Abstract
In 2022, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, estimated that an annual average of 21.5 million people globally have been forcibly displaced by weather-related sudden onset hazards–such as floods, storms, wildfires, extreme temperature–each year since 2008. Thousands of others have been forced to flee their homes in the context of slow-onset hazards, such as droughts or coastal erosion linked to sea level rise. (UNHCR 2022). In that same year, the U.S. experienced 18 weather and climate disasters costing at least $1 billion (NOAA 2023). Jake Bittle, a staff writer on climate change at Grist, provides a context for these dire statistics in “The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration.” Drawing on research and hundreds of personal interviews, Bittle describes a witches' brew of counterproductive planning and policy, economic inequality, and institutional failure that not only fails to adequately address the problem, but serves, instead, to make it worse. Although certainly timely and important, what sets “The Great Displacement” apart from the many other contemporary works on the topic is Bittle’s focus on the impacts that extreme climatic events have had, and will continue to have, on people and communities. There is much to mine here that could lead to a roadmap for an effective and desperately needed U.S. climate change strategy.
In an opening Prologue describing how the 2021 Dixie Fire in California destroyed the town of Greenville, he lays out what will become the unifying and recurring themes of the book. Following a rare but not unexpected extreme event, most of the town’s residents were displaced and forced to seek alternative shelter. Federal emergency assistance was not timely and when it finally arrived, many residents had already moved on to nearby communities or left the state entirely. For those that chose to return, many did not have sufficient insurance coverage to rebuild and for those that could, Greenville would never be the same. The resulting diaspora had changed the town forever.
In the following seven chapters, he describes events as diverse as the on-going drowning of the Florida Keys, river flooding in North Carolina, wildfires in California, the disappearance of the Louisiana coast, rain bombs in Houston, drought in Arizona, and rising seas and blue-sky flooding in Norfolk, Virginia. Although all these events have disrupted communities and forced people to relocate, there is not a common solution to the problem. In fact, many “solutions” have often made matters worse.
For example, ostensibly well-meaning programs to control flooding or improve drainage through engineering works often create the impression that areas that were formerly flooded are now safe to inhabit. Houston is a prime example where drainage “improvements” enabled new development that made future flood losses not only inevitable but also more intense. This illusion of safety is compounded by flood insurance premiums that have historically not reflected the true level of risk and created a perverse incentive for more people to locate in high-risk areas.
Often touted as a solution to an endless cycle of destruction and rebuilding followed by more destruction, home buyout programs were designed by FEMA to move people out of floodplains to eliminate recurring flood losses. However, the program was not designed with community cohesion and cultural preservation in mind and, as so often happens when decisions are based on a single parameter, the results were suboptimal. This is particularly true of indigenous and minority communities such as Pointe-au-Chien, Louisiana and Princeville, North Carolina. In both cases, environmental change led to community disinvestment and depopulation and ultimately, irreversible community dispersion in areas where tight social groups had developed over many generations. As Bittle wrote of Pointe-au-Chien, “The collapse of these bayou communities reveals a profound truth about what we stand to lose in the coming era of climate migration—not just homes and subdivisions, but entire cultures.”
Although perhaps not as dramatic as a wildfire consuming hundreds of thousands of acres or a Category 4 hurricane, the drought affecting the American southwest and sea level rise and blue-sky flooding in Norfolk, Virginia are equally disturbing. The lure of sunbelt communities in Arizona and the agricultural productivity of a natural desert were both enabled by the delivery of a cheap and reliable water supply. Harnessing the Colorado River through a series of dams and reservoirs literally made the desert bloom. Unfortunately, over allocating the water that the system could reliably produce was never going to be sustainable and both housing development and agriculture have suffered as the basin struggles with the longest drought on record. Existing communities are running out of water and agricultural allocations have been drastically reduced, sometimes to zero. Homeowners and farmers are both left wondering what comes next but change and disruption appear inevitable.
Norfolk, located where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, presents the opposite problem, too much water. Sea level rise coupled with land subsidence is already threatening many near shore communities and tidal flooding has become a routine event. The stark choice facing many homeowners is to elevate structures above expected flood levels at enormous cost or just let nature take its course and eventually abandon the home. Even in the short term, this is causing major disruption. Longer term may bring wholesale relocations of entire communities. Beyond the social impact of such dislocations, the financial impacts on the housing market are already being felt. Given the major role that the housing sector plays in the U.S. economy, the impact of reduced valuations on the banking and mortgage industry could be profound.
The final chapter deals with where all those disrupted and dispossessed by climate change will go and the answer is not very promising. As it turns out, sunbelt and coastal locations remain hot ticket destinations despite the risk. Bittle notes that the population of coastal counties has grown 15 per cent since the turn of the century and the fastest growing cities in the country are in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. In the Wall Street Journal, Rohwedder (2023) recently reported that people who found Florida real estate too expensive were moving to Baldwin County, Alabama where beachfront property was more “affordable.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the article did not mention any concerns regarding climate change or sea level rise. This pattern is repeated all along the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts where more and more of the baby boomer generation seek warmer climates for retirement living. It appears that other factors beyond risk aversion are in play here, and in many instances, people will self-select communities where they “feel” more comfortable. This may entail the former residents of Paradise, California relocating to Idaho for political reasons, or refugees from Hurricane Maria leaving Puerto Rico for Buffalo, New York because of an existing large and vibrant Puerto Rican community. At this point in time, it is far from clear how all this will play out.
In the interim, Bittle offers some rational observations for what needs to be done. Drastically reducing carbon emissions is high on his list but he recognizes that even if these efforts are successful, it will be a long time before the effects on climate are noticeable. Improving post-disaster aid and climate mitigation measures are two areas where the effects would be immediate and help those most in need. Given the large numbers of people that will potentially be displaced, it would be well to bolster the ranks of responders and aid officials with mental health professionals to assist those experiencing trauma.
Even though both the rich and poor will experience the effects of climate change and sea level rise, the impacts will not be equal. When financial assistance is delayed following a disaster, those without ready access to private funds must scramble to find lodging and food and a way to maintain themselves and their loved ones. For those who do have the resources to remain, insurance payouts are often not adequate to replace dwellings and personal property damaged or destroyed. Even if they are, housing in the community they were just flooded out of may be all they can afford. Major overhauls of mortgage and insurance programs are probably in order as is a major rethink of how the nation will deal with disasters going forward. Obviously, there is much to be done.
In Collapse, Jared Diamond's (2005) study of extinct societies, he identified four reasons why societies made the disastrous decisions that ultimately caused them to disappear a) failure to anticipate a problem; b) failure to recognize a problem that’s already arrived; c) failure to try to implement solutions; and d) denial of the problem. We are not doing at all well in this regard and unless we wish to follow the Maya, Anasazi, and others into oblivion, we should pay close attention to what Mr. Bittle has to say.