Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know How Climate Migration Works About this episode We move for all sorts of reasons – new job, new grandkid – but moving because it’s just too darn hot? That’s a new one. But it’s going to pick up in the next few decades as more people around the world are forced to migrate because of climate change.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:03 Speaker 03 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
1:13 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there and this is Stuff You Should Know. Um, is it getting hot in here or is it just me addition?
1:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's right. Well, you know what we can do? We can just migrate to another part of the iHeart offices here.
1:33 Josh Clark? Yeah, nice.
1:34 Speaker 02 A nice, cool studio.
1:36 Josh Clark? Yeah, they really do keep them cool. Frankly, cold.
1:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. And this is, that's the last fun we're going to have on this episode because this is not so fun.
1:45 Josh Clark? That is not true. There's plenty of places for jokes here.
1:48 Speaker 02 Okay. All right. Good.
1:49 Josh Clark? Do you remember we did one on comas and we had jokes? So come on, you can do this.
1:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's a good point.
1:56 Josh Clark? So we're talking climate migration and it's a really interesting topic. This was your idea, actually, and I tip my hat to you.
2:05 Speaker 02 Hmm, thank you.
2:06 Josh Clark? And I'm just joking, I'm not, I'm not wearing a hat.
2:09 Speaker 02 See, another joke.
2:11 Josh Clark? So the thing that surprised me, so we're climate migration, we should just tell people off the bat is where people have to move somewhere else because extreme weather, droughts, basically anything, extreme temperatures, anything that has to do with climate change, basically ruining where they live.
2:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:31 Josh Clark? That's climate migration.
2:33 Speaker 02 Human wise.
2:33 Josh Clark? Yes.
2:34 Speaker 02 Like there's an animal climate migration we're not even going to talk about.
2:38 Josh Clark? No, we did a whole episode on plant migration that was due to climate too. So this is, yes, that was a good, good catch. This is human specific. And one of the things that struck me about this is there's a, there's not a lot of like solid agreement on exactly how bad things are going to be.
2:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:58 Josh Clark? And exactly how far people are going to have to move. And even among the people who do agree, the experts who do generally agree on some stuff, they're still like, I don't know that this is going to be as bad as it's being portrayed like, say, in the media.
3:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, for sure. And, you know, we'll get to some studies and stats and things, but the stats you got to keep in mind are kind of a guess because as Libya points out, or maybe we'll just talk about that when we get to the stats part.
3:25 Josh Clark? Okay, but I just wanted to put a, I wanted to put a lid on the hysteria because like you said, we just don't know yet and it might not be as bad as we think. There might be some pluses, there are definitely going to be some minuses, but it's something that we're talking about now and it's decades enough into the future that we have time to prepare for it. It's kind of like we went from, okay, let's stop emitting greenhouse gases to, okay, it's too late for that. Now we have to figure out how to deal with the repercussions of that. That's where we're at, but we have a little bit of time. And if we start thinking about and talking about how to do this smartly and responsibly, without again, becoming hysterical and over planning and overdoing it. We could, we could do this right and make it as comfortable as possible.
4:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, we being specifically the United States, because there are other parts of the world that are already sort of proactive, rather than kind of, like you said, being reactive and waiting when potential refugees are just sort of at the border, saying like, we have no place to go, because our, our place, almost said habitat, I guess humans have a habitat, right?
4:32 Josh Clark? Yeah, sure.
4:33 Speaker 02 Is that true?
4:34 Josh Clark? Yeah, every animal has a habitat.
4:36 Speaker 02 Okay, I didn't know if I was being callous by considering us all just animals.
4:40 Josh Clark? Were you being a speciest?
4:42 Speaker 02 Maybe so. But if, speaking of the US, you know, you do hear a lot of talk about that kind of thing, like, oh, people are going to be coming into our country. You know, depending on who you talk to in this country, some people might welcome them, some people might not. But as Livia is very astute to point out, generally, what we're talking about nowadays, the more common thing that you're seeing is people, people don't want to leave their home, you know?
5:09 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's a big point.
5:10 Speaker 02 So they'll move as kind of close as they can to where they're from, rather than say, hey, let's just pick up and go to a completely different country where I know nothing about it and I don't speak the language. Like, what's generally happening is, if there's a climate issue, like, let's say, which could look like a lot of things, and we're going to talk about a lot of them, it could mean, I just can't farm here anymore, because it's so drought prone, or there was a, my coastline is disappearing, or there was a, a natural disaster here, so I have to leave. People want to move close to where they are, so they're generally saying like, all right, I can't be out here in the farming area anymore, so let's move toward the urban centers. And that's why a lot of these urban centers in the global south are popping at the seams.
5:52 Josh Clark? Yeah, and it's gonna definitely get more poppy, for sure, as we go.
5:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:58 Josh Clark? But as it stands right now, especially, say, like, you can take California for an example.
6:04 Josh Clark? They deal with wildfires, like that's just a fact of life and it's getting to be a much more frequent fact of life. So if you leave your house because there's a wildfire in your backyard, you are technically a climate migrant right then.
6:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:19 Josh Clark? But if you go back and rebuild or your house didn't end up burning down, you're basically following the current pattern of climate migration. You're leaving long enough to, for you to take yourself out of harms way during the disaster, the extreme weather event, and then going back. But if you do that enough times, some people are going to just get tired of that and they're eventually not going to go back. And that's, that's kind of like how climate migration, at least say in the United States right now, is starting to, to look.
6:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:54 Josh Clark? Or starting to, starting to establish itself.
6:56 Speaker 02 Right. And, but the idea is that, I guess if you're moving away from where wildfires are more rampant, you're going to move to a place probably as close as you can, unless, you know, in America, if you have like family on the other side of the country or something where those wildfires generally don't happen, maybe you'll do that. But if we're talking about countries, you're probably moving within your country and within your country, there, it's not like, oh, well, I've, you know, I'm, I'm at a place where the climate problem isn't a problem. So it's not solving a bigger problem. You know what I'm saying?
7:32 Josh Clark? Yeah. And even more so, like if you're a migrant, even within your own country, like you said, say like to an urban center or something like that, a lot of times when you show up, you might show up with all of your neighbors, your entire community, maybe your entire region, if the, say like the drought is bad enough. And the city's not like, hey, we just happen to have all this extra free housing for you guys, so come on in. Very frequently, you'll end up in what amounts to a refugee camp. It's a climate refugee camp, but it's essentially the same thing as any other refugee camp. There's usually not running water, there's not good infrastructure, and this is a point that I hadn't thought of, but Livia pointed out.
8:14 Josh Clark? You're maybe even more vulnerable to natural disasters now because you live in a tent. So if a sandstorm comes along, you're in trouble because you just are in a tent rather than, say, the house that you had to leave because your farm was no longer producing crops.
8:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, and also you're you're living like perhaps in like a shanty town on the outskirts of town and you're going to see increased poverty. That's going to be an unstable situation. And then violence comes along oftentimes in these places. She found one study from 2022 of Central African migrants. 5% reported that they moved specifically for environmental reasons, but 50% said, yeah, but that played a part in the decision to leave, like whether or not they're saying like, no, the drought's too bad here, I'm leaving, or it some places are just the extreme heat is becoming so bad as people just can't live there anymore. They're not saying I'm moving just because of that, but half of them were saying like,
9:16 Speaker 02 yeah, that was a factor that led to this this whole mess.
9:20 Josh Clark? Right, yeah, and there's probably the most famous and most well-studied recent example of climate migration leading to violent conflict was the Syrian civil war.
9:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:34 Josh Clark? Between 2006 and 2010, there was a really, really bad drought in Syria and the surrounding region, and a lot of people had to move to the city or cities. And they like a lot of people were displaced and they joined people who had already arrived as refugees before from Iraq and from Palestine. And so all these people are there, the government is basically ignoring them, pretending like they're not there. Their farms are being lost, they're getting zero help from the government, which has become neoliberal under Bashar al-Assad, who took over for from his father.
10:13 Josh Clark? And they start, the unrest gets bad enough that a civil war starts. Like, there's a rebel insurgency to topple Assad. And it actually ended up working. It didn't at first because Assad famously used chemical weapons on his own people. And he got everything under control. But then they made a second push this past, I think, December, and ran him out of the country and actually took over. And you can trace that ultimately back to that drought that was created largely by climate change. And that's, that's nuts. Like, if you think about it, if that drought had never happened, there wouldn't have been a Syrian civil war. And that's probably the most extreme version example
10:58 Josh Clark? of climate, a climate crisis leading to violent armed conflict. But it's not like it doesn't exist. It's not like it doesn't happen, like, that happened.
11:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, over an eight-year period from 2002 to 2010, the urban population in Syria went from just under nine million people to almost 14 million.
11:18 Josh Clark? That's nuts.
11:19 Speaker 02 That is a lot of people to add. But, and this isn't like, I'm in full agreement, so this isn't a counterpoint, but Syria mishandled that. And there are other countries in the region that suffered through the same drought, specifically Jordan and Lebanon, that had a government that was more proactive and responsive. And they had policies that were put in place that they didn't have the same kind of, you know, destructive outcomes that Syria had. So it's, you know, it all depends on how you're handling this situation. We're going to talk a lot about countries, you know, people leaving countries, and then especially the receiving countries, because that's really where the rubber meets the road.
