.
There are ways to change the policies – for instance there has been a push to change zoning laws in ways that discourage or prohibit construction in areas most prone to wildfires. In May, Joe Biden issued an executive order requiring federally funded infrastructure to take into account current and future flood risks during construction, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a rule to require climate risk disclosures from all public companies.
But, as the census data suggest, the Biden administration has a long way to go.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which runs the national flood insurance program, has long been underfunded and mostly helps wealthy and white homeowners. Moreover, a recent Government Accountability Office report found that while Fema has good information about flood risk to homeowners, it has not acted on that information to encourage homeowners to buy flood insurance. The report called on Congress to update the mandatory purchase requirement for flood insurance.
Meanwhile, homeowners have struggled to access buyout funds for flood-prone properties, which crucially encourage people to move out of high-risk areas and reduce the costs of future cleanup after disasters. Some parts of California have considered using that Fema aid for buyouts in wildfire-prone areas.
This spring, Fema updated its methodology for pricing flood insurance to make it more equitable and adapt to climate change.
But, of course, many of the efforts to fix those policies – or at least force them to factor in climate risks – now face vociferous opposition from powerful Republicans in Washington .
They want to pretend that nothing must fundamentally change – even though we’re already seeing that everything is changing faster than ever.
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David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin and the founder of the Daily Poster . He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter
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Julia Rock is freelance journalist
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This article was originally published in the Daily Poster , a grassroots-funded investigative news outlet
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Feet are stupid ... don't vote with them.
Weather has less to do with it than policy.
In city after city, people are fed up with it and are leaving droves.
Liberal policy is stupid ...... don't vote for it.
Possibly, but as the article attempts to point out, those drones are moving in the wrong direction.
If people who don't want to live in over taxed under policed shitholes are drones, then send all the "drones" you want.
They don't want to move where you live.
The article makes some seriously silly statements.
Example:
Soon?? Really?? Define "soon". Also, do we understand the difference between "below sea level" and "underwater"? Do they know about places like Amsterdam, Singapore, and New Orleans?
Or how about:
Whereas a century ago Phoenix was indistinguishable from the English countryside? No...it's always been really hot and really dry. Based on this "logic" nobody should have ever moved to Phoenix.
This gem is rocket science....
You mean...an insurance program helps the people who buy the insurance. Astonishing. Who knew?
This one is hilarious:
Mind boggling. Mind.....boggling.... Somebody has obviously never spent a winter in Rochester.
I'm still fascinated that The Guardian actually PAID these people for this.
Good, don't let the door hit them in their asses on the way out!
Michigan needs less people and less drivers on our already shitty highways and roads. Maybe we can finally reach a population level our infra structure can support in this state.
They can go boil and fry in the heat; drown in the flooding and mud slides; suffer through earth quakes; wild fires; hurricanes, monsoons, tropical storms, and tornadoes. Sounds like a great form of population control.
Wrong, were i live on that map we are a 10-19.9% increase category and honestly, i don't like it one bit. I rather be in one of the lower growth categories.
Then please explain these paragraphs from the seed:
The article doesn't say anything any cities losing population. If anything more people are leaving the high, dry, and safe places like rural America and moving to the cities, especially the coastal ones...like Galveston
And yet they are, almost to a number. Try to rent a storage space in coastal locations in the south, southwest and southeast. You can't because they are full stuff from people moving from places like NYC and Chicago.
The article made it's point and i made mine.
But they're moving to other coastal cities like Miami and Galveston. The big cities like NY and Chicago may be losing population but they're going the wrong way. That's the point of the article
And landlocked cities like Wichita Falls TX and Marion NC and Chandler AZ. All more conservatively run than the places they left i'd bet.
Always nice when a know it all reporter tells people they don't know they're moving the wrong way.
It's talk like that makes me feel really good about volunteering to defend our freedoms here in this country .....
You're not paying attention. I don't think you read the article and you certainly aren't paying attention to what I'm saying.
Once again it's all about how you put down other people to make yourself look better than everybody else.
Go talk to yourself
Nah, once again you just don't like what i'm saying, again ..... SOSDD.
You don't want to talk to me? Don't engage. It's pretty simple really ....
And Austin.
Or Herriman Utah
https://advisorsmith.com/data/fastest-growing-small-cities-in-america/
It's summer......that's why it's hot.
Science tells us that.
July was the hottest month ever recorded, NOAA says
BY LI COHEN
AUGUST 13, 2021 / 12:47 PM / CBS NEWS
It's been a summer of sweltering heat waves and raging wildfires , and now it's confirmed: July 2021 was the hottest month on Earth since record-keeping began. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the findings on Friday, calling it an "unenviable distinction" and part of a worsening trend related to climate change .
The findings come just days after the U.N. released a major international climate report documenting the "extreme" and "unprecedented" impacts of warming that are already being felt worldwide.
According to data released by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, the average worldwide land and ocean surface temperature in July was 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the 20th century average of 60.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Official record-keeping of global temperatures began 142 years ago.