As a reminder of the increasing salience of climate change, it was interesting to read about the cohort of Americans who are already making the decision on where to live within their country based on perceived resilience to the effects of climate change. They’re essentially internal climate migrants.
This sometimes involves moving from the “prestigious” popular cities, such as San Francisco with its proximity to regular wildfires, to lesser known places. It seems like the town of Duluth is one semi popular option. Although naturally that led to housing prices increasing rapidly. So, whilst one needed a certain amount of privilege to be in a position to relocate in the first place, it’s increasingly going to be an opportunity only available to the wealthier; a continuation of the housing market’s seemingly insatiable ability to divide the world into the haves and have-nots.
From the article, it doesn’t seem that we know how many relocation decisions are primarily driven by climate concerns, but a survey it links to (I haven’t checked validity of it!) suggests it is something that many people at least consider as a factor, especially those under 45 years old.
For those people who do want to think about this, CNN used some analysis from a firm called FourTwentySeven that analyses climate risk data to produce maps that show various measures of climate-related risk factors projected forward a decade or two.
