EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. #OvercomingOvershoot was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
ProPublica’s Senior Environmental Reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, discusses his recent series of articles “The Great Climate Migration” – a project of ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine.
About #OvercomingOvershoot:
#OvercomingOvershoot takes a deep look at the myriad symptoms of ecological overshoot by way of thoughtful conversations with experts and visionaries exploring not only what’s going wrong but also what solution pathways are available to overcome overshoot. Moderated by eco-rockstar, Gary Wockner, this show will serve as an essential hub to connect people from around the world on this most pressing concern.
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EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. #OvercomingOvershoot was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
ProPublica’s Senior Environmental Reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, discusses his recent series of articles “The Great Climate Migration” – a project of ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine.
About #OvercomingOvershoot:
#OvercomingOvershoot takes a deep look at the myriad symptoms of ecological overshoot by way of thoughtful conversations with experts and visionaries exploring not only what’s going wrong but also what solution pathways are available to overcome overshoot. Moderated by eco-rockstar, Gary Wockner, this show will serve as an essential hub to connect people from around the world on this most pressing concern.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Follow Us:
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How to watch:
United States:
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TVTranscript
00:30Hi, I'm Gary Walkner, the host of Overcoming Overshoot here on EarthX TV.
00:45Today's show is titled Climate Migration and Climate Refugees, How Bad Will It Get?
00:52We have one of the U.S.'s leading environmental reporters as our guest today, Abram Lustgarten.
00:58Abram is a prize-winning reporter currently with ProPublica and the New York Times.
01:04In the past, he's extensively covered issues around oil and gas drilling and fracking in
01:09the United States, also stories about water and the Colorado River, and more recently
01:13about climate change, climate migrants, and climate refugees.
01:18He is the author of a recent extensive sweeping three-part series in the New York Times about
01:25the coming great climate migration across the planet.
01:30Abram, welcome to the show.
01:33Hi, Gary.
01:35Thanks for having me.
01:38What I like to do on the show with, because we have a lot of young viewers and a lot of
01:42people who are very staged in life, is sort of have our guests give like what I call the
01:47aha moment.
01:48So is there something in your career where it's made you decide to be, like something
01:53happened, you decide to be, I want to be an environmental reporter and that's it?
01:58And then also something that actually moved you in the direction of our topic today.
02:02So tell us the aha moment.
02:05Yeah, I mean, it's tough to pick one moment.
02:08You know, I've been concerned about environmental issues, you know, from the beginning of my
02:14time.
02:15I'm an outdoors person.
02:16I'm a climber and a biker and skier and, you know, lived in Colorado when I was younger
02:22and was doing a lot of photography and travel writing.
02:25And I think there was some assignment.
02:26I was actually up in Breckenridge, up in the hills above Breckenridge and, you know, taking
02:31pictures of some little creek and found it running orange with mine tailings.
02:36And it was kind of this moment of, you know, what am I doing?
02:39Like trying to find, trying to cut out the pollution so people could see the pretty pictures
02:42and, you know, and come visit when really what we needed to do was being, was pay a
02:47little closer attention to those mine tailings themselves and fix that.
02:51And I've been working on, you know, from a more investigative approach ever since.
02:58So we're going to talk today about climate migrants and climate refugee.
03:03And I want to, you know, kind of slow down a bit and actually do our best to kind of
03:07define these terms.
03:10So and, you know, you're now one of the leading experts on it.
03:14So tell us what a climate migrant is and then tell us what a climate refugee is.
03:22That's such a complicated place to start and a great place to start.
03:25We could probably talk about that for the first 20 minutes or so.
03:28You know, so I have my own definition and I think of a climate migrant and a climate
03:34refugee is, you know, is really the same thing, you know, and to me, that's a person who has
03:39been put in a situation where they have to relocate a local relocation or a distant relocation
03:47maybe across international boundaries because of the response to environmental circumstances
03:52that are driven by climate change.
03:54And that's a really sort of broad, general way to look at it.
03:58But it's also a very inclusive way to look at it.
04:01But I think some of your question probably gets at what, you know, the word refugee means
04:05and refugees is a legal term used by the United Nations.
04:08And it refers to displaced people usually by political or physical violence.
04:14And it's been controversial to apply that term to people displaced or pushed to move from
04:22climate because it's really, you know, it's kind of a loaded phrase.
04:27So, you know, to appease those concerns, a lot of people just use the word, you know, the
04:32phrase climate migrants or climate migration.
04:35You know, and that is basically it includes two things, two categories.
04:39And the first is people that are displaced by disasters.
04:42And we'll probably hear a lot about that.
04:44Storms like Hurricane Katrina or any other big event that displaces people in a very
04:52short amount of time.
04:54I have been a little more focused, though both are important, on what I call slow onset
04:58migration. So a slow reaction to slow onset change.
05:04And this is not a disaster, not something that destroys a person's home in one big gust
05:10of wind, but makes their life more precarious and more untenable, almost imperceptibly over
05:17time as the world gets hotter or drier or whatever other environmental changes is taking
05:23place in a specific place.
05:26And do we use the word climate and, you know, professionally to like in the U.S. House when
05:34they talk about it, they don't just mean like storms, they actually mean climate change.
05:39Correct. So we're actually, you know, triggering the climate change discussion as opposed to
05:44just, you know, hurricanes that have always existed or not.