11:59 Josh Clark? For sure. If the rubber hasn't melted by then.
12:03 Speaker 02 That's right. And if the road is still intact and not cracked to pieces.
12:08 Josh Clark? Yeah, it hasn't buckled. There are actually some estimates all over the place about how many climate migrants there are going to be. And there was something called the groundswell report that the World Bank put out in 2021. And they are saying by 2050, 216 million people will have moved either to another country or within their own country because climate conditions have made where they used to live untenable. So we're talking 25 years, not even 30 years anymore, Chuck. We're in 2025. If my math holds up, that's just 25 years from now.
12:49 Josh Clark? That is a tremendous amount of migration. Some people say, nah, it's probably going to be more like 50 million. But it seems like that World Bank analysis is the most commonly cited, although you could also suggest it's the most commonly cited because it's such an eye popping number.
13:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, true. Well, this is probably a good place since I promised to talk about something stat related. One of the reasons it's hard, or one of the reasons you get something like anywhere from 50 to 250 million people, this pretty big swing, is because we don't know how effective our efforts are going to be to curb emissions and to get things, you know, sort of on the right track again. How successful we're going to be at, you know, some wealthier countries doing things like seawalls and redistributing water resources and things like that. Because as you'll see, a lot of, and we've talked about before, that, you know, the most precious resource in the future is
13:42 Josh Clark? Is love.
13:43 Speaker 02 It is love. Oh, man. I needed that. Water, unfortunately. So, you know, there've been people that talk about, you know, the wars of the future will be fought over water. And as we'll see, a lot of climate migration happens either because of a lack of water or a lack of water that's, you know, useful for humans, or too much water in other parts, like rising seawaters and such.
14:06 Josh Clark? Yeah, for sure. So the World Bank broke it down that Sub-Saharan Africa is going to see by far the most, 86 million, followed by East Asia and the Pacific at 49 million, South Asia 40 million, North Africa 19 million. Although some people are like, it's going to be even more than that for North America and parts of the Middle East because it's going to get so hot that it will be uninhabitable by humans.
14:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think you meant North Africa, not North America.
14:39 Josh Clark? That's right. Yes. North Africa and the Middle East, not North America and the Middle East.
14:43 Speaker 02 I think people who listen to the show know us enough now to where we're like old pals. And they're like, oh, Josh, Chuck, you don't even need to point that out. We know what he meant.
14:50 Josh Clark? You know what, though? I think, I think we should introduce a new device here in year 17. Whenever I misspeak, just cut me off in the middle by doing your egg color splat sound.
15:05 Speaker 02 Can we try one?
15:05 Josh Clark? So let's try that. You ready?
15:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:07 Josh Clark? So it's going to get so hot in the Middle East and North America that, oh, what did I say wrong, Chuck?
15:15 Speaker 02 Nothing. I just like doing that sound.
15:17 Josh Clark? I think we've come up with something new that we really need to do.
15:21 Speaker 02 All right. Well, how about this? Why don't we take a break? You said Latin America was 17 million, right?
15:27 Josh Clark? No, I never got there.
15:29 Speaker 02 Latin America, 17 million.
15:31 Josh Clark? Don't forget Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
15:33 Speaker 02 5 million. So, you know, not nearly as many as the others, but there are, again, water scarcity.
15:40 Josh Clark? Yeah.
15:41 Speaker 02 In places like Mongolia and Kazakhstan. So now can we take a break?
15:46 Josh Clark? Yeah, we can take a break. I think you should take us out on your egg splat sound again.
15:49 Speaker 02 All right, we'll be right back.
16:06 Speaker 04 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
16:09 Josh Clark? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.
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16:59 Josh Clark? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.
17:02 Speaker 06 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
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19:13 Speaker 02 All right, so I kind of teased out the importance of, or I'm sorry, importance. I soften tease here in the South, everybody, if you haven't noticed by now, near 17. Receiving communities are very important. How safe these people are going to be when they move to this place is, and again, A, they're still going to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate where they go, most likely, or almost, you know, with 100% certainty. But just how safe they're going to be, period, because we talked about sometimes when they set up on the outskirts of towns and there's violence and they're more susceptible by being in a shanty or a tent or something, to just even a hard rain.
19:56 Speaker 02 So it's almost like this, it's a vicious cycle that's happening where people are being displaced to places that also aren't safe.
20:04 Josh Clark? Yeah, and we should say that most of this migration and most of the migrants are going to be coming from or going, moving within what's called the global south.
20:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:15 Josh Clark? And you don't use the equator as the dividing line for the global south. For example, Australia and New Zealand squarely in the southern hemisphere, but they're not considered global south. It's a distinction between the developed and the developing world. So you have Latin America, Africa, India's usually included, China's included, and Southeast Asia. And it, these countries ironically are, if you accept China and India, most of these countries are, have put out the least amount of emissions that triggered climate change. And yet, they're the most vulnerable to climate change, in large part because they're developing.
