How climate breakdown is affecting Americans
Many people in the states believe that we are immune from climate and ecological breakdown. Check out the articles below to see how climate breakdown is a global issue and is already harming Americans and necessitating domestic migration.
Read a round up of the headlines below:
“Over the past decade, the US has experienced a succession of monumental climate disasters. Hurricanes have obliterated parts of the Gulf Coast, dumping more than 50in of rain in some places. Wildfires have denuded the California wilderness and destroyed thousands of homes. A once-in-a-millennium drought has dried up rivers and forced farmers to stop planting crops. Many of these disasters have no precedent in living memory, and they have dominated the headlines as Americans process the power of a changing climate.
But the disasters themselves are only half the story. The real story of climate change begins only once the skies clear and the fire burns out, and it has received far less attention in the mainstream media.”
The Guardian, Today, California is hammered by extreme weather. Tomorrow, it could be your area
“The state of Arizona has restricted future home-building in the Phoenix area due to a lack of groundwater, based on projections showing that wells will run dry under existing conditions.
The action by the Arizona department of water resources on Thursday is set to slow population growth for the Phoenix region, the state capital, home to 4.6 million people and one of the most rapidly expanding areas of the United States.
The decision underscores the precarious position of Arizona in the face of a “megadrought”, fueled by the climate crisis, that has gripped the US west for the past two decades. Last week the state, along with Nevada and California, agreed to significant cutbacks in the use of water from the Colorado River, which is rapidly shrinking.”
The Guardian, Arizona limits future home-building in Phoenix area due to lack of groundwater
“In the aftermath of climate disasters, as victims try to cope with the destruction of their homes and communities, they start to move around in search of safe and affordable shelter. Many of them have no choice but to move in with family members or friends, while others find themselves forced to seek out cheaper apartments in other cities. Some rebuild their homes only to sell them and move to places they deem less vulnerable, while others move away only to return and lose their homes again in another storm or fire.
We as Americans don’t often hear about this chaotic process of displacement and relocation, but the scale of movement is already overwhelming: more than 3 million Americans lost their homes to climate disasters last year, and a substantial number of those will never make it back to their original properties. Over the coming decades, the total number of displaced will swell by millions and tens of millions, forcing Americans from the most vulnerable parts of the country into an unpredictable, quasi-permanent exile from the places they know and love…
The federal government has the resources to help address this chaos. Lawmakers could ramp up programs that protect against floods and fires. They could give people money to relocate from vulnerable homes or to find new jobs if climate change makes their old jobs impossible or dangerous. Meanwhile, the White House could take a leading role in planning for future migration, incentivizing growth in places that are less vulnerable and easing the transition away from the riskiest places.
But doing any of these things would first require government officials to acknowledge the scale of climate displacement that has happened already, and shed light on a crisis that has for too long gone ignored.”
The Guardian, The American climate migration has already begun
“Blooming daffodils in New York City. Leaves sprouting from red maples in North Carolina. Cherry blossoms about to bud in Washington. Record winter warmth across much of the eastern US has caused spring-like conditions to arrive earlier than ever previously recorded in several places, provoking delight over the mild weather and despair over the unfolding climate crisis.
In New York, one of several US cities to experience its warmest January on record, spring conditions have arrived 32 days before the long-term normal, which is its earliest onset of biological spring in 40 years of charting seasonal trends by the National Phenology Network.
Spring activity has, meanwhile, arrived at least 20 days earlier than usual for huge swathes of the US south-east and east, with parts of central Texas, south-east Arkansas, southern Ohio and Maryland, along with New York, all recording their earliest spring conditions on record so far this year.
It’s a little unsettling, it’s certainly something that is out of the bounds of when we’d normally expect spring,” said Teresa Crimmins, director of the National Phenology Network and an environmental scientist at the University of Arizona. “It perhaps isn’t surprising, given the trajectory our planet is on, but it is surprising when you live through it.”
The Guardian, Parts of US see earliest spring conditions on record: ‘Climate change playing out in real time’
“Day after day, week after week, the United States faces a barrage of climate extremes: wildfires in California. Drought on the Great Plains. Flooding in Florida.
Yet assembling those puzzle pieces into a clear picture often can be difficult. It's a problem the Interior Department and NOAA aim to address with a new website that provides data on real-time extreme event conditions as well as risk profiles at the national, state and local levels…
The interactive website was designed with "a single goal in mind," David Hayes, special assistant to the president for climate policy, said in a webinar last week.
“Namely, to give our nation’s communities and their businesses and residents the tools they need to ... understand the climate impacts that are hitting them today ... the likely climate impacts they will see in the coming decades, and, to give them tools so they can help prepare their communities and make them more resilient in the face of these severe stresses," Hayes said.”
Scientific American, Here’s How Climate Change Is Hurting the U.S.
More Reading
Pew Research Center, For Earth Day, Americans’ views of climate change in 8 charts