Howdy! Vermont here! No dangerous heat or swamped oceanfront.. no overcrowding. Just clean fresh air and cool, green mountains. But we sure could use some ethnic culture. And unlike Duluth..it only gets to 15 below in Winter.
38
Duluth is much colder than you think. For much longer than you can stand.
We do not get many beach days. At all.
And Duluth is not diversity friendly. There are indigenous people here and even people who have lived here their whole lives have little understanding and respect of that.
All that being said, it is a beautiful place to live. The lake is a spiritual giant and the surrounding areas are beautiful as well. People are nice in Duluth. We stick together through winter weather (which is 7 months of the year) and are helpful to one another. It is a neat city with quirks. Strangely outdoorsy for how awful the weather can be. But we are grateful for any nice weather we get. Today it was sunny and almost 50 degrees and people were all over the Lakewalk. We are grateful for what we have.
Also we don't get much hot weather but when we do, it can be sweltering. So humid. But also sometimes it will be 20 degrees warmer 15 minutes from town simply because Lake Superior is a giant air conditioner.
This is a city to get to know before moving here. The concern of gentrification is legitimate. It's already happening here and it's horrifying to me.
20
It's not like people can move to Duluth and all the supply chains, financial systems and healthcare will be the same in their lives. As many have said, there will be no escaping it.
9
Tasmania's never looked better....
9
Perfect weather all year around ! Beach in summer and walks in winter - little rainfall tho in the winter - more would be good ! Weather ? Magnificent one day, PERFECT the next ! How lucky are we! Perth, West Australia ! Paradise !
10
Well, yes, though we’re facing water shortages and more frequent, more severe heat waves. I don’t think we’ll fare terribly well in coming decades.
15
KInd of the inverse of Arizona: one rotten quarter, two beautiful quarters, and one OK one. Just 180 out of sync.
2
Science suggest Duluth will have heat waves exceeding 130 degrees. It may be better to ask scientists who have not been paid to promote a particular area, such as Duluth.
16
“Climate change is favorite. Sometimes I wish that Mar-a-lago would be covered in water and Trump Tower would sink like romantic Titanic boat just to we can run away to somewhere safe from porn stars and politics. But does Duluth have good shopping?” — XO 💋M.T.
16
I was in Northern Minnesota last summer, two hours north of Duluth in Grand Marais in August for a week. It was in the 90s the entire week. No one had air conditioning as they usually don't need it. It was absolutely sweltering. I don't think even Northern Minnesota is gonna be a "climate haven."
15
The idea of a safe haven from climate change is just a click bait meme. Depending on one's timeline, climate change affect people differently. Since I am close to the dust stage of existence, I don't really need to move anywhere.
The next generations will see this experiment first hand. It is really doubtful that many places will *escape* climate change as the changes will disrupt food production. That is not something that anyone can run away from. Plus, there are still unknown unknows and those tend to bite a bit.
25
Too many people.
Way, way too many people.
We will breed silly selves to death.
42
Interesting article, truly terrible title.
Despite what the politicians and the boosters down at the chamber of commerce say, it should be obvious that no one is going to "escape" global warming -- and the many unpredictable but life-altering effects that will come with it -- by moving to Minnesota or Buffalo or anywhere else.
Here's an excerpt from Bill McKibben's new book. Be careful not to let your hair catch fire as you read: https://bit.ly/2G1FBFR
19
This headline--in the Science section!!--perpetuates the language of the myth that global warming is only about places getting warmer. It's not much different than when President Trump tweets about extreme winters as invalidating global warming because they're colder.
20
@Jordan But many areas in the Sun Belt will get warmer, much warmer. Duluth will get warmer as well, but since it cold in the winter and relatively cool even in the summer even as it warms it will make a more bearable warming. Lake Superior has all ready been warming over the past couple of decades. There has been some negatives in Duluth and northern Minnesota in general with climate change. With a warmer atmosphere, extreme rainfall and severe storms have been occurring or a more regular basis.
4
Stand Up comedy is always in short supply. The writer of this article has great comedic talent, writing a weather related Duluth spoof. However, in the real world, most normal people wold never choose to live in Duluth. It is a miserable place, indeed. Perhaps that explains why lots of abnormal people do..
5
Umm....I don't think Duluth is fit for most people reading the NYT.
Just sayin....if you want to escape Global Warming, move to Staten Island or Jersey...exit 18..near the Meadowlands.
