Today, Explained - A climate change of address

Episode Date: December 19, 2020

An estimated 143 million people will relocate to escape climate change in the next three decades. Quartz’s Amanda Shendruk explains how cities can transform themselves into climate havens. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Everywhere you looked, there were climate record setters. California more than doubled its previous wildfire record this year. Record setting wildfires in Colorado burned through snow. The Atlantic had its most named storms ever. So many hurricanes that the National Hurricane Center had to figure out a new way to name them. A dozen of them made landfall in the United States. That's another record. But perhaps most staggering of all is that this country, the United States, did nothing about it in the long term. In fact, on his way out of office, the outgoing president is trying to make it easier to pollute, easier to emit, and harder to fight climate change, which is scary if you think about the future. Here's an example. In the next 50

years, climate change is going to force tens and tens of millions of people to move. Amanda Shendrick is a reporter at Quartz, and she's been trying to figure out where all those people will go. And it turns out they might end up pretty close to you. Researchers right now are saying that climate change is probably going to lead to one of the largest mass migrations in human history. So there's a World Bank study that projects 143 million people will be displaced within their own countries by climate change in about the next three decades. And most of those people will end up in cities. I mean, thinking about what we're seeing in North America right now,

it feels like there's increasingly nowhere to go without dealing with some aspect of extreme climate. What are people looking for when they leave one place for another? Yeah, it's true that there's not really going to be anywhere that is completely untouched by climate change. However, what we sort of explored in this big project that we did at Quartz is the idea of something called a climate haven. A climate haven. Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you. No, I talked over you. It's all good. Just do that again if you want. I'll just stop so you can say Climate Haven. Perfect. A Climate Haven. Yeah, a Climate Haven. So this is a city that's more or less protected

from the extreme effects of climate change. So somewhere that's geographically located in an area that the temperature is moderate, so it's not going to get crazy cold or crazy hot, a place with abundant access to water and agricultural land, a city with the space to expand its infrastructure. And the hope in talking about these cities as a haven is that residents from vulnerable places might choose proactively to move to places like this instead of waiting for a disaster to destroy going to have to make to receive all these people and maintain some sort of functional infrastructure? There are really three ways that cities need to prepare, and that's economically, socially, and physically. So I'll just break that down. Physically, we're talking about, does the city have the space and the infrastructure to accommodate a mass of new people? For example, in places like Mexico City and DACA, when there's so many people moving in so quickly, it creates something called runaway urbanization,

which is just the result of a lot of people coming in and the city not really being able to keep up and the infrastructure not being able to keep up. Everywhere you can see the damage wrought by this frenzied growth. By one rough estimate, traffic alone costs the city $2 billion a year. The challenge of delivering water, electricity and telephone lines to a seemingly endless boundary is not easy. Raw sewage flows into lakes and rivers so polluted they're beyond treatment. Cities need to prepare economically. So for most places, it's going to require a significant investment to make a lot of the changes that are necessary to become a receiver city and to do them in an equitable and a sustainable way. So where's that money going to come from? What kind of economy can sustain the

newcomers? You know, they're going to need jobs. And then finally, a city needs to prepare socially. How does a community think about accommodating newcomers who are diverse in terms of race and culture and income? Yeah. It's a difficult question. It's kind of an eternal question. And I think it's going to rely on individual solutions from every city and every community. Is there a city in America that you feel serves as a model, as a climate haven or a receiver city right now? Unfortunately, no, there isn't really a great model for this right now.