05:51Yeah, that's right. I mean, so we're differentiating between environmental displacement,
05:55which might be a broader category, which maybe includes, for example, tornadoes that might
05:59not be climate driven and climate displacement.
06:03And, you know, climate displacement is, you know, environmental change.
06:08That's the result of the steady warming of our planet.
06:11That's a result of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide.
06:14So, you know, most big kind of weather trends that we might talk about or we might look
06:20at, you know, have some relationship to climate at this point.
06:24But this is all a really nuanced, you know, complicated area and we can break them down
06:28one by one. But, you know, nothing's clear cut and everything has some connection to
06:33climate change. And so, you know, I think I think whether it's the U.S.
06:36Congress or, you know, or the United Nations or myself, you know, everybody's still kind of
06:40working out what's the best terminology and trying to find the language to describe what
06:45this phenomenon is and what's happening.
06:48Yeah, and this first came on my radar in a consequential way.
06:52I think it may kind of make international news now.
06:54It's been around a long time, but it really made international news in 2015 and 2014
07:00during the Syrian refugee crisis that happened.
07:03And I wrote a piece about it.
07:05And that actually at that point, as you recall, a bill went to the United States House, I
07:10believe, deciding how many Syrian refugees they were going to let into the United States
07:15because of at that time they were starting to just call it climate refugees and climate
07:21migrants. Now, but from your experience, have you seen the word the phrase climate
07:27refugees been around longer?
07:29And have you been talking about this for a while?
07:33Yeah, it's an area of awakening awareness, I think we can say, I mean, that phrase that
07:39the issue's been around for a bit, you know, probably before too well before 2015, but
07:46not long before that.
07:47And it's you know, and it's really finding a moment now.
07:49But you're right.
07:51I mean, the Syrian crisis was a real kind of wake up moment, I think, for the world and
07:55for world leaders as far as the potential for environmental issues to interact with all
08:00sorts of other issues and lead to geopolitical instability, in that case, to lead to civil
08:05war. So, you know, I spoke with John Kerry, former Secretary of State, and now President
08:13Biden's climates are and we we talked about this.
08:16And for him, he specifically cites the 2015 moment.
08:20The Syrian conflict is his kind of wake up moment about that.
08:23I spoke with John Podesta, you know, an advisor to Kerry and many presidents and and
08:29founder for the Center American Progress, who's also involved in these issues.
08:32And he points a little bit earlier.
08:33He goes back to the early days of the Sudanese crisis.
08:37So, you know, I think there's for people who are paying close attention, you know,
08:41there's different different pivot points where where, you know, the light bulb went off
08:46for them. But, you know, I think in general, this is this is obviously a rising issue.
08:52But but also, you know, as we see the effects of climate become more explicit and play a
08:58larger and larger role in their disasters or other events around the world, then we're
09:03increasingly looking at what climate's role in displacement that results as well.
09:09And obviously it came on to the United States Zeitgeist, I think, and the political
09:16Zeitgeist, if you will, in twenty nineteen, when the first bill was introduced into the
09:22U.S. House and it's called the Climate Displaced Persons Act of twenty nineteen.
09:29Do you know much about the background of that bill and sort of who brought it in and why
09:35it why it got to the point where they were put it into the House at that point?
09:39You know, I don't I'm not familiar with the two sponsors of that bill, what they're what
09:44drove that particular action at that particular time, which I find a little bit puzzling.
09:48But but, you know, but in general, you know, it's a response from Democrats, you know,
09:54generally during the Trump administration to to compensate for the fact that we that
09:59we, the United States, had declined to participate in this new United Nations compact
10:05on on global migration, which I think one hundred and sixty, one hundred and sixty five
10:09countries have signed on to.
10:11Very few have not. The United States is among them.
10:14Something that Rex Tillerson is Trump's secretary of state had pulled the United States out
10:18of and really a sign of the United States lack of willingness to engage in taking
10:25responsibility for movement of large populations related to climate specifically,
10:31but refugees and immigrants in general in this country.
10:35And so, you know, I think that that bill is a stab at planting a flag in the other
10:41direction of saying, you know, there's a contingent, there's a there's a group of government
10:44representatives here that recognizes the problem and is interested in doing something
10:48different about it, whether the particulars of that bill are exactly the right pragmatic
10:53approach or have legs, you know, I think remains to be seen.
10:58Yeah, I know it was introduced into the House and it was also introduced into the U.S.
11:01Senate, too, in twenty nineteen by Senator Markey.
11:04No one introduced it in twenty twenty.
11:06I don't believe probably just because of the politics in the election.
11:10It was like, you know, why try to do it again?
11:11Because they knew it wasn't going to happen.
11:14But it was introduced in twenty nineteen.
11:17There was an article in Grist, the environmental publication, and it said since 2008,
11:22catastrophic weather has displaced an average of twenty four million people per year,
11:29according to data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.
11:33That number could climb to anywhere from 140 million up to one billion by 2050.
11:40And I know you've written about this extensively and we'll get to a lot of the pieces
11:43in your article, too. But, you know, that was sort of, I guess, one of the first times
11:47where I really saw what I thought were, you know, huge numbers and kind of expressed the
11:53enormity of the potential problem around this issue when it came out in that bill.