6
Duluth is a beautiful city with tons of outdoor recreation, some great restaurants, interesting shopping, beautiful homes, and nice people. It is the gateway to Grand Marais and the treasured Gunflint Trail (look across the lake and you an see Canada, and the Northern Lights if you are lucky!). A little further up the road is the spectacular Naniboujou Lodge, look it up. Split Rock Lighthouse is gorgeous, as are the various sights and waterfalls along the Superior Hiking Trail. Once I came around a bend, and there was a moose! You have no idea how big they really are, like a skinny elephant. It is fun to watch freighters go thru the Aerial Lift Bridge. Interesting museums, great parks, the Glensheen Mansion, a small zoo, and arboretum. You can take a ferry to the Isle Royale National Park to hear the wolves that are being preserved there. The sailing is some of the most exciting in the world. In the winter are the astounding ice caves, look that up too. And the views! It’s all abt. the views.
I know I sound like a travelogue, but people from Minneapolis are passionate abt. Duluth, as I am, and it is an affordable and easily reached getaway.
16
@Deborah Klein And as you describe the beauty of Duluth, you are writing from Florida because?
11
Bill McKibben has a new book, "Falter". I suggest anyone reading this article to buy the book and read it. And the NY Times should review it and put it on their front page. The time to start worrying about global warming was 20 years ago.
20
The writers seem to forget about food once we have destroyed the world's most productive farmland in the midwest who knows how much grain will be available to feed ourselves? Given the abysmal record of elected officials to invest in infrastructure even if the farmland shifts will there be the roads and bridges to get it to where its needed. Since more Americans to be interested in the Kardashians and Kanye or marching with Tiki torches chanting "The Jews Will Not Replace Us" this will all end in tears.
18
Winter temperatures in Duluth average 10 to 15 degrees colder than those in Western New York. Summer temperatures are about the same in both places. Look it up.
3
It looks like The NY Times journalist and the researcher forgot that Buffalo is notorious for getting dumped with snowfall that is in the 2+ feet per snowstorm, due to the lake effect. Duluth is only 2 hours north of the Twin Cities metro but its winter temperature drops below zero more often than the Twin Cities and it has less jobs, less diversity and has no big airports.
Minnesota’s reputation as a “blue” state is mainly driven by the Twin Cities metro area. In 2016, US Congressional District 8 voted for Trump by a 15-percentage-point margin and in 2018, this congressional seat still flipped to be Republican despite 2 years of watching a dysfunctional Trump Administration and an unfit and polarizing president.
6
@Victoria Duluth is a “blue” city that votes overwhelmingly Democratic - we did not vote for Trump. Lake effect snow is a pretty minor issue compared with the larger and broader effects of climate change. We are colder than the twin cities - ours is a different growing zone. People are actually moving here for work - I did and from the East Coast no less, though of course we have fewer jobs than the twin cities - and less stressful commutes. We are also in the midst of a housing shortage where there just aren’t enough homes to go around. That includes for middle income folks. While our airport is small, it is new (thanks to the late Jim Oberstar for that). Diversity is welcome here, too, and many of us are well aware of white privilege. Just saying.
14
I’m in Seattle and intend to stay in the NW where there will be fresh water. We may need a walk around Cascadia to keep people out (I kid).
4
Earthquakes make the PNW a poor choice for any midterm future planning.
3
Alas, we can't all move somewhere to escape what is coming. Certainly not the majority of the US population, who barely have any savings at all, and could not (according to recent polling) survive a small personal financial crisis moment without enormous suffering. It's not difficult to see why it might appeal to some folks to believe that there are "refuges" from global climate change in our country or abroad. Yet the central point of much of today's most advanced climate research is that uncertainty is the watchword. This means we cannot accurately predict or know what will happen to any specific location over the decades to come, including Duluth and the far north, where warming is occurring much more rapidly than in the temperate zone.
I live in Portland, Oregon, where many of my environmentalist friends have long assumed that we are in a "climate safe" location. However, the wildfires of the last several summer seasons have put that illusion to rest. On multiple occasions over the last few years, wildfires have caused pollution levels in our once-pristine air shed to levels more typical of New Delhi or Bangkok, or worse.
SInce there may truly be no place to hide, isn't it time we tried fixing the problem locally and nationally, while we also work to increase the resiliency of our own communities instead, while we still can?
18
@Eric the Red Wildfires are simply nature's way of cleaning up the dead and insect-infested life on the forest floor.
If you want to manage the forest, it's important to either do controlled burns or let the wildfires burn themselves out. Those forests were there before you were..and they will be there long after you're gone.
