"It's not necessarily this year of wildfires so much as the dam breaking on the realization that this is not just the new normal but just a prelude to what's coming," the 39-year-old Oakland resident says. "And just being sort of tired of this being normal."The website editor and video game consultant has lived in Northern and Southern California his entire life. As a teenager in the San Diego area, he was familiar with the stench of smoke and flakes of ash that rained down after wildfires. Lately, however, weeks of unhealthy air quality readings and thick shrouds of smoke that some days make it impossible to see the lagoon three blocks from his Lake Merritt home are becoming unbearable. And he's not alone. "I have one friend that recently moved to Idaho to take care of family and isn't coming back," Gies said. "And he and his wife and child had been living in San Francisco for more than a decade… I have other friends that work at dot-coms or tech companies in the Bay Area and have lived here for anywhere from seven to ten years and are talking about leaving very seriously."Gies himself is seriously considering a cross country move to Brooklyn or Manhattan to escape the anxiety of life in California.And late Friday, another perennial threat, a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, struck Southern California. No damage or injuries were reported but it jarred the sense of security of some already-rattled Californians.
Climate driven disasters becoming 'actual moving force' for relocation
Scientists have long acknowledged that the fingerprints of global warming are all over the wildfires and so many other disasters. And far worse disasters could be on the horizon. The more humans heat up the planet, the greater the odds of hot, dry conditions conducive to fires. The planet has warmed by a global average of roughly 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1880s, with human activity responsible for the bulk of that increase.This past August was the warmest on record in California, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Each of the past six years were at least 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the historical average.According to the National Climate Assessment, a major "state-of-science" review of climate change and its projected impacts on the US, additional warming of about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit can be expected over the next few decades regardless of future emissions."It's very important to be thinking about the fact that people will start making decisions about moving because of climate driven pressures," said University of Southern California professor Bistra Dilkina, who has modeled migration patterns from sea-level rise."So far we've been kind of living very much in the world where movement, at least in the US, is really based on more about economic opportunities. But, as the intensity of climate driven disasters is increasing, I think it will become an actual moving force, even within the US, for people to change their decision making in terms of relocating the whole family."Scientists have projected that 13 million Americans could be be forced to relocate by 2100 from rising sea levels submerging coastlines. And that's not taking into account the ongoing threat of wildfires, droughts and other disasters. "When there's a tipping point where people really understand that that's something that they need to integrate in their decision making about moving, we're going to see more movements that are based partially on that reasoning as well," Dilkina said. "And so, from that perspective, I do believe that fires are going to start becoming one of the factors." Dilkina said she has only lived in the Los Angeles metro area for a couple of years. Her family purchased a home in Rancho Palos Verdes in the beginning of the summer. "We have been basically locked up mostly at home for the last four days, which is very difficult to do with my with two kids — a three-year-old and eight-year-old — going crazy," she said. "The air quality is really bad, and so that has basically made us just stay at home."
Fire, smoke become 'mind-numbingly common'
LeRoy Westerling, a University of California Merced expert on wildfires and the weather that drives them, has had his home in Mariposa County threatened twice by fires in recent years. The 2017 Detwiler Fire led to the evacuation of Westerling and his neighbors. The 2018 Ferguson Fire, which burned through 96,601 acres of the Sierra National Forest, Stanislaus NRead More – Source
"It's not necessarily this year of wildfires so much as the dam breaking on the realization that this is not just the new normal but just a prelude to what's coming," the 39-year-old Oakland resident says. "And just being sort of tired of this being normal."The website editor and video game consultant has lived in Northern and Southern California his entire life. As a teenager in the San Diego area, he was familiar with the stench of smoke and flakes of ash that rained down after wildfires. Lately, however, weeks of unhealthy air quality readings and thick shrouds of smoke that some days make it impossible to see the lagoon three blocks from his Lake Merritt home are becoming unbearable. And he's not alone. "I have one friend that recently moved to Idaho to take care of family and isn't coming back," Gies said. "And he and his wife and child had been living in San Francisco for more than a decade… I have other friends that work at dot-coms or tech companies in the Bay Area and have lived here for anywhere from seven to ten years and are talking about leaving very seriously."Gies himself is seriously considering a cross country move to Brooklyn or Manhattan to escape the anxiety of life in California.And late Friday, another perennial threat, a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, struck Southern California. No damage or injuries were reported but it jarred the sense of security of some already-rattled Californians.
Climate driven disasters becoming 'actual moving force' for relocation
Scientists have long acknowledged that the fingerprints of global warming are all over the wildfires and so many other disasters. And far worse disasters could be on the horizon. The more humans heat up the planet, the greater the odds of hot, dry conditions conducive to fires. The planet has warmed by a global average of roughly 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1880s, with human activity responsible for the bulk of that increase.This past August was the warmest on record in California, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Each of the past six years were at least 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the historical average.According to the National Climate Assessment, a major "state-of-science" review of climate change and its projected impacts on the US, additional warming of about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit can be expected over the next few decades regardless of future emissions."It's very important to be thinking about the fact that people will start making decisions about moving because of climate driven pressures," said University of Southern California professor Bistra Dilkina, who has modeled migration patterns from sea-level rise."So far we've been kind of living very much in the world where movement, at least in the US, is really based on more about economic opportunities. But, as the intensity of climate driven disasters is increasing, I think it will become an actual moving force, even within the US, for people to change their decision making in terms of relocating the whole family."Scientists have projected that 13 million Americans could be be forced to relocate by 2100 from rising sea levels submerging coastlines. And that's not taking into account the ongoing threat of wildfires, droughts and other disasters. "When there's a tipping point where people really understand that that's something that they need to integrate in their decision making about moving, we're going to see more movements that are based partially on that reasoning as well," Dilkina said. "And so, from that perspective, I do believe that fires are going to start becoming one of the factors." Dilkina said she has only lived in the Los Angeles metro area for a couple of years. Her family purchased a home in Rancho Palos Verdes in the beginning of the summer. "We have been basically locked up mostly at home for the last four days, which is very difficult to do with my with two kids — a three-year-old and eight-year-old — going crazy," she said. "The air quality is really bad, and so that has basically made us just stay at home."
Fire, smoke become 'mind-numbingly common'
LeRoy Westerling, a University of California Merced expert on wildfires and the weather that drives them, has had his home in Mariposa County threatened twice by fires in recent years. The 2017 Detwiler Fire led to the evacuation of Westerling and his neighbors. The 2018 Ferguson Fire, which burned through 96,601 acres of the Sierra National Forest, Stanislaus NRead More – Source