12:01Yeah, so and that's interesting, you know, numbers of displaced people from disasters
12:08have been have been growing steadily as the disasters, particularly, you know,
12:12tropical storms and hurricanes and cyclone events, you know, are, you know, increasing
12:17in severity with with climate change and increasing in the overall number and power.
12:22And, you know, so with those huge events, we're we're seeing a larger and larger
12:29number of people affected around the world.
12:32And each time there's an event like that, if there's an attractive place within reach
12:37for those populations to try to move to, they're certainly moving.
12:41You know, so, you know, one example, an imperfect example, because, you know, because
12:46it's a U.S. territory, but it's the hurricanes that, you know, that have struck Puerto Rico
12:51in the last couple of years, 2017, 18, 19.
12:54And, you know, and an extraordinary, you know, out migration of Puerto Rican population
12:59into the United States. And I wouldn't be surprised that, you know, that's an influence
13:02in in the crafting of this particular bill that you're asking about as well.
13:06But just to reiterate that distinction, this is that's a reference to, you know, to
13:12disaster displacement specifically. So finite events that, you know, that leave a large
13:18number of people homeless all at one time and still doesn't adequately reflect, I think,
13:26with the larger numbers of people globally who will find themselves slowly transitioning
13:33to a place that is just less hospitable for, you know, for productive life, for growing
13:37food, for living comfortably and safe.
13:41So I want to transition now to this recent series of articles that you wrote, and you
13:48did it in partnership, it looks like, with the New York Times ProPublica and the Pulitzer
13:53Center. So maybe just give me a little background on how the publications work together, the
14:00Pulitzer Center, and just sort of, you know, the kind of incubation of this idea and how
14:06you decided to launch it.
14:08Yeah, you bet. And, you know, so this is a part, I'm on staff for ProPublica, I've been
14:12a staff writer there since 2008, a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on investigative reporting,
14:18I cover environment and now climate for ProPublica, and we routinely partner with a number of
14:23other news outlets, past partnerships of mine have included producing films with PBS
14:29Frontline or with the Discovery Channel. I've worked a great deal with the New York
14:33Times over the years. And so about two years ago, the Times Magazine, and myself came up
14:41with this, you know, idea of taking on a, you know, a multi part investigation into
14:46this issue of climate and migration. And, you know, the basic genesis of the idea was
14:52that this is an issue that was increasingly attracting the attention of experts of some
14:58news media, of, you know, government officials, but, but as a real sort of general enigmatic
15:05sort of threatening theme without a lot of quantitative analysis behind it, very little
15:09data, very little particulars, and, you know, very little idea, for example, of how many
15:15people might be displaced and where they might move to and when this might happen, kind of
15:19three essential components. And at the same time, you know, policy experts say that those
15:24are the actionable pieces of information if you're going to prepare for or craft policy
15:29in response to or grow cities in a way that makes them capable of handling rapid changes
15:35in population. So we designed a project that was meant to attempt to answer those questions
15:41or at least explore the limitations in answering those questions. It's an editorial partnership
15:47between the Times and the New York Times and ProPublica. The Pulitzer Center provided financial
15:52support for some of the research for this project. The first part in the series involved
15:57a pretty advanced scientific endeavor that really kind of stepped beyond sort of normal
16:03journalistic practices, where we collected an enormous amount of data, built in or expanded
16:08a model that might help predict some of this migratory movement and looked at the outputs
16:15of that model and what it suggested for migrant flows from Central America to the United States.
16:21And that was about a year-long endeavor involved contracting outside staff and bringing researchers
16:27from some academic institutions and the Pulitzer Center generously supported that part of the effort.
16:36And the first piece you wrote for the New York Times was called The Great Climate Migration.
16:44And it was kind of two pieces to it. One was sort of a broad look around the world at all
16:49the places where there were, I would call, what climate variability and where you were
16:55likely to see increased emigration from as climate impacts got worse. And then you focus
17:01more specifically on some stories down in Guatemala, too. You brought up something that
17:08I think is fascinating. As a former modeler and a scientist in academia, there's actually
17:13a science of climate migration. And I would assume that these are some physical scientists
17:20as well as some social scientists, because this is a physical and a social phenomenon, right?
17:26So you've got to bring geographers together with biogeographers and then also some political
17:31scientists. I mean, just a little bit of the texture of how many climate migration
17:39scientists are there and what's that community look like?
17:45Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And it goes back to your first question.
17:49What is a climate migrant? Because defining a climate migrant involves taking so many
17:54different things into account. Somebody's economic standing or whether there's violence
17:59in their home, whether there's drought in their fields. And so the academic pursuit
18:03of trying to study that similarly involves that diverse range of sciences, social sciences,
18:10ecological sciences, economics, and so forth. So there is a pretty robust and growing field
18:17of academic study, a body of research and institutions that are looking at this issue
18:22of climate and migration. And it is nascent but not brand new. And so there are a number
18:30of experts and they span those fields. And there is a good body of research, but not
18:35a complete body of research. And what that all sort of combines to mean is that the answer
18:41and what we were looking to do has to involve so many different inputs of information. And
18:48from a modeling perspective, then trying to figure out what to put into it. It's so vast
18:53that you basically put in as much as you can, as much data as you can collect and as much
19:00data as your model is able to handle and actually compute. And we found ourselves pretty close
19:04to trying to create sort of an artificial intelligence system that might forecast the
19:10future, which is as challenging and perhaps impossible as it might sound. But to try to
19:21back up a minute, so the model that we used and models that researchers use in general,
19:25they try to build on data sets where they're available that are generally accepted by big
19:31climate institutions, the United Nations, Columbia University. And they include everything
19:36from what's the geopolitical stability in a region like Guatemala? What's the rating
19:42on the quality of governance and corruption? Of course, all the environmental attributes,
19:47so drought, groundwater levels, changes in heat indexes, sun exposure versus cloud exposure,
19:56frequency of El Nino's crop production and on and on and on. But they include so much
20:01more. I mean, on a social level, it's age groups and education levels and economic stability
20:10and economic opportunity. And it's pretty much everything under the sun that you can
20:16manage to build into a model with a reputable data source at its foundation.