20:57 Josh Clark? And if you're a developing country, you're probably still really reliant on agriculture, you're reliant on things like timber and other natural resources, and those are the things that are getting impacted first, right off the bat. And so if your economy's based on agriculture and there's a drought that covers your entire nation, your economy's in big trouble and your people are probably going to have to move.
21:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, here's the thing, though, and this isn't like a bright side sort of thing. It puts a strain on resources when a lot of new people come to a place. But they can also be an asset because most of those migrants are going to end up performing a lot of very important jobs in that area. A lot of them work in agriculture, some work in construction, some work in childcare. But those same people are also not necessarily, it depends on the receiving community, even down to that community level and how they're going to take care of those people. And what I mean by take care in this case is just see that they get a fair shot at like earning a wage by performing a job.
22:01 Speaker 02 If you face up a lot of potential workplace abuse, if you're one of those migrants, and the United Arab Emirates is a striking example, 88% of the population there is made up of migrants mainly from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and it's very hot there as well. And so they're not taking care of their migrant population of workers and they can just sometimes some companies might be like, you know what, we're not going to pay you for that. What are you going to do about it?
22:29 Josh Clark? Yeah, there's a lot of examples of modern slavery, forced labor in the UAE and other countries, very wealthy Gulf states. And that is a good example of climate migrants, but really any kind of migrant being taken advantage of. And it's something that definitely has to be paid attention to. On the other hand, there are studies that say, okay, this actually might be good. Like, yes, we need to make sure that the receiving countries are not exploiting the climate migrants or any migrants. But the pressure that could be relieved from their home country if they're moving to more developed or wealthier countries that are more set up with infrastructure and social structure to absorb them.
23:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:15 Josh Clark? That actually could be a plus because all of a sudden the population is not swollen in an urban center where it's really hot and you're around people from an ethnic group that your ethnic group has hated for 1,000 years. Like, moving some of these people out. To other countries could actually be a relief valve that could keep social upheaval from happening.
23:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, potentially. So, under the United Nations, they have a refugee convention from 1951 that specifically defines, the good thing it does, it defines that refugees are entitled to legal rights, entitled to travel, some kinds of support, housing, that kind of thing. But the, I guess, kind of the downside of what it did is it very narrowly defined what a refugee was in the wake of World War II, which was
24:05 Josh Clark? Right.
24:06 Speaker 02 You have to be fleeing persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or group membership. And only if you're fleeing from one border to the next. We already, you know, mentioned that a lot of this is happening within their home country. So, they don't have any of those UN guaranteed rights. But, a lot of people, legal scholars are saying, hey, we need to expand that definition to include
24:31 Speaker 02 maybe not necessarily only cross-border and people who are climate refugees.
24:36 Josh Clark? Yeah, like, why not add the sun? You can be fleeing the sun and we'll consider you a refugee from now on.
24:43 Speaker 02 That's me every summer in Atlanta.
24:45 Josh Clark? Right. You just go down in your basement, right, and turn tasty.
24:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:50 Josh Clark? So, yes, there are, like, I guess, there's structure, there's like global structure that can be applied to climate migrants and climate refugees. It's just, that's not necessarily happening right now. But it wouldn't take much, I think, is what we're saying, right? To just kind of expand the existing definitions?
25:09 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, and that's just, you know, that's the UN definition. There are other places in the world, the Organization of African Unity Convention, and the Latin America Cartagena, is that Cartagena?
25:19 Josh Clark? Yeah. I know that from Romancing the Stone.
25:23 Speaker 02 We just watched that with Ruby last weekend.
25:26 Josh Clark? It's such a good movie.
25:27 Speaker 02 It holds up and it is, if you're, if you have a kid that's around that age, that's into sort of like action adventure kind of movies, which she is. It's a, it's a great one, man. She had a really good time and it's not like super inappropriate for an eighties movie.
25:42 Josh Clark? That's really surprising. Did you follow up with Jewel of the Nile?
25:46 Speaker 02 Not yet, but uh, yeah, that'll, that'll be coming. It's just Danny DeVito, man. What, what a national treasure that guy is.
25:54 Josh Clark? Yeah, he really is a jewel.
25:55 Speaker 02 So great. Ira, Ira. I forgot how much I love Remains in the Stone. Uh, all right. So back to Cartagena Declaration. They have an expanded definition of refugee that is more broad than the UN, uh, where they say events, uh, that are seriously disturbing public order, which obviously could include climate events.
26:16 Josh Clark? Yeah, the sun can do that.
26:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
26:20 Josh Clark? So, um, one of the things that a lot of these nations that are going to be most affected are saying is like, hey, um, we appreciate you guys thinking about this, but we don't really want to move. So is there like a, a version of this where we can stay and you wealthy countries who kind of got us into this mess in the first place can maybe help fund some of the mitigation efforts that we're trying to, to put in place? And so far the wealthy countries are like, why? I can't hear you. The, the connection's breaking up. But that may change as we get a little further down the road. Who knows? But there are some, some governments that are like kind of starting to plan because they're like, this is not,
27:02 Josh Clark? this is not 2050 for us. This is like 2030 that we're having to worry about. And in some places it's already started happening, like Kiribati is a Pacific island nation. It's 32 nations, about 130,000 people. And at best, it's just about at sea level.
27:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:19 Josh Clark? And when sea level is rising, Kiribati is going under the sea. And apparently sea level is rising about four times faster than other parts of the world.
27:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, the writing is on the wall there, very sadly.
27:32 Josh Clark? For sure. So their, their government, um, was like, okay, we have to figure out how to move people. And we have to figure out how to do it right. And they started looking at Fiji, right?
27:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, and Fiji kind of stepped up and were like, hey, we have some underdeveloped land, I guess it was undeveloped land, that we can sell you. This is in 2014 and the president at the time of Kiribati was Enote Tong?
27:58 Josh Clark? I think that's right, yeah.
27:59 Speaker 02 All right. And Tong's, you know, was all over this, like, let's buy this land, let's move people, like, not just, you know, a few families, like, let's start moving en masse over there because, you know, the writing is on the wall here and these islands just aren't going to be around at some point.
28:16 Josh Clark? Right.
28:16 Speaker 02 He was calling it migration with dignity. And then in 2016, Tong lost the president to Tineti Mamau. And this, it was just, you know, sometimes when a new administration comes in, Josh, things can shift in radical directions. I don't know if you knew that or not.
28:34 Josh Clark? I could see Mamau basically running on this platform because I'm guessing 130,000 people in a 32-island spread is Kiribati. Like, I'm guessing moving the entire country to Fiji is probably top of the mind of the voters there. So I'm guessing that Mao Mao or Ma Mao ran on a platform against moving and was like, no, we're going to figure out how to stay here. We're going to build seawalls. We're going to cross our fingers. We're going to use fairy dust. Who knows what they were running on. But they won because people don't want to move if they don't have to. If there's a chance of them staying where they lived,
29:18 Josh Clark? where their families have lived, they want to stay typically. That's what people who study climate migrants are finding.
29:26 Speaker 02 Yeah. Well, in that case, it was, you know, billions of dollars to, to like physically re-engineer these islands and build those walls. And they didn't have that kind of dough. So China stepped up and said, hey, You got that marine protected zone where you don't allow fishing. Give us those fishing rights. So this is just sort of another good example of the domino effect that can happen. All of a sudden, you're wrecking that part of the sea. Because it was a protected zone that's no longer protected because China said, hey, we'll help you re-engineer those islands if you let us fish there. But they only ended up giving a fraction of the cost of what's needed. I think New Zealand is also stepping up, right?
30:06 Josh Clark? Well, they tried to. They created a new visa specifically for residents of places like Kiribati, who are like, we need to get out now. And New Zealand, very kindly, was like, you guys can come live here. We're going to make it as easy as possible on you. And the people of Kiribati just gave them crickets back.
30:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:24 Josh Clark? And New Zealand, within six months, like canceled the program because they had basically no takers. They did not need the special visa because people, again, don't want to move if there's any chance of them not having to move.
30:36 Speaker 02 I get it, you know?
30:37 Josh Clark? I totally get it as well, for sure. And I mean, if you put yourself in that mindset, it suddenly is like, okay, I kind of get why people keep moving back after their house burns down from a wildfire or gets blown away by a hurricane or gets like picked up by a tornado. That's where you live. And it just hasn't, I feel like it just hasn't gotten quite frequent enough for people, at least let's say in the United States, it's my frame of reference, to just be like, okay, this is not going to change. It's going to keep getting worse. We need to, we need to leave.
31:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, I think people are of two minds here. And it seems like there are way more people that are so attached to their home, they don't want to leave it. But they're, you know, I've heard just anecdotally stories of people that are like, I'm getting the heck out of California or I'm getting the heck out of a hurricane, you know, prone area, like the, you know, if you live around the Gulf of Mexico or something like that. And those panhandle-y areas or in like Houston or Miami, you know, we're getting out of Dodge. So some people are doing that, but it definitely doesn't seem like, you know, people are taking it seriously enough yet.
31:48 Josh Clark? What's nuts, though, is if you go to Miami today, their skyline is covered with construction cranes. They cannot build skyscrapers for housing fast enough because so many people are still moving to Miami. And I say we take a break and come back and talk about what's going to happen to cities in the US as far as climate migration is concerned.
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35:45 Josh Clark? Okay, Chuck, so I name checked Miami before the break. And that is a really good example of a city that is kind of up in the air for how much climate migration is going to affect it. Is it going to get so bad down there that they're just going to have to abandon Miami? And it'll look like a reverse The Day After Tomorrow, but with heat and seawater rather than everything being frozen. Which, by the way, I saw that the other day.
36:16 Speaker 02 For the first time?
36:17 Josh Clark? No, it's actually one of my favorite movies, it turns out, because every single time it's on, I will just sit there and watch it.
36:26 Speaker 02 Ah, did I see that all the way? I think I might have seen that all the way through back when it came out, but that was it.
36:31 Josh Clark? Yeah, I hesitate to use the word good because it's great.
36:37 Josh Clark? But it's, yeah, I just like it. It's one of those really, it's like Zodiac. I can watch Zodiac anytime it comes on. Like, I might not search it out, but I'll just sit there and watch it if it's, you know, presented to me somehow.
36:48 Speaker 02 No, I'm the same way. There's something about Zodiac that is just endlessly watchable to me.
36:52 Josh Clark? Yeah, for sure. But The Day After Tomorrow is like that for me.
36:56 Speaker 02 Okay, well, you know what? I should check it out again. Oh, and I think I have a good reason to coming up, hint, hint.
37:01 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's actually what triggered that idea.
37:03 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
37:06 Josh Clark? It was you and me just talking about something that only you and I know about.
37:10 Speaker 02 I know, you know.
37:13 Speaker 02 I have a couple of stats as far as the United States goes.
37:17 Speaker 02 This is, at this point already here in 2025, two or three million Americans leave their homes every year, every single year, two to three million due to natural disasters that happen. Floods, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, all the stuff that happens here. I don't, we don't have volcanoes.
37:34 Josh Clark? That's not the one, that's not the ones, well, there's Mount St. Helens, that was a big deal.
37:40 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah, yeah, true. But generally in the lower 48, we don't have volcanoes.
37:44 Josh Clark? Right. So that two to three million number, those are people who move permanently, right? That's not just people who like leave and then come back.
37:52 Speaker 02 No, no, no, those are, most of those people do return, but over the past couple of decades, about three million people have moved just to avoid flooding, which is a long period of time. But those are people that are just like, yeah, it just, this place floods. I mean, I remember after Katrina, I feel like Atlanta. Got a pretty decent amount of displaced New Orleans residents that stayed here. I have evidence by going to Falcons games.
38:20 Josh Clark? Right, so did Houston, too.
38:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:24 Josh Clark? Yeah, so that's a great example of that kind of thing happening. And like, I'm sure a lot of them went back when it was clear that New Orleans was going to be rebuilt and revitalized and get back to normal. But a lot of them stayed. I'm sure a lot of them were like, things don't flood quite as much here in Atlanta. So I'm gonna just kind of stay here.
38:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, and Atlanta, I mean, New Orleans is certainly such a singular, unique city in America culturally, like, maybe more so than almost any city I've been to. So Atlanta is not that, but it's another big city in the South that I think is at least relatable to somebody from New Orleans in some ways.
39:00 Josh Clark? For sure, yeah. There's like 98% less brass bands marching around, but, you know, there's still a certain amount of like, southern affinity between the two cities, right?
39:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, for like, big cities.
39:13 Josh Clark? So, sea level rise is going to affect the US, but I didn't know this. There's like, you know, they talk about sea level rise, you know, being like 0.1 millimeter a year, or something like that, where they're predicting, that's the global average. Sea level rises in different places at different rates. And it can be so local that apparently the eastern seaboard of the United States is, that sea level is rising faster than the west coast. It can be that local. And the reason why is there's something called post-glacial rebound, where the top part of the eastern seaboard, like New York, all that area, was pressed down by a glacier.
39:54 Josh Clark? And after the glacier retreated 10,000 or so years ago, that, that part of the land is still moving up. It's coming back, it's rebounding. But at the same time, that's kind of pushing down like a seesaw, the southern part of the eastern seaboard. So that's actually, the sea levels are rising faster there than even in the northern part of the eastern seaboard. It's crazy.
40:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, and you know, that's just sea level rise, and this isn't a...
40:23 Speaker 02 And reticent to do episodes sometimes where we're just like, you know, slinging fear and statistics.
40:29 Josh Clark? Right.
40:29 Speaker 02 But it's sort of the reality right now. Wildfire threat has just gotten worse, especially if you're talking about Nevada and Oregon, places that maybe didn't see the most wildfire in the past. And it's not just Miami as far as sea level rise, like New York and Boston. I mean, New York has seen flooding in, you know, the not-too-distant past where we never used to see things like that happening there.
40:54 Josh Clark? I saw that some of the communities, the houses along Jamaica Bay, which I guess is Queens, right?
41:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:00 Josh Clark? They flood every time there's a high tide, there's a full moon, like just flood. Their entire basement just totally flooded. And it's starting to happen every single time there's a full moon at high tide. So, yeah, I was reading like they're on the forefront of talking about climate migration in the US.
41:19 Speaker 02 Well, the other thing too, that we mentioned early, we haven't talked so much since then, is it's not necessarily a climate event or some natural disaster either to cause climate migration. It's like farmers, if they can't farm there anymore and their livelihood is gone, they might move. And across the South and Southwest, especially in Texas, the projections for corn and soy are just falling, falling, falling. So you're going to be able to grow that easier in other parts of the country. So that's a bit of a silver lining as things, you know, change and shift. But those are going to eventually be climate migrants, those farmers there.
41:58 Josh Clark? Yeah. And so it seems like the projections show that 2050, 2070, the current climate that spreads across the United States is going to shift northward by a few states. And those states that are currently hot right now, but still, you know, kind of nice, like Florida, coastal Georgia.
42:18 Josh Clark? They're going to potentially become uninhabitable just because it's going to be so hot. So it turns out I was right about the Middle East and North America becoming so hot that it can be uninhabitable. And apparently that's that's due to what's called the wet bulb temperature, which is a mind boggling formula that barely anyone on the internet can explain. And I can't throw sling arrows because I can't really explain it either. But essentially, it's the temperature where you your body will no longer be able to cool itself. And so being outside in the sun, just standing there is actually life threatening.
42:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:57 Josh Clark? They're saying that it's going to become the norm for say like Florida and Southern Georgia to hit those temperatures. And so we're the people are just going to have to move because you wouldn't be able to leave your house and even go outside.
43:10 Speaker 02 Do you remember when we were tasked with doing a panel at a Podcast Movement? That's the name of the industry conference, I guess.
43:21 Josh Clark? Yeah, con.
43:22 Speaker 02 Yeah. But it's like an industry conference and we were supposed to speak in like 10 minutes on stage. And some and a fire alarm or something went out.
43:33 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
43:33 Speaker 02 And they made us go outside and it was two minutes in the Orlando summer heat after it had stopped raining. One of those afternoon Florida rains.
43:42 Josh Clark? Right.
43:43 Speaker 02 That everywhere on else on earth that that cools things down, but it makes things hotter in Central Florida.
43:48 Josh Clark? Yeah.
43:49 Speaker 02 And we went outside and had to stand out there for like 20 minutes before they let us back in. And dude, I'm a hot sweaty person. Anyway, I have never sweated that much that fast in my life.
44:01 Josh Clark? Yeah.
44:01 Speaker 02 I was dying and they were like, all right, back in everybody and hop on stage.
44:06 Josh Clark? Right. I remember that. I was pretty sweaty, too.
44:09 Speaker 02 Oh, man, I was in bad shape. It was not good.
44:13 Josh Clark? Just wait till 2070, pal. You'd just melt.
44:16 Speaker 02 Podcast Movement 2070.
44:18 Josh Clark? Right, right.
44:18 Speaker 02 Here we are.
44:20 Josh Clark? So the US is actually a good example of people not freaking out. Some people freaking out, but it seems mostly like it's the media just kind of poking and goose-ing everybody that among scholars who study this, they're not particularly freaked out. They're like, yes, some people are going to have to move. Yes, it's going to really start to pick up eventually, but there will also be mitigation efforts that we can do like Miami is just too valuable to just let go away. So they're going to figure out how to build seawalls, protect Miami and make sure that its aquifer doesn't get salinated and ruined. Like people will just pump money into Miami.
45:03 Josh Clark? The US government will, Florida will, but if you go like a little north, you know, who's to say that Delray Beach or Vero Beach is going to be around still at that time? The cities will be protected, but the smaller towns in between the major cities on the coast, there's not going to be any money for them. So those people are going to have to move.
45:26 Speaker 02 Yeah. And I mean, that kind of puts things squarely in the middle of the policy debates we're hearing more and more, which is how much do we put into places that we think are increasingly unlivable in the future? This is something I did not know, and I'm glad Livia dug this up, but FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been buying up properties that are prone to this, that are just flooding time and time again, and they're turning this land into wetland and trying to do something about it. And, you know, there are various states that are saying like, hey, you know, it's getting harder and harder to get your house insured against fire. We used to subsidize these insurance companies. Now we're not doing that.
46:10 Speaker 02 I have friends in California, like if you buy a house in certain parts of California, sometimes you cannot even get insurance anymore.
46:17 Josh Clark? Right. The same is true in parts of Florida, too. It's really becoming a big problem to get, even get insurance, rather let alone like being able to afford an insurance policy. And as that happens, as it becomes more and more apparent that if you move to Florida or you move to California, there's this huge additional expense. Or potentially, you might not be able to have home insurance.
46:40 Speaker 02 Right.
46:41 Josh Clark? Like, that's going to affect those markets. And that in and of itself is going to keep people from migrating there. And it's going to also, that's what will trigger mass migrations from Florida, from California, because people are going to start panicking about their real estate values just plummeting.
46:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:59 Josh Clark? A lot of people will get out.
47:01 Speaker 02 People of means will get out.
47:03 Josh Clark? Yes, and that's a really important point. It doesn't matter what country you're talking about, whether it's global north, global south, doesn't matter. The, the, I, the ability to migrate is typically something reserved for the more well-off groups.
47:20 Speaker 02 Or to migrate successfully.
47:22 Josh Clark? Right. Okay, great. The, the poorest, the most vulnerable people in no matter whatever country you're, you're talking about, those are the ones who are at the greatest risk of just getting left behind. They don't have the money to move. They don't, they're, they can't sell their house now because no one wants to buy it because it's basically valueless. And they're stuck in this place that everyone else who could migrated out of. That is going to be a really big thing to watch for. Those people are going to need help. They're human beings. They didn't ask for this. That's just the, how the, how the dice landed. So they deserve to be helped. Again, just because they're humans, just because they're Americans, just because they're Zimbabweans. It doesn't matter.
48:05 Josh Clark? That's going to be something to, to really pay attention to down the road.
48:10 Speaker 02 Boy, what kind of world would we be in, my friend, if the qualification for aid to others was fellow human and not drawn by boundaries and ideologies?
48:21 Josh Clark? I hope that that's, I mean, my hope is that someday we'll hit that point. I don't know if we'll still be alive or not, but I do hope that, I do think people will get there if we survive as a species.
48:32 Speaker 02 I mean, plenty of great organizations are, have been doing that since the jump, but I'm talking about major governments in the world looking at other humans as, you know, other humans.
48:45 Josh Clark? Or even societies too, you know? I mean, yeah, I mean, that's just everywhere in the world. There's so many pockets of just conflict and issues and hatred of, of people for ultimately like arbitrary reasons. The idea of, yeah, getting to that point, Chuck, it's just, it's titillating to me. I'm titillated right now.
49:10 Josh Clark? I think that's it for now, huh?
49:12 Speaker 02 It's gotta be.
49:13 Josh Clark? Well, we'll revisit this in 2050.
49:16 Speaker 02 All right.
49:17 Josh Clark? All right, well, since Chuck agreed to revisiting this episode in 2050, everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail.
49:27 Speaker 02 Follow up from a backyard chicken farmer about egg colors. Hey, I've listened to you goofballs for years. So much love to you and your gang. Yes, please support your local farmers with their truly humanely raised eggs costing in many cases less than store bought. Like Chuck said, you're getting an amazing deal for higher quality eggs. Number two, guys, the waxy coating is called a bloom. It's a naturally produced coating, which is not hard or thick. It is placed as a part of the laying process to protect the egg contents from bacteria. I believe Josh said that.
49:59 Josh Clark? Comes off easily with just a little bit of dawn.
50:01 Speaker 02 And number three, please do not use dish soap to wash your eggs.
50:05 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah?
50:06 Speaker 02 While eggshells are strong, they're not impermeable. Eggs need to be washed with just water or water and an egg safe cleaner at a temperature about 20 degrees higher.
50:15 Josh Clark? Right.
50:16 Speaker 02 But no more than that because you can cook the egg on the inside.
50:18 Josh Clark? Oh, that makes sense.
50:20 Speaker 02 20 degrees higher than the temperature of the egg interior. Washing an egg at too high will potentially cook it. Wash it at a temperature lower than the shell contents and the permeable nature of the shell will actually absorb the exterior contents. So you're eating whatever soap that you are using.
50:35 Josh Clark? Well, not dawn. It says on the label egg safe cleaner.
50:41 Speaker 02 This knowledge is gained from keeping my own backyard flock for over a decade, and that is from the wonderful Meg.
50:47 Josh Clark? Thanks a lot, Meg. That was a top-notch email. We appreciate it. And thank you for saving everybody who's about to wash their eggs with dish soap under my suggestion. If you want to be like Meg and get in touch with us and be like, oh, no, no, no. Here's what you really should do. We love those kinds of emails. You can send it off to [email protected] .
51:10 Speaker 03 Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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