Some cities are starting to think about it. Like all cities, Ann Arbor is experiencing impacts to the environment due to climate change. So Ann Arbor, for example, recently got a grant to start thinking about this and they're starting with an overhaul of its water treatment system. At a small church meeting house in a small Louisiana farm town, a small community is making a very big decision. And Louisiana has recently completed a really exhaustive

research project on climate relocation. The state of Louisiana is using federal funds to purchase land, build new homes, demolish the old flood-damaged homes, and turn this neighborhood into wetlands. My colleague Tim McDonald did a really great piece on this and identifying the problems that receiver communities in Louisiana are going through. And now, please welcome our mayor, the 62nd mayor of the city of Buffalo, Mayor Byron W. Brown. The mayor of Buffalo last year actually declared the city a climate refuge city. In Buffalo, we have a tremendous opportunity as our planet changes. Based on scientific research, we know that Buffalo will be a climate refuge city for centuries to come. But it's mostly been talk. There hasn't really been anything happening to make that a reality. Our power purchase agreement will bring renewable

energy, positive environmental change, and a creative approach to a sustainable future. And that's the case really across a lot of the U.S. There's very little that's been done. So at Quartz, we created this project called Greenhaven, where we decided to look at the question of where people will go when the waters rise. And the main objective of our project really was to explore what cities need to be thinking about right now

and to show that really thinking about or talking about installing solar panels and seawalls, just it's not enough. The preparation really needs to be deeper. If we're going to think practically about the future of people forced out of their communities by the disastrous effects of climate change, it's going to require a total rethink of cities. So what did you do? So one day I asked my editor, could I just make up a city? And they let me.

So I made up a city and I called it Leaside. After the break, we go to Leaside. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message,

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Terms and conditions do apply. Okay, Amanda, before the break, you made the argument that there aren't really cities in the United States taking this seriously enough, so you made one up. And now, if you don't mind, I'd like you to take us to this fictional

place you made up so we can better understand the steps cities could take here to better prepare themselves. The year is 2020. Leaside. So we have a new mayor in Leaside now, Jordan Enso, just elected. When I moved here after Hurricane Maria, I found a beautiful city with a long history. But I also found a city that was forever looking backwards. Leaside is a Rust Belt city, and that was done very intentionally. Rust Belt cities kind of had their manufacturing heyday in the 20th century, and they really saw a boom in terms of population and infrastructure and jobs. But then the industry started to go overseas and the jobs and the

population really dried up. So now you've got a bunch of cities in the Rust Belt. So we're talking about, you know, Detroit, Duluth, Buffalo, Rochester, places like that. As your new mayor, I promise you, we are going to start looking forwards. Leaside, who have small populations, but an infrastructure that can support a much larger population. It's time to make Leaside into a climate haven other cities can only aspire to. The location is also good geographically because you're right along the Great Lakes, so great access to fresh water. The climate's already fairly moderate. Our city is out of the path of hurricanes and wildfires. You're not along the ocean, so you don't have to worry about sea level rise. The cities in that region aren't likely to be as affected as many places. So now let's bring back the people.

Okay, sounds good so far, but what's the mayor going to do about all the rust? The year is 2025. Leaside wants to be the city of the future. But will anybody show up? That is the question everyone is asking, Joan. But the mayor is doing a lot to attract new residents. The city is redeveloping old industrial lots into housing and green space. They're giving out free Wi-Fi and setting up solar panel sites. Leaside, the city that's banning cars in the city center to make it more pleasant for bikers and pedestrians. So if you look at satellite images of Detroit or Rochester

or something, they have tons and tons of empty lots. And there's also a lot of abandoned buildings and houses. So Leaside took and turned a lot of empty lots and abandoned houses into affordable housing. And once things are looking less rusty, you got to do something about the economy that packed up and left? Yeah, it's a big question. So I guess the first thing the city does is increases tax base. They entice a group of people that we called climate pioneers to the city. These are people with the means to relocate for opportunities, those who can take advantage of sort of a post-pandemic office exodus. They do things like establish local businesses. The city relaxes zoning laws so that they can find creative uses for the city's abandoned buildings. One thing that

the city established was a fellowship program. How would you like to study renewable engineering? How about urban agriculture? Today, the city of Leaside announced that it's partnering with its university to help people train for green careers. It's all part of the city's push to bring in workers and jobs. Our city, your tomorrow. Move to Leaside today. The year is 2027. City, your tomorrow, move to Leaside today. The year is 2027. Recording.