20:21Yeah. One of the points that I want to make sure I bring up and that we talk about, I
20:27think because obviously this show is based in the United States and we've had people
20:32on the show from around the world. But when most Americans think about these issues, it
20:37gets so glommed into the issue of immigration in the United States. And I think most Americans
20:43think that this sort of problem and immigration issues are only happening in the United States.
20:47But of course, this is happening all over the world. So the sort of the same thing that
20:52you discussed that's going on in Guatemala, where people are experiencing climate change
20:57and climate disruption and displacement, then they work their way through Mexico and work
21:02in the United States. The same thing is going on in Africa, where they're working their
21:05way up into Eastern and Western Europe. And the entire sort of geopolitical playing field,
21:12if you will, is really the whole planet. And I think that's something that your first piece,
21:17the great climate migration brought out very well, as well as just focusing on the Guatemala
21:24and U.S. connection.
21:26Yeah. You know, maybe it's helpful to take a quick step back. And you talked about some
21:31numbers for the number of people displaced by big storms. But there are also some numbers
21:37as imprecise as they are for how many people will be displaced by slow climate change.
21:43And they range from the World Bank study of about 140 million people internally displaced
21:48in countries from slow onset climate change to perhaps a billion people to a third of
21:55the planet's current population, or three billion people by 2070, according to one study
22:02that looked at. And so I mentioned that because it's evidence of a monumental number of people
22:10that will be likely moving or pressuring their borders. And when you talk to ecologists
22:18or biologists, they point out that, you know, the the idea of borders is kind of an artificial
22:27construct in this situation anyway. So, you know, not what you'd naturally have if humans
22:32were, you know, migrating antelope is that they would move in in massive herds, you know,
22:38in pursuit of the resources that they need. And that's kind of the natural flow that humans
22:42across the planet are going are starting to do now and and would do if there were not
22:47borders in their way. But there are borders in their way. And that's probably poses, you
22:52know, the greatest geopolitical challenge of our time. And so you're right. I mean,
22:57the border and immigration controversies and issues that we see in the United States are,
23:02you know, are replicated, certainly in Europe. Also part of my research, you know, looking
23:07at the borders between China and Russia. But generally, you'll see, you know, pressure
23:11on on borders as people move out of Central and North Africa, out of the Middle East,
23:16out of South Asia, out of Central America, mostly moving northward against what other
23:21whatever borders and countries are are to their north. And, you know, that's going to
23:25bring enormous social and political challenges in addition to the environmental ones.
23:31Yeah, and so, you know, political tension, human rights issues, and of course, issues
23:36around justice are, are just so intricately tied to this issue of climate disruption
23:43and climate change. You know, and I'll make the point, but I'm sure you can make it better
23:48than I can, you know, people who are well off, generally find a way to continue to be
23:53well enough, but the people who are close to the edge are the ones that are going to
23:56suffer most of the impacts. And so in your research, you know, I know in Guatemala, and
24:02then also in the next story, we'll talk about a little bit was in Russia, and also in China.
24:09It's usually the people who are kind of closest to the edge that are being disrupted. Correct?
24:15Yeah, that's absolutely right. You know, mobility is a is a factor of economic wealth,
24:22first off, so it might not seem this way to, you know, to most Americans looking at
24:28Guatemalans and Mexicans coming north over the border, but generally, those are the Guatemalans
24:33and Mexicans who have, you know, enough assets to, you know, hire the help or make the financial
24:39investment and coming here in the first place. And that's, you know, that's what you see
24:42the people that move are the people that can afford to move. And there's a population,
24:47then as climate migration is a phenomenon increases that will be trapped. So those are the
24:52people that will not have, you know, any opportunity or any means to, you know, to, to
24:59afford a move or might not know where to go or have the education or resources or family,
25:06you know, in foreign places, you know, to pursue.
25:11And one of the I, you know, I learned a few things, especially from your first piece.
25:16One of the things I learned was just how impactful the migration out of Central America is to
25:23the country of Mexico, because we often hear in the United States about the migration out
25:29of Central America. And then, you know, suddenly they're at the US border, we don't hear about
25:33everything going on in Mexico. So I thought that was really fascinating. The other thing
25:37I learned, too, was, you know, there was a was called the UN global climate, UN global
25:45climate compact for migration. And of course, here in the United States, over the last four
25:51years, especially, you know, it's been extremely contentious. And the former president, you
25:56know, pulled us out of a lot of these kind of UN conventions, whatnot. But the United
26:00States wasn't the only country not to sign on to that Australia and several other European
26:06countries also didn't sign on to it. So, you know, again, this just isn't happening in
26:11the United States, it's happening around the planet.
