Foreshadowing the Great Migration as Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Alter Where We Live

September 24, 2018 – Hurricane Florence is still making headlines in North Carolina a week after the storm passed. The floodwaters from the storm surge and heavy rains have yet to subside. And once the waters subside, most of those affected will return to damaged and destroyed homes to rebuild in exactly the same location as before. This happened in New Jersey, Staten Island, and Long Island after Hurricane Sandy, and in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana after Katrina, and repeatedly in Florida after every hurricane hits that state.

There is a saying that has been attributed to Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Rebuilding on the floodplains inundated by Hurricane Harvey in the Houston area is just one example of this collective “insanity.” And so is rebuilding along coastlines where there is overwhelming evidence that the seas are rising as global warming alters the planet. Today Florida reports record numbers of sunny day floods in the southern half of the state. These flooding incidents are no longer limited to occurrences of high tides or storm surges. They are just part of the new reality in that part of the state. The same is true in tidewater areas of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia. In fact, no coastal state in America is exempt from the scientific evidence that the seas are rising and threatening to wash away whole towns from Alaska to the tip of Florida.

The coming migration could displace 13 million Americans according to a study reported in Nature Climate Change. Author Mat Hauer, a demographer, states that “unmitigated sea level rise is expected to reshape the US population distribution, potentially stressing landlocked areas unprepared to accommodate this wave of coastal migrants even after accounting for potential adaptation.”

Hauer’s study focuses on sea level rise impacts in the United States but points out that the impact globally could displace up to 1 billion by the end of the century. Mass migrations have happened in the past but never on such an epic scale. Empires have fallen because of these migrations. In a previous posting, I describe the fate of the Roman Empire and how it repeatedly was stressed by combinations of climate-change-driven migration, and pandemics. The evidence of Rome, the Anasazi, the Indus River Valley, the Maya of the Yucatan, and other prehistoric and historic civilizations suggest just how disruptive environmental changes can be to what we would normally consider permanent sites for human settlement.

The United States’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) appears to not be designed to do the mitigation and adaptation projects required to address what will become a major population problem as the rest of the century unfolds. FEMA’s typical response is to rebuild in situ, doing the same thing over and over again. So if a house is destroyed by coastal flooding, FEMA funding is provided to build a replacement and erect it in the same location. This kind of disaster relief turns homeowners and businesses into sitting ducks for the next extreme weather event or continuous sea level rise as the century unfolds. The law of averages that deemed flooding from sea level changes to be a once-in-a-century event may have justified FEMA’s approach in the past. But there is a new normal which dictates a very different approach.

Is FEMA able to adapt? After Hurricane Sandy, FEMA altered some of its policies to allow communities to consider the implications of sea level rise in their rebuilds. But nowhere does it appear that FEMA is prepared for the implications of wholesale populations moving from America’s coastlines as sea levels rise this century and as the increased frequency of extreme weather events exact their toll.

Does South Florida face a future apocalypse? Orrin Pilkey, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Duke University, has written a book entitled, “Retreat from the Rising Sea: Hard Decisions in an Age of Global Climate Change,” as well as numerous papers describing America’s Atlantic Ocean coastline including future projections. Pilkey sees little in the way of government planning for a future in which climate refugees will find themselves moving inland to communities unprepared to deal with displaced populations. Pilkey describes these refugees as not the “bedraggled families” fleeing wars, but as “well-off Americans…in their cars, with moving trucks behind” in search of a new home.

South Florida today is America’s “Ground Zero” when it comes to sea level rise and future climate change refugees. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, in the absence of large-scale investment in mitigation and adaptation strategies, will be the first and foremost area of the country impacted. As many as 2.5 million climate refugees will leave to relocate to cities from Orlando to Atlanta. The entire Florida Atlantic coast will be affected to a lesser degree, as will coastal communities from Georgia to Massachusetts. Forecasts indicate that 86% of coastal communities having populations of 10,000 or more are expected to be affected negatively as sea level rise and extreme weather events increase incidents of flooding.

America’s other coasts will not be spared. From the San Francisco-Oakland area to Alaska there will be increased floods. In the Bay Area alone migration is expected to impact 250,000 who will be displaced by rising sea levels. And on the Gulf Coast from Texas to the Florida Panhandle, more than a half million in will become climate refugees over the next 50 years.

Summarizing total population displacement, Hauer predicts a decline in the population of the Southern states by 8% by 2065, and a gain in the Northeast and Western states by 9 and 10% respectively to absorb sea level rise refugees.

Amir Jina, a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy in Chicago and an environmental economist, studies human dynamics and climate change and states that “insidious climate migration” is the issue that America needs to worry about the most because the country is wholly unprepared for how it will “reshape population in the 21st century.”

In describing sea level rise and its impact on the migration of human populations, the focus in this posting has been on America. The U.S. as a rich country has the capacity to deal with this impending population shock. But in the Developing World, the impact on populations decimated by sea level rise and extreme weather events will make the challenges the U.S. faces look small in comparison.