Climate migration, but backwards

In the US, people are moving headlong into climate disaster zones

The parts of the US experiencing the biggest population growth are also the ones facing the most dangerous climate future.

On the face of it this looks inexplicable. Why would so many people choose to move to places we know are going to be more perilous places to survive in the not-very-distant future? A paradox with (I think) a number of reasons behind it. But first, let’s look at what’s happening, and projected to happen, in these places.

The Sunbelt migration

Here’s the map which shows how parts of the so-called US ‘sunbelt,’ primarily the urban centres of Texas, the vast majority of Florida as well as South Carolina, are the fastest growing places in the United States.

Climate change is already hurting those places, and the forecasts for the future are verging on downright un-liveable. The two states that more people than ever are pouring in to, Texas and Florida, are the two states at the top of the list for devastating climate impacts. But let’s start with South Carolina.

South Carolina

In Charleston, South Carolina, tidal flooding (also known as “sunny day” flooding, when the high tide alone causes streets and properties to flood) averaged twice per year in the 1970s. That number is now more than 25 days per year, and by 2045, tidal flooding is projected to hit the city 180 days every year. Which is to say in around 20 years, parts of Charleston will be flooded for more than half of the year.

Communities in Charleston are already spending billions adapting to the climate crisis and on cleaning-up after floods. It’s also not getting any cooler, obviously. Within 25 years or so, dangerous heat is projected to strike South Carolina 90 days per year, and heat wave days will quadruple from 15 to nearly 60 , with impacts on human health, infrastructure and crops.

Texas

When it comes to the impact of heat though, Texas, which has the fastest growing cities of any state in the US, is in another league. The number of 100-degree days (37.8C) has more than doubled over the past 40 years and could nearly double again in the next decade or so. In consecutive years now Texas has been hit by heat domes that have delivered crushing temperatures, broken heat records and killed people.

And heat brings drought. Texas is the state most at risk of widespread drought, with 6.4 million people currently living in drought-affected areas. By mid-century Texas will see a 75% increase in the severity of drought events and the state is also projected to overtake California as the state most threatened by wildfire in the next 25 years. On top of this, hurricane storm surges that produce catastrophic death and damage like the one caused by Hurricane Harvey are also projected to double in coastal areas within the next 25 years or so as sea level rises. As a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, urban flooding from extreme precipitation events is also forecast to grow 30-50%. All of this – extreme heat, drought, and floods, as the state needs to build capacity (and adaptative capacity) for many millions more people in the coming years.

Florida

Now to the granddaddy. Florida is the fastest growing state in the US by population and also the state forecast to be comprehensively hammered by the climate crisis. Sea level rise is the obvious place to start. The sea level around Florida is up to 8 inches higher than it was in 1950 and in some places the rise is accelerating by rates that would challenge geological records, at 1 inch every 3 years. There has been a 600% increase in tidal flooding along the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and high tide flooding is expected to hit Florida’s cities for weeks on end over the next decades.

The rise is due to melting glaciers but also due to the porous nature of the limestone rock that Florida sits on. The sea is literally rising up through the state, not just around the edges. This not only makes it harder to put adaptive measures like sea walls in place, it brings with it what some scientists call the “nightmare scenario” for the state. The total destruction of its drinking water supplies.

Florida sits on a freshwater aquifer which acts as a cap on the salt water below, pressing it down. But that aquifer is being rapidly drained by over-development and profligate use of water (half of all the water taken from the public supply ends up watering private lawns, around 900 million gallons a day). As that freshwater cap shrinks, the pressure on the salt water lessens, allowing that water to intrude into the aquifer and salinate freshwater drinking supplies. It’s no exaggeration to say that should salination of the freshwater aquifer continue, the state of Florida as a viable entity would be in question.

Then there’s the heat and humidity. On current trends, by the middle of this century, Florida will face 105 days with a heat index over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8C), up from just 25 days historically, and 63 days with a heat index over 105 degrees F (40.5C). Almost one-third of the year above a heat index of 100F (37.8C) would do serious damage to human health and ecosystems. Florida is also likely to face stronger hurricanes as the ocean heats up and fuels more powerful storm systems.

And of course, Florida is governed right now by a climate denier.

Marching blind

So what could be compelling this? Why are people moving towards danger in areas that are already over-burdened and ecologically stressed?

Firstly, the fossil fuel lobby has skilfully propagating climate denial for a very long time and engineered a political landscape (i.e. bribes and kick-backs) favourable to maintaining that denial at a cultural level. Unless you’re really paying attention, very few external stimuli exist to tell you that moving to these places is a bad idea. The media for the most part aren’t going to do it. The politicians certainly aren’t. And capitalists with no concept of ecological limits will forever welcome new consumers with open arms. When growth is the cultural goal, there can be no limits.

And these places do, at the moment, offer things that people want. There’s the sun and warmth, the almost year-round outdoors climate (apart from the hurricanes and the floods), and the low tax. Both Texas and Florida have no state income tax. For the most part things still work, there are no shortages of vital goods, and the disasters still come infrequently enough to be outweighed by all those other things.

As well as this, there are many cognitive mechanisms that can lead people to overweight current opportunities and underweight future risk when it comes to decision making. This is especially so when few cultural signals exist for you to make a better decision. Of the cognitive mechanisms, denial, YOLO, magical thinking, the optimism bias and group risk taking are a few. I want to talk briefly about the last one.

Risky-shifts

There’s a concept in psychology known as the risky-shift phenomenon. This is when, contrary to perceived wisdom, groups of people encourage and engage in more risky behaviour than individuals. This was first identified by researcher James Stoner in the 60s who found that when a group was asked to advise people about how much risk to take in a hypothetical situation, they suggested the person take greater risk than the average individuals’ advice. This was a surprise at the time, but was able to be repeated across demographics and countries. The only thing that was found to bring the group decision-making back to a baseline of caution was access to good information and informed group discussion about the nature of risk in the given situation. All of which it’s fair to say are probably missing when most people move to a state in the crosshairs of the climate crisis.

So more people moving to places exposed to greater climate risks may actually be encouraging the movement of more people to these places, in a kind of social-psychological feedback. All in defiance of the physics that will govern the future of these places.

Eventually the physics will win out, as it always must. But the bigger the boom, the bigger the bust. The more these places to continue to grow, the harder the eventual landing.