26:15Yeah, that's right. You know, so Australia is particularly concerned about migrants coming
26:19from Indonesia, and, you know, and elsewhere in South Asia, and the same Europe in particular,
26:26you know, seeing, you know, a real political backlash to the climate related migration
26:31that's coming out of North Africa and the Middle East. And, you know, it's connected
26:36to a lot of the, you know, the rise in, you know, in far right politics in Europe, you
26:41know, Marine Le Pen in France, or backlash against Germany's acceptance of migrants,
26:48and, you know, whether it's a lack of willingness to participate, you know, in that
26:53compact, or just a general sort of reluctance to, to bring in outsiders, this is going to
27:00be a growing point of, you know, of tension and contention in so many of these countries.
27:06And it's really, you know, one of the, from a political perspective, you know, one of
27:11the great risks, I think, you know, in the world today is it's, you know, it's going
27:15to drive and it is already driving, you know, a rise in, you know, in nationalism and
27:20protectionist sentiment and anti-trade sentiment in, you know, politics of foreign policy
27:25that's very close to, you know, what we saw with Trump, Donald Trump's foreign policy
27:29in the United States, and is prolific across Europe right now as well.
27:35I'm going to move now to the piece you wrote about Russia, which was actually a third
27:39piece, but I want to do it in this order so we can talk about the United States last.
27:44The piece you wrote about Russia, I just thought was fascinating, and it's titled
27:48How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis. Climate change and its enormous human migrations
27:54will transform agricultural and remake the world order, and no country stands to gain
28:00more than Russia. And so, you know, we've just spent, you know, 20 minutes talking
28:05about the apocalypse and the chaos, and there's also some people in some countries
28:10and obviously some corporations and some businesses who see this as an extraordinary
28:15opportunity, and of course that's a kind of fascinating flip side of the coin.
28:21So, you know, tell me a little bit about why you decided to, to bring the Russia component
28:27into it and how did you get, you know, sort of teed off on that there was this phenomenon
28:32going on in Russia about like creating this vast new agricultural empire.
28:39Yeah, absolutely. You know, some of it is just sort of the basic mechanics of the
28:44overall issue. So what we'll have globally is, you know, a push by populations,
28:49mostly northward as the climate warms and they go north because there's more economic
28:53opportunity in the north and because there's more land in the north and you really, you
28:57know, you get mostly oceans if you go south. So people are going to go northward but
29:01with the movement of the transition of lands as the climate warms, those conditions
29:07are going to move northward as well. And so if you look at those for a moment as,
29:11you know, a separate phenomenon, what you see is that, you know, the northern United
29:16States and certainly Canada and Scandinavia and Russia and, and, you know, nations that
29:21are, you know, closer to, to the North Pole or at least at northern latitudes are going
29:26to see perhaps for a while improved economic or environmental conditions as the climate
29:32warms in the same at the same time that say the American desert southwest or sub-Saharan
29:38Africa see more trying hotter, drier conditions. And so there's some research, including
29:44a study that I looked at closely out of Stanford University that estimates the economic
29:48potential by region as the climate warms. And, and it found that each of those northern
29:55regions that I just mentioned, so Russia and Scandinavia and Canada, you know, all have
30:00enormous economic opportunity as the climate warms because they have large land masses.
30:05Those lands will become more suitable for farming and for agriculture or for comfortable
30:11living where they might be frozen or Arctic now. But there's something else that each
30:17of those countries, including Russia doesn't have, and that's enough people. So all of
30:21the northern countries around the globe basically have a, you know, are in a state of demographic
30:27decline. And that's not to say, maybe we'll talk about, you know, whether there are enough
30:31people on the planet because there certainly are, but, but those northern countries do
30:36not, are not creating new people at the same rate that, that their existing populations
30:43are aging and dying. And so that's, you know, to say that if you, if you want to continue
30:49economic growth, you need, you know, what they sort of crudely call human capital to
30:54do that. So Russia, you know, was one nexus of, you know, of these factors and it could
31:00just as well be with more nuance that we talk about Canada. But the third thing that's
31:05different about Russia is, well, not only does it just have more land than any other
31:10country in the northern world, but it has been aggressively trying to seize on this
31:15opportunity to convert that land that has been permafrost or unused and unpopulated
31:21into farmed agricultural enterprises. And they're doing that with the goal of expanding
31:26their agricultural exports to enhance their, their global standing in the world. And Russia
31:32is a huge exporter of oil and gas now. It hopes to replace that oil and gas with wheat.
31:38And it's already become the largest exporter globally of wheat. So Russia is really at
31:42the nexus of this, you know, these three things, this improving usability of its, of its
31:48landmass and an improving physical climate opportunity to, you know, grow its position
31:54on the world stage through agricultural exports, but not having enough people to live in those
31:59parts of the country and to do that farming, to produce the amount of wheat that they aspire
32:04to produce. And, and so we really looked at, you know, what's the potential, what's the future
32:09need in terms of population growth in Russia. And it's not that Russia's out there
32:14welcoming every migrant they can find. They have their own problems in that regard, but
32:20Russia does lie North of, of, you know, the rest of, of the Asian continent and, you know,
32:26and stands at least by physical connection, you know, to, to pretend to potentially be
32:32the destination eventually for a lot of displaced people to the South. So it's just a really
32:37interesting dynamic to look at Russia and its economic relationship with China, with
32:42both countries are essentially competing, you know, against Western hegemony and trying
32:46to displace, you know, what's now the United States and Europe's, you know, economic and
32:51political leadership in the world.
32:53Yeah. And you, it was a nice segue, because I was going to bring up population growth
32:57and you've actually, you know, you brought it up in all three of your pieces. And I think
33:02a quote from the piece from Russia, Asian Russia sits atop a continent with the largest
33:08global population, including not just the Chinese, but, but also nearly 2 billion South
33:13Asians, many of whom will be Emily be pushed northward in a search for more space and
33:19resources. And so, you know, there's certainly an interplay between where climate changes
33:26happen, where the most climate disruption is and growing populations around the world.
33:31And I think that's also going on in the United States a little bit, but you brought it up
33:35in all three of your articles. Do you have anything, you know, that you want to share
33:40with us about that?
33:43Yeah, I mean, we live in a crowded world. The global population has increased exponentially
33:48over, you know, the past couple of centuries and has more or less doubled, I think, in
33:53the last century. And so, you know, undeniably, that means that there's more people
33:58affected by the changing climate and more people will be pushing on foreign boundaries
34:04or pushing, you know, pushing northward as the climate warms.
34:08There's a study that's been enormously influential, you know, in my reporting was
34:12published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year that found that
34:17it took an ecological approach to, you know, to studying this question of, you know, where
34:22do people live on the planet? And it found that there's been an environmental niche,
34:27an ideal level of precipitation and temperature that humans have lived in for the past 6,000
34:32years, and it's a relatively narrow band of average temperatures. And as that niche
34:38has shifted a little bit, you know, on the planet over the last 6,000 years, people have
34:43opted with it. But that study projects that by 2070, just over the next 50 years, that
34:49niche will begin to move substantially north as the climate warms and also projects that
34:54the, you know, the global population will increase between now and then to 9 billion
34:59people, and that a third of those people will find themselves living outside of that
35:04ideal climate niche, really for the first time in the last 6,000 years. And so what
35:09that suggests is that one in three people on the planet or three billion people will
35:15make a choice, will either find themselves living in conditions that, you know, could
35:20lead to extraordinary misery and hardship, at least by historical standards, or that
35:26those three billion people will move. And most likely it'll be some, you know, some
35:31combination or compromise, you know, maybe a billion and a half of those people seek
35:36to move, but it's still, you know, by any historical measure, just an enormous size
35:43of population and number of people who are potential climate migrants over the next 50
35:49years.
35:50Okay. So to bring it home, kind of the United States, you know, we've been talking
35:54about mostly international migration now from country to country, but this kind of,
35:58you know, in-country migration is going on too. And one of your pieces you wrote was
36:03how climate migration will reshape America, millions will be displaced, where will they
36:09go? And so, and you led into the story in part because you live in the San Francisco
36:16Bay Area, I guess, and you lived through the fires there just as, you know, last year,
36:22which were, you know, catastrophic. They were in Colorado where I live too. And so,
36:27you know, tell us a little bit about the genesis of the United States version of the
36:31story and how you decided to talk about how people are being, you know, forced or
36:38enticed or encouraged to move around the United States because of these climate
36:43disruptions.
36:47Yeah. So, you know, the gist of it is that the United States, however mild our climate
36:54change experience might be compared to the most extreme places on the planet, will not
36:59be immune to substantial environmental change that has an effect on a vast array of
37:05geographies across the United States. And there was always a plan. I always had a plan
37:09to look at what that would mean for the United States and the United States population.
