Climate Change Refugees in Oregon - Apocalypse Soon?

For some time now I have been asking about the unthinkable - what happens if the Southwest does go dry and people move en masse to the Pacific Northwest to escape the heat and lack of water?

Seems like others are thinking similar thoughts, including a colleague of mine, Lorna Stickel at the Portland Water Bureau. Lorna is a member of the Institute for Water and Watershed's Advisory Board and one of the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to water planning in this area.

This article by Eric Mortenson appeared on The Oregonian's WWW site on 5 October 2008.The link may require a subscription after 14 days. The artwork by Eric Baker is from the story.

Mortenson builds his story around a question asked by Stickel at a conference  last spring.

Here's the first part of Mortenson's piece:

The prediction caused a collective grimace among the mayors, city councilors, engineers and planners in the audience. By 2060, a Metro economist said, the seven-county Portland area could grow to 3.85 million people -- nearly double the number here now.

Then Lorna Stickel, a planner with the Portland Water Bureau, stood to ask a question. Does the population projection, she asked, account for the possibility of climate change refugees?

Brains have been spinning ever since. Because what if?

What if the American Southwest dries up, browns out, and those people now misting their patios in Arizona head to the still-green Pacific Northwest? What if Californians hit the road north in numbers far surpassing the 20,000 who now move to Oregon each year? What if the polar ice melts, oceans rise and millions living along coastal areas -- or ravaged by Katrina-like storms -- have to move?

What happens, Stickel later asks, "as we become more attractive and other places become less attractive?"

Back in her office at the Water Bureau, Stickel digs out graphs showing U.S. migration patterns and a projection of areas that might be affected by climate change.

"If this and this combine to this," Stickel says, gesturing back and forth, "that's the nut."

Stickel is no alarmist. The "nut" she cites is a kind of gridlock -- that moment in greater Portland when people could arrive in such numbers they outstrip the infrastructure necessary to support them. Water. Electricity. Roads. Housing. Schools. Garbage and sewage disposal. Parks and clean air.

Stickel knows all the players and is particularly intense about the region's drinking water supply. Like the others gathered to hear Metro's population conference last spring, it's her job to accommodate that projected growth.

"We think it's going to be X number of people," she said. "What if it's more?"

Mortenson then introduces Rebecca Niday, a Realtor who moved to Oregon from Florida.

She loves it here: green forests, snowcapped mountains, moderate climate. She talks it up with her friends in Florida, and three of them plan to join her.

She's a climate refugee, akin to the estimated 200,000 people who fled a Katrina-ravaged New Orleans three years ago and never went back. The Portland offices of the Red Cross and Catholic Charities aided 800 Katrina families between them.

Other opinions?

"It's highly speculative," said Angus Duncan, chairman of the Oregon Global Warming Commission and president of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

"But on the other hand, if we're dealing with the potential for extremely dry areas -- Arizona and Southern California -- to get even drier, as well as hotter, then it's not inconceivable that some kind of climate-induced migration could take place."

Such migration wouldn't stop at Oregon, Duncan says. Washington, British Columbia and Alaska might attract incremental movements of people looking for more tolerable climates. "Everything north would be affected," he said.

The prospect ought to raise questions about the way we live, he said.

Now for some good news.

Author James Howard Kunstler, whose book The Long Emergency predicts a worldwide societal doomsday caused by oil dependency collapse and climate change, says Asian paramilitary pirates might raid the Pacific Northwest coasts as their home nations disintegrate.

He notes other observers view the region optimistically, but doesn't join them.

"The Pacific Northwest's benefits of mild climate, abundant water and good farmland may be overwhelmed by populations fleeing the problems of Southern California," he writes.

Here is a related previous post of mine. And another.

Back to Stickel for the wrap-up.

Under the most aggressive growth model, the area could have more than 6 million people by 2060, according to the Metro forecast. The more likely model, however, indicates a population of 3.85 million, plus or minus 300,000.

From a water supply standpoint, at least, the region should be OK.

"We are blessed with water resources," said Stickel, the Portland Water Bureau planner. "We don't even tap, or barely tap, the two largest water resources in the region -- the Columbia and the Willamette. Even with climate change, we're blessed."

But on most other counts, the years ahead are filled with challenges.

"Maybe it's a call to action."

Stickel has another way of putting it: "Plan, plan, plan."

So maybe it's time to buy some of that "undervalued" real estate in Bend.

"May you live in interesting times." -- Chinese proverb (?)

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." -- Niels Bohr

Comments

[David Zetland]

Yes, there will be climate refugees...

Since 1850, population has left wet places for dry places (doi:10.1016/S0166-0462(01)00065-5). This is because water has been brought to dry places. As that water disappears, the migration will reverse.