All right. Hey guys, Waldo here. This is going to be kind of a weird video because we're moving. I mean, it is crazy. My mom, she like saved for this house for so long. And when she got it 10 years ago, when I was a little kid, she was so proud. And I mean, even then people told her it was dumb to buy a place in Miami. But also they like kept building houses here, you know, and selling them.

So my mom put all of her savings to this house and now it's basically worthless. Because no one's going to buy a place that's, like, literally going underwater. So we're moving to Leaside. You know, like the ads. Our city, your tomorrow. I don't know. I'll miss it here. The year is 2031.

It seems Leaside's population just keeps growing, Kathy. That's right, Joan. It's basically exploded, adding 20,000 people in just a few years' time. And so many are clustering around Fiddler's Green. Ever since this city

started with this haven business, normal people can't live in our neighborhood anymore. We keep hearing about zoning and rent control and price control, but we aren't seeing any controls. We're seeing prices double every five years. Sounds like the locals might be dealing with an old case of gentrification there, huh? Is that being addressed? So one of our mayors implemented subsidies for low and middle income housing, relaxed some zoning restrictions, did things like increasing support for public legal services. Sounds like they're rolling the dice on that one.

Same deal with the social elements here. A bunch of newcomers fleeing to an established town. Maybe some race stuff a la, you know, reality. Yeah, yeah. Again, that's tricky. It's near the end of the piece, a huge disaster happens. They're calling it Cruel September. That's right, Joan. Nicholas, Odette, and Rose.

Three Category 5 hurricanes just absolutely battering the Florida panhandle. 4,000 dead and a flood of over 1 million American refugees looking for homes. So we included that because we wanted to make this piece as realistic as possible. And unfortunately, there's a lot of anti-immigration, anti-migration sentiments. Yes, Kathy, the anti-migration group Moms for Opportunity is really catching on. Most people are discovering them through Jennifer Pike's popular brain cast, Make No Moves. People get mad when I say this, but I understand why people see a new family with like 10 kids move onto their block and think, hmm, where are these people from? What are they doing here?

You know, I get it. This seems like the kind of thing that could happen. So now we have to ask, how do we prevent something like that from happening? And I think it will rely on individual solutions for each city, like investing in schools and cultural programs and maybe language programs. We end the piece with this big campaign that's put out across the country and then a smaller campaign that's focused on

the city called the Us All campaign. And we've created these posters that say our prosperity needs us all, our tomorrow needs us all, our communities need us all. It's about coming together as a community and solving these problems. Which almost feels like, I don't know, it's wild to say this, but it feels sort of naive considering the moment we're in right now socially, politically in this country. I mean, did this feel like a sort of fantastic vision of the future when you were making it? The goal of this was to create something more positive and more solutions oriented. Now we wanted to make it realistic. So we do have, you know, a national hate group in there called Moms for Opportunity. And we do

have protests and we do have people who are not happy that migrants are coming into the city we do have disasters we have leaside doesn't do everything right it's certainly not a utopian city and it's not a perfect path forward for a climate haven or a receiver city but we hear so many stories and we read so often about the cities that are going to be devastated and the people who will lose their homes and the places that are going to end up underwater. We thought it's time to start thinking about, well, what's next? How do we move forward? How do we create places then that will be welcoming homes to the people who have to leave? And cities need to start thinking about this.

I mean, the future we're talking about is only a few decades from now. And that's not very far in the future when it comes to length scales for city development. So, yeah, you're right that it comes across as kind of utopian. And this is actually a quote that I gave one of the mayors. You have to imagine a positive future before you can start to build it. So we wanted to do that. Amanda Shendruk is a reporter at Quartz. They did a really swell job of bringing the town of Leaside to life online. To find it, just search for Leaside at QZ.com.

That's L-E-E-S-I-D-E. Thanks to Kate Daly, Jen Williams, Carlos Maza, Skylar Swenson, and Christina Aminashan for helping bring our Leeside to life. We had editing help from Amy Drozdovska. I'm Sean Ramos for him. It's Today Explained. Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. you