37:15But over the course of my reporting, as you said, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
37:20So there were two years I was reporting on this project. And in the space of those two
37:23years, the wildfire situation in California grew substantially worse. And so, you know,
37:29so here I am reporting at home on, you know, climate related displacement and climate
37:34change and, you know, and wearing a mask before pandemic days required it, you know,
37:40to keep air pollutants out and, you know, with my car, you know, facing out of the driveway
37:45and emergency gear in it and radios tuned for evacuation orders and really kind of living
37:50on edge as communities very, very close to me burnt down and suffered and a great number,
37:56you know, people died in several catastrophic fires. And this was just building, you know,
38:02over the two years of my reporting and coming to kind of a head just about the same time
38:07that we published that story. So I sort of found myself at least, at least feeling what
38:13it feels like to have those environmental pressures, raising questions, personal questions,
38:17you know, when, when does a person decide to move? When is that pressure so great that
38:22it outweighs the benefits of community, of, you know, of stable employment and whatever
38:28the, you know, the other things that, you know, that keep people in a sense of place
38:32of home. And so, you know, so that was the genesis for that story and the way I told
38:38that story, but we obviously I wanted to look at it, you know, with a data and a research
38:44component. And so we partnered with a group called Climate Impact Lab, the Rhodium Group,
38:50which is a climate data analysis firm here in the San Francisco Bay Area and collected
38:55datasets for a couple of key environmental factors that were linked, that the research
39:01links with climate related migration. And so we looked at rising heat indexes across
39:07the country, something called wet bulb temperature, which is this intersection of both heat
39:12and humidity that can make living and working pretty difficult. We looked at sea level rise
39:18on the American coast. We look at changes in crop yields and productivity and farmlands
39:24across the country. And I added another component of wildfire data, which came from an additional
39:30source. And the idea was to consider how these factors overlap and might intersect with one
39:37another, because there's really great research about each and every one, and they tend to
39:43be siloed and remain siloed in terms of discussion of their impact. So that's to say, like,
39:48we'll see a study and we'll see coverage in New York Times of a study about sea level
39:52rise and how many people will be affected. But that study will not mention how many people
39:55will move to avoid sea level rise and find themselves at risk of wildfires because of
39:59where they move to. So we tried to map these risks. And it's really an extraordinary and
40:04novel learning experience to see that when you do that, you know, the walls kind of close
40:09in on the United States geographically, that you start to see very few places remaining
40:14and mostly, again, no big surprise, but to the north and northwest and northeast, where
40:21regions are, you know, less impacted by one or more of these risks. And, you know, we
40:27did a number of calculations trying to use, you know, the data from those niche scientists
40:32looked at, you know, the human livability niche globally, and it suggests that about
40:37160 million Americans, or about half of our population, will also find themselves, you
40:44know, in the kind of situation that I found myself in, whether I move or not, and I haven't
40:49decided, you know, but but considering, you know, environmental pressures making, you
40:54know, my life, you know, increasingly difficult, or at least different from, you know, from
40:59what it was enforcing that question of, you know, whether or not to move, will I eventually
41:04be a migrant? I don't I don't know. But lots of people around me are lots of middle
41:10class, not, you know, impoverished, Californians have been leaving the state, you know, in
41:17large part in search of a safer and more stable environment.
41:23One of the things you brought out in the United States piece, I want to hit on because
41:28government policy at the local, state and federal level can make a difference. And you
41:33there's a quote here, it says in an era of climate change, though, such policies amount
41:38to a sort of shell game meant to keep growth going, even when other obvious science and
41:44scientific research suggests it should stop. And I want to hit on this and just tell a
41:49quick story myself, you know, as an environmental activist, of course, I run into this all the
41:53time. And at one point, I was appointed to a floodplain committee in the city of Fort
41:59Collins, around the Cachalupuda River there. And there were 13 people appointed to
42:04committee, I was the only environmentalist. And I was sort of routinely outvoted 12 to
42:101, 12 to 1, about sort of what we should do to address flooding on the river that could
42:16that has happened in the past and could happen in the future. And this committee actually
42:20agreed and got the city council to endorse just through its sheer power and the policy
42:25that it proposed, you know, to continue building certain kind of structures in the
42:29floodplain, but to have like an escape on the roof of every building. So there's got to
42:34be a way that people could get to the top of the building, and then a helicopter could
42:38pluck them off. I mean, it was that kind of chaos that sort of, you know, kind of drove
42:43me batty, that people were just defying nature, and doing anything they can to kind
42:50of build around it. Do you have any other sort of examples where you saw that in your
42:55research?
42:56Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just to take a step back and describe, you know, what that
43:00dynamic is. I mean, you know, I talked about this model that we built to try to predict
43:05when Guatemalans might move to the United States. And when you do that globally, there's
43:09a real logic to how that model works. There's established research that says, you know,
43:14if X happens in the environment, people respond with Y, so they move away from danger.
43:20We wanted to build a model like that to look at population movement in the United States,
43:24and it was impossible to do. And the reason is that Americans have kind of defied that
43:29logic for a long time, we have moved towards danger. You know, the fastest growing parts
43:35of the United States are the places that arguably face and have for many decades, the greatest
43:39environmental risk. And so, you know, part of the reporting was to take a step back and
43:43look at why that is, to ask why that is. And the answer is that we have a raft of perverse
43:49incentives that have, you know, at best, paid Americans or made it, you know, economically
43:55advantageous to move to high risk areas, but at worst, at least obscured, you know,
44:00what those risks are, so that, you know, they appear to be outside of the decision making
44:08and the kind of case that you described. And so, you know, I look closely at the insurance
44:13industry, and there's, you know, this is a broad example, but, you know, the state of
44:17Florida, obviously is vulnerable to hurricanes. And after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida
44:22in 1992, insurers, property insurers in the state saw the writing on the wall, they saw
44:28the science that said that there were going to be more and more hurricanes, predicted
44:32that those hurricanes were going to be stronger and more devastating, and they left the state.
