. . . because we could use one. For Americans, even though the reality of climate change is all around them, it still isn't real in their minds. Even as Lake Mead disappears and the Colorado River dries up, and the Southwest is hit by massive wildfires, heatwaves and drought, that's where Americans are moving and buying up real estate.
According to an analysis published earlier this month by the Economic Innovation Group, 10 of the 15 counties last year were in the water-strained Southwest. Since 2012, an additional 2.8 million people have moved to counties that spent the majority of the past decade under “severe” to “exceptional” drought conditions.
Leading the way in growth was Maricopa County in Arizona, home to Phoenix, a desert metropolis that receives more sunshine than any other major city on Earth — and averages more than 110 days with highs of at least 100°F. Average temperatures in Phoenix are already 2.5°F hotter than they were in the middle of the last century, which helps explain why there were 338 heat-associated deaths last year in Maricopa County.
Despite that — and despite worse to come — the population in Maricopa increased by 14 percent over the last decade, to nearly 4.5 million people. A similar pattern is at work in states like Florida and South Carolina that experience high storm and flood risk, or in states like Colorado and Idaho that face major wildfire risk. Altogether, according to an analysis from the real-estate site Redfin, the 50 US counties with the largest share of homes facing high climate and extreme weather risk all experienced positive net migration on average between 2016 and 2020.
Now, humans naturally tend to discount the future, and it's psychologically hard to accept the reality of radical discontinuity. But people are paying high prices for real estate on Florida barrier beaches that won't exist in 30 years, and in places where there won't be any water. These are just cold truths. It doesn't matter what your political beliefs are. It doesn't matter if you are suspicious of scientists and what you think of as "elites," this is happening. Now. And it's going to keep getting worse. And worse.
I despair.
3 comments:
I guess it's pathetic to say that you're not despairing alone. But that is the truth. In light of these events, it's pretty easy to understand how Rome fell, and how Germany descended into madness and butchery. And how tens of millions of people in this America still follow a truly ugly racist, con artist rapist.
Denial indeed. A great evolutionary tool for survival that, unchecked, also sows the seeds of our species' destruction.
I also think that a lot of people, especially many young people, believe that humanity is not going to be around for much longer, and I think it influences their decision-making, such as not having children or going where they want to live, regardless of the long-term consequences. I think a lot of people simply don't believe that -- between climate change, nuclear weapons and war -- there is a long term at this point.
People can't imagine the irrefutable fact that the climate is changing, but they found it easy to imagine the negligible chance of a mushroom cloud over an American city. (F..K you, W!)
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