Clark also found that Americans are moving away from areas that enjoy short-term temperatures, such as the Midwest, but are still flocking to areas with high summer temperatures, such as the Southwest. In the map above, red is where people move from areas that are colder or areas that are warmer, while blue is the opposite.
These changes can be attributed to a number of factors that are converging on economic and social factors. “People move from areas of high unemployment—you find that those tend to be rural areas with a long history of economic hardship,” says Clark. “So we have people leaving the areas along the Mississippi River and crossing the Great Plains and parts of the Midwest and South.” As a result, Americans are often moving away from hurricane risk along the Gulf Coast (except for Florida and Texas), as well as the booming Northwest, where the risk of wildfires is high.
And while it is true that some of the wealthy Americans may seek the beauty of the forested areas – especially because the epidemic has allowed many people to work far away, not moving to another city – the financial problems may be. to force others there, too. Rising housing prices and the high cost of living are pushing people to areas where housing is less expensive, especially on the more expensive West Coast.
Kaitlyn Trudeau, a Climate Central researcher who studies wildfires but has not done anything about it, said. interested in a new subject. “Some people don’t have a choice.”
The increase in the number of people living in the wildfires comes at a cost: The 2018 fire camp in California alone caused $16.5 billion in damages. And that’s to say nothing of the cost of putting out fires, or preventing them through methods like controlled burning.
There are also hidden costs, such as the health effects of smoke—even if your house isn’t on fire, you’re inhaling harmful particles and fungi. “I think we’re just starting to quantify and understand the extent of the smoke,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison biologist Volker Radeloff, who studies forest ecosystems but was not involved in the new study. This prevents the fire from burning strongly, because even if the fire takes hold, the smoke cannot be extinguished. This is a serious threat to people, especially if they have asthma or other lung diseases. “
All in all, this new survey shows that Americans are headed in the wrong direction. “It’s hard to see the population growth in these areas,” says Trudeau. You can’t help but feel like your stomach is sinking a little.