44:35And so, two things can happen at that point, you can, you know, owning a home in Florida
44:41becomes a lot less, a lot more expensive, and the population that lives there can decide
44:46to move to a safer place, which is what that market signal was telling them. Or, this is
44:52what actually happened, the state of Florida created its own insurance company in order
44:55to keep people in place, keep that economic growth happening, keep more construction happening,
45:00support the building industry. And so, Florida decided to insure itself. And the result is
45:06that instead of getting smaller, the population of Florida increased by 8 million people since
45:11then. Its coastlines and the most vulnerable places have undergone, you know, probably
45:16the greatest real estate and building boom in the United States. And the, you know, the
45:22risk from an insurance perspective of catastrophic losses from hurricanes has grown exponentially
45:27since then, putting more people in danger and putting the finances of that state and
45:32the finances of, you know, of the whole country in danger as a result. The Federal National
45:39Flood Insurance Program is, you know, is another prime example where it has, you know,
45:44routinely paid to rebuild people's homes in floodplains, you know, as many times in exactly
45:50the same place, repetitive flooding losses. And the reason that those floodplains don't
45:55explicitly show where the real flood risk is, as opposed to, you know, what the, what
46:01their modeled flood risk is, is local governments or other agencies and interests have lobbied
46:06to protect the economic growth that comes with, you know, urbanization in those at risk
46:11areas. So it's exactly, you know, the kind of risk that you're describing, Gary, in
46:15Colorado, where there's competing interests. There's, you know, there's leaders who want
46:19economic growth and more jobs and, you know, and more construction materials purchased.
46:24And, and then there's the reality of the environmental risk and that sort of logical
46:29response. And policy for a long time in the United States has pushed people, you know,
46:33away from that logical response.
46:36Yeah, as we wrap up, I want to do kind of two things together. And, you know, and what
46:43we try to do on overcoming overshoot is also talk about overcoming. So we try to, we
46:48try to end on some, you know, semi optimistic note, which on this topic is one of the more
46:53challenging, I'll definitely say for sure. However, we recently saw obviously a change
46:58in present United States and more focus on environmental justice. And again, the
47:05intersection of this issue in the United States around environmental justice is also
47:09very clear. You know, we see issues around and we have this year, not just around the
47:15fires, but also around heat, around hurricanes and around flooding that, you know,
47:20wildly out of proportion tend to impact lower income communities in the United States.
47:27And it does look like this administration, the Biden administration is going to try to
47:31focus more on that. So, you know, from your perspective, bring in the environmental
47:36justice angle and see if you see, you know, because I know you've talked to with former
47:42Senator Kerry, who is now the, he's got a new title. I'm not supposed to say climate
47:46czar, but something like that. The climate envoy, I think his name is. So give us some
47:51some a little bit of optimism of what you think the administration is moving towards
47:55and especially on this issue of environmental justice.
47:59Yeah. So before the optimism is that, you know, the reality that, you know, dividing
48:05lines for, you know, racial equality and economic equality, United States track pretty
48:09closely with climate vulnerability as well. That's to say that, you know, while we'll
48:14all suffer some impacts from climate, the people who will suffer most will be those
48:19who have already suffered discrimination institutionally and structurally for a long,
48:25long time in this country as elsewhere. And so that's, you know, there's a we're
48:31starting with that handicap. And to the extent that there's opportunity, it's that I
48:37think there's an intersection now in this particular moment of both, you know, the
48:41understanding of the importance of, you know, justice and equity and understanding the
48:47importance of climate and the changes that these are going to bring. And, you know,
48:52and I hear some awareness and we see some awareness about that in the, you know, in
48:57the new administration, in the Biden administration. And so, you know, the opportunity
49:02is that both of these things can be addressed at the same time. And they should be
49:07because I think their solutions are interlinked. You know, so one of the huge challenges
49:13that the United States will face as other countries do as well is, you know, is a very
49:18rapid urbanization that tends to happen in response to the movement of populations in
49:24response to climate. So how cities respond to that, that rapid growth, whether it's
49:29Atlanta, which I looked at in my reporting or Rochester, New York, etc. You know,
49:34we'll have to have a number of challenges. And those challenges include building out
49:39infrastructure, building out affordable housing, having a job space to keep their
49:43larger population employed and sustain economic activity. But through the process of
49:51ensuring those things, they have an opportunity to recalibrate the inequities that exist
49:57in those places as well. And people are talking about this, and I think you'll start to
50:03see, you know, a lot of effort and action to, for example, anticipate the kind of
50:11gentrification that might come with improving the environmental resilience of certain
50:16neighborhoods or building parks or building flood retention schemes, or enhancing, you
50:22know, freshwater supplies, all of which are going to be needed, but have had in, you know,
50:27historically, the effect of pushing less privileged people away from those areas as
50:33property value is increased and so forth. So, you know, as an example, you know, the
50:37city of Atlanta will be looking closely at how do you improve land and housing and
50:41affordability, but keep the, you know, in the case of Atlanta, you know, the black
50:46communities that have been, you know, low income communities in the past, how do you
50:50keep them and support them in the place where they are and keep them from being pushed
50:54out and make them, you know, participants in new transportation infrastructure and
50:59participants in, you know, in that growing job market. And so that's a way that, you
51:03know, one little example of many ways in which it will be really necessary to address,
51:08you know, inequities and climate impacts at the same time.
51:13Great. Thank you very much. This has been a great discussion, Abram, and I really
51:21appreciate your time. I thought that the three pieces you wrote were, you know, really
51:25groundbreaking in the New York Times. And I think, you know, you probably, you know,
51:32just create a lot of opportunity for a lot of more journalists, I think, to kind of
51:36dovetail off of that. And we're going to see a lot more about it this year. And I
51:39think especially because the Biden administration, they do appear like they're going to
51:43focus on this issue quite a bit. So thanks for being on the show.
51:49Thanks for your interest. Really nice to talk to you.
51:52Yeah. And this is Gary Walkner here on Overcoming Overshoot and you're watching EarthX TV.