How Long Will Your Town Last?
How Long Will Your Town Last?
As the planetary crisis worsens, thousands of communities around the world face economic loss, social upheaval and hard times. Do you live in one of them?
A lot of us are in for a real shock, real soon.
Humanity has failed to prevent a planetary crisis. Much of the world is beginning to experience a bombardment of climate and ecological damage unlike anything humans have ever seen. These impacts are not only dangerous themselves, they also trigger economic loss, social upheaval and family impoverishment. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
In Florida, things have already gotten worse. Increasingly battered by hurricanes, heat waves and sea level rise, some parts of Florida have just seen twenty inches of rain fall in the last few days, much of it in intense downpours.
Widespread serious flooding is reported, broadcast in videos like this one:
This storm will pass, of course.
Much of the damaged infrastructure will be repaired. Most people will be able to return to work. Many homes will be fixed up or rebuilt. A lot of folks will suffer real losses, but South Florida will still exist. Life will go on... for now.
Ask yourself, though, how many of these disasters — deluges, floods, hurricanes, storm surges, heatwaves, wildfires — can hit a place before its future collapses?
A) How long before the risks are so high that no one there can afford insurance (or is able to sell their home at a decent price), because outside banks, investors and insurance companies refuse to lend, invest or insure at anything like the rates locals are used to? Shortly afterwards, the value of local homes and businesses will plummet.
B) How long before everyone who can move, does? And since in the developed world, those with the most means and/or opportunities are the first to relocate away from climate danger, what kind of impact does that flight of youth, wealth and expertise have on the local community and its prospects?
C) How long before everyone who's left is economically trapped? The public debate in most wealthy nations largely ignores the evidence that millions of their citizens are headed for a situation where they have nothing like enough resources to protect their communities, but no one is coming to help them relocate, and they lack the resources to move successfully on their own.
D) How long before the cost of housing skyrockets in relative safe places, more people scramble to find opportunities there, and relocating becomes harder and more expensive1. At the same time, the political upheavals caused by so many people being confronted with their own unreadiness will strain governments and institutions around the world.
Across a wide swath of America, people’s hometowns are headed for climate devastation and economic ruin. At this point, not much can be done for the most endangered towns — we didn’t act soon enough, and we don’t have the money now — but our current politics don’t even inspire much confidence that we’ll take real action and make major investments even where bold responses could still make a huge difference.
Ask yourself how ready you are for what’s coming over the horizon.
Nowhere’s safe, but that doesn’t mean that nowhere is any safer than anywhere else; indeed choosing wisely where to weather the storm is critical.
None of us can respond successfully to this crisis alone, but that doesn’t mean that anyone can help us if we don’t act ourselves, while there’s still time.
Nothing is certain in the face of climate and ecological discontinuities this large — much conventional wisdom and old expertise is no longer very useful — but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn to spot patterns, develop smart strategies and improve our odds.
Time is on no one’s side, now. How prepared are you to make the informed, quick choices so many of us are about to be forced to make?2
Ask yourself, because no else can answer for you.
And secondary displacement drives out people there who are already struggling.
In other words, what’s your personal climate strategy?