Americans Are Moving To Escape Climate Impacts. Towns Expect More To Come

Enlarge this image

Doug and Judith Saum moved to New Hampshire from Reno, Nevada, to escape the health effects of worsening wildfire smoke.

Annie Ropeik/NHPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Annie Ropeik/NHPR

Shots — Health News
Smoky Skies Are The New Normal. Are They Making Us Sick?

The Saums settled on Northern New England, and a house in the rural town of Rumney at the foot of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Doug Saum says they call themselves climate migrants.

«We had the idea… not necessarily that we were going to a place that would be forever untouched by climate change, but that we were getting out of a bad climate situation that was only likely to get worse,» he says.

For others, climate-related hazards will be just one reason to move. Bess Samuel says her family has wanted to leave Huntsville, Alabama, for a less conservative place for a while – and rising temperatures and power bills could seal the deal.

«I feel like I have to be realistic — this is as good as it’s going to get for a while,» Samuel says. «We keep hearing these things… it’s the hottest summer, and it’s the hottest summer, and that trend doesn’t seem to be reversing.»

Enlarge this image

Inland parts of Northern New England expect people to migrate from coastal towns like Hampton, New Hampshire, where high-tide flooding is increasing due to rising seas.

Dan Tuohy/NHPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Dan Tuohy/NHPR

Climate Risk Hits Home
Undisclosed: Most Homebuyers And Renters Aren’t Warned About Flood Or Wildfire Risk

By some measures, Nashua’s region could be an ideal climate haven. It’s getting warmer, but doesn’t face the existential threats of, say, Florida from hurricanes and flooding, or California from wildfires and smoke. Northern New England is also one of the oldest and whitest parts of the country, and has struggled with population loss.

But it’s hard to predict the scale and timing of climate migration. And an influx of newcomers during the current pandemic is showing just how disruptive unplanned growth can be.

«An increase in traffic, people getting evicted, a lack of hospital beds because there’s more people – these are the kinds of things that create tension,» says Anna Marandi, a senior climate specialist with the National League of Cities. «When the systems aren’t set up properly in advance to hold more people, then the existing population can get resentful.»

So Sarah Marchant says Nashua is keeping migration and other climate impacts in mind while tackling existing problems with affordable housing and over-stretched infrastructure. The idea is «to ensure that what we are building is sustainable,» she says, and «be smarter about what we do have.»

Whether or not the climate migrants come, she says Nashua is making improvements that will benefit everyone.

This story comes from New Hampshire Public Radio’s climate change reporting initiative, By Degrees. A version of it first aired on NHPR’s podcast Outside/In, produced by Justine Paradis.