Truth is..if they would rake the forest floor of the excess bio-mass and use it for energy production (such as Denmark), you'd be way ahead of the game.
Right now there is far too much combustible carbon on the floor of the forest and if it does catch fire, it pollutes the rest of the country since everything that burns in Oregon eventually makes our air in Duluth disgusting.
5
What about Denver? Boulder? Maybe not as much water hanging around there is Duluth but what about them? And other smaller cities perhaps also at higher elevations that would be more livable than Duluth is in the winter. I’m definitely open to suggestions.
2
@Rob I used to live in Denver and Boulder and the water issues are acute. Now with a growing population it will become dire with the next drought. Funny how they all forget about it after one or two "wet" years.
9
My greatest regret is that I did not find a way to stay in New Zealand, where I was stationed with the US Foreign Service back in 1980-81 ...
9
@Martha Goff 2nd only to deciding to live in Sacramento?
2
the title of the article was "these cities".....i only saw one ~ duluth. the others?
12
@pegkaz Buffalo was also listed...but seriously...Buffalo?
Or as I like to call it....Eastern Fort Erie.
3
Like other commenters here, I'd like to ask self-identified conservatives what they are conserving?
The only thing you folks want to conserve: guns, keeping women/minorities from equality, the enshrining of their religion as the state. Totally founding father stuff, NOT.
Well, folks? Why are you putting up with the decimation of the EPA, gutting of food safety rules, Con-Agra writing policy about public water and air and soil? I just don't get how denying health care conserves an American spirit of some kind. I don't understand why 'social justice' is a joke to them. I don't see why we should be gleeful as our water turns foul, our air as unbreathable as Hong Kong. What are you conserving, exactly, as an American institution?
This concept of 'teams' in America? That Democrats are traitors because they exist?? Ideas are terrifying? What explains conservatives' current attitude of division, bitter glee at trashing cultural norms, their delight at trump's hate-fest? I'll go so far as to call conservatives utterly hypocritical, pretending that immigrants want to destroy our institutions and values when trump tells you so, even as all evidence, history and American exceptionalism points you in another direction! Unity!
What do you conserve, besides the need for women and minorities, the poor and sick, to toe the line for the rich? Puritan discipline for thee, but tax breaks for me! Ugh. Even air, crops and clean water are useful only for your sneering contempt!
27
Have you been to Hong Kong lately? Maybe you are thinking of Beijing when you refer to the very bad air quality? And why the diatribe against conservatives? Don’t you think it was good policy that most lower income Americans received a tax cut and that their job prospects are better than ever? As an independent voter who cares deeply about the environment your anti-conservative attack is part of what scares me about the left.
2
You have not heard of the polar vortex? Its lack of stability and intrusions southward are the result of Global Climate Disruption.
8
@Howie
In Texas, we called them "Blue Northers." They've been around a long time. The only thing to stop them is a barbed-wire fence in the Panhandle. "Polar vortex" sounds much more scientific. Call it what you want, it's still just Winter.
2
Going to places like Duluth or Buffalo are fine for the short time. 100-150 years is a short time when talkig about the planet Earth. Yes we all will be gone by then. Changes need to begin Now. If not places where people live today will become uninhabitable. Larger population living in less area on this planet. How many Wars will that create?
6
@frank monaco Yet if you look at credible temp changes the last 10 years...the trend lines today are perfectly in line with the historic trend lines.
I know it's not popular to say, but much of the hysteria about AGW is overblown.
When the same people saying the world is ending also say that if all human activity ceased on earth tomorrow..temps would only go down .1 degree Celsius by the end of the century...I'm not going to sweat whether the avg. temp for April is 44.8 vs. 44.9 degrees where I live.
Nor should you.
Humans adapt..or we die.
All species adapt..or they die.
It's why God gave us the big brains. We will figure this out when we need to. It may take 50+ years, but progress will be made without destroying the economic engine necessary to lift a few billion people out of poverty.
Unless..you can convince a billion of those women to get their tubes tied.
3
We visited Duluth a couple of years ago so my husband could get custom fitted for the best motorcycle riding suit in the world, made only in a small factory there. (He ended up buying one off the rack. Don't ask.)
Its downtown was classic boarded-up rust belt, but it seemed like a nice place if you liked fishing, hunting, and snowmobiling. But then, if those are your bag, you might want to trynthe Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
3
@Observor Now you're talking. Houghton MI in the UP only gets 320" of snow a winter.
