Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide From Climate Change
Climate change is no longer “over there.” Hurricane Helene’s terrible blows made us realize where we truly are.
Sitting at a café on Manhattan’s Upper West Side back in 2012, I asked my companion where should I move to. Where are the best areas to move to amid the looming climate crisis?
We were discussing my aim to relocate outside of New York City where I’d lived for 35 years. My dilemma was “Where to go now?”
This friend of mine, we’ll call him D, is a leading climate scientist. He works for NASA. He flies all over the world to speak at conferences and science gatherings. He meets with fellow scientists and discusses intensifying weather conditions and possible solutions with the brightest minds in the world.
D is a soft-spoken man. He speaks assuredly, evenly, without emphasis. He has a clear, measured tone. A tone that is born of confidence in what he says since he has so deeply studied our world, the ocean currents, and the areas that have already been ravaged and ruined by drought, tsunamis, or other climate-related events.
“Well,” he said, “no place on earth will escape the effects of global warming. None of our mathematical or theoretical models work anymore. Not those of the Russians, the Chinese, the Germans, you know. It’s moving much faster than anyone anticipated. And it will affect all of us.”
Remember, this was twelve years ago.
He then outlined three things I should look for.
D continued, “Ideally, you want a location that’s elevated, and not coastal. There should be local farming so that food resources are close by. And the best area would have nearby lakes and rivers, you know, water sources.”
Given these guidelines, one area I considered was Asheville, NC. Asheville, sitting in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is over 2,000 feet above sea level. And it’s almost 300 miles away from the nearest coastline. Safe and secure.
That was then. I ended up moving to Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. They’re mountains. So, we’re high in the sky. Lots of farms and lakes.
This is now. I’m shocked that Asheville was as deeply affected as it was by Hurricane Helene. And I’m not the only one. Tweets like this were everywhere this morning.
People weren’t expecting such devastation. So many did not leave. At this writing, there are 120 dead and over 200 missing.
FEMA has arrived, with over 700 personnel on the ground. Various other states are sending trained personnel and National Guard members. Mountain Mule Packer Ranch has mule strings headed to Weaverville, NC, and other areas. Everyone is stepping up to the plate.
Some officials in NC are calling this their “Katrina.”
Hurricane Katrina (2005) rains caused the levees and floodwalls in New Orleans to fail in more than 50 locations. But, most news outlets blamed it on poor infrastructure maintenance and everyone just kept dancing along.
Americans didn’t seem that worried. The conservatives in Congress weren’t going to change their position that global warming was a liberal hoax. There was (it turns out) false confidence in our shorelines and our aging infrastructure.
There have been hurricanes, earthquakes, and of course, the melting of the Arctic ice. All of this should have alarmed us, but it didn’t. The blistering heat waves that now affect most of the country are being dismissed as the “new normal.” We just kept on shopping and going about our days.
And believe me, I take no pleasure that many of us were “right” about the threats of climate change. It is heartbreaking to see these events unfold. Years ago I sat at the Hudson River Music Festival in the “activist” area of the festival with a woman who felt as I did, that we were not focused on our environment. That no one was paying attention to the looming threat. We said we felt like we were sitting in a little dinghy in the ocean waving a tiny white flag. Now it’s undeniably here.
Outsized mansions teeter on the windy cliffs on both the east and west coasts. In California, a wealthy resident refuses to move his mansion, which is at risk of falling into the ocean.
But that was BA. Before Asheville, NC.
The shock and loss are finally hitting home. This is no joke, people are saying. This is for real.
So, the hotter temperatures, the severe storms, and the loss of life are slapping us in our collective faces. Helene swept through several states, including southeast Florida. Now that is a final blow for those homeowners.
Floridians can’t get home insurance anymore. Those who do pay inflated premiums few of us could weather. So there will not be rebuilding for many people. They have probably lost their homes for good.
It will take years to come back.
My friends, we are in this together. Do not pull away, but draw tighter to your community and those in need. We all need to practice what we can to use less, eat fewer animals, stop using chemical pesticides (there are lots of new products, very effective) and donate to those organizations on the ground. It might help counter the helplessness that engulfs us as we face earth’s degradation.
Because that is always where our strength lies. When we stick together.