New Yorkers should definitely retire there.
They could even take a class at Michigan Tech..where the men are men...and so are the women.
5
Shh. Don’t tell any more people!
5
I grew up in the Finger Lakes region of NY. I now live in Atlanta. I don't care how hot it will get here in Georgia before I die - I'm never buying a parka again.
2
@Morgan
And, you don't have to shovel heat!
2
@Morgan And I would not trade a Minnesota winter for an Atlanta summer EVER!!
At least in the winter you can layer up and keep warm (where the sky is blue and the ground is white), whereas if you strip off the layers in ATL when it gets to 95 degrees and 95% humidity..they will arrest you no matter how in shape you are.
10
@Erica Smythe been saying the same thought for years
1
While it certainly makes senses for Duluth to grow more than it currently is, but it seems bogus to talk about huge growth up there (i.e. beyond it's footprint which could handle 100,000 or so) when you have depopulated areas in the core of the rust belt, far above sea level but comfortably in a more northern clime, that have tons of room to grow: Detroit, Buffalo (as mentioned briefly), S. Side of Chicago, and more. The answer is staring us in the face, yet this article uncritically runs off the deep end about what is a very remote place.
Honestly not impressed with this Harvard prof's research if he overlooked those places and recommended Duluth. There would be serious negative environmental side effects from major growth up there, tantamount to all the regular ill-effects of urban sprawl (new pollution discharge, up at the mostly very pure source of the Great Lakes watershed, no less-- why would that be good?). Detroit and Buffalo are downstream and have have footprints holding millions of people going back 100-200 years. They are far more sustainable options (Detroit fits 2 million comfortably and is now at 700k), AND, for economic sustainability and convenience purposes, they are SO much closer to the Atlantic and E. Coast ports. Less fuel wasted on shipping things to the dead-middle of the continent, where Duluth is.
Also, as we learned last winter, -30 F is dangerous and life threatening. Really not a good option for....just about everyone.
3
No one will be safe from climate change. Disease will overwhelm our health care, many new w/o any treatment. Coastal refugees will overwhelm less effected areas. Have just given a big tax cut, our government will be w/o resources to assist it's own people. Economic and Social collapse will envelope our country. There is nowhere to hide.
11
@ccmoll Right on ccmoll. Can Duluth raise enough food locally to support this new, larger population? I'm guessing not. And the great agricultural parts of this country that feed the rest of the coutnry will undergo severe climate change and production will suffer. Food pressure will be felt in Duluth. Health care is another good example. Hate to be so negative, but its GLOBAL climate change, folks. Moving to Duluth is not the answer. Reducing atmospheric CO2 is our only hope and not many seem to have an appetite for it.
8
@ccmoll
To many Zombie movies. it won't get that bad and if it starts to there's civil engineering. pesticides, herbicides and GMO's. Not what most of us want but survival of people is important isn't it.
I'm not so sure about Duluth being the most climate-proof place. Observations show peak summer surface temperatures of Lake Superior trending upward much more quickly than air temperatures at nearby land-based stations, and theoretical arguments support continuation of this. This means that the air conditioning effect will be reduced and humidity will be increased for Duluth (humidity in absolute terms, not relative humidity, an often confusing distinction). The older parts of Duluth are built below and on the face of a large bluff. This is the part that has been called the air conditioned city. But newer development has occurred farther northwest, on top of the bluff, where the air conditioning effect never was significant. Where would new residents locate? The point about availability of water is valid, although the reasons for water shortage elsewhere are poorly stated in the video.
5
My family lived in Duluth in the mid-70's (my Dad was in the Air Force and stationed at the air base there) and it is, indeed, a beautiful place-- though mud season can be tedious. I was in elementary and junior high school at the time. During the winter in 5th and 6th grade, we had to go outside to play after lunch unless it was BELOW 20 degrees below zero WITHOUT wind chill. Snow mobile suits were the answer. My sister's prom featured a polka band. The city was in a severe economic downturn at the time and it's where I first because aware of how difficult many friends had it compared to me-- an officer's kid.
They say you can't go home again, but perhaps I'll wind up near the "Great Lake they call Gitche Gumee" after leaving a home too near the ocean in Massachusetts. In another 15 years current nay-sayers will be rueing the opportunities lost and the depradations made by the current Administration. Ignorance and greed are the enemy and we are losing on nearly every front.
19
I remember back in the 80's when I still believed all the bull from the 'limits to growth' crowd. The Population Bomb, Peak Oil, and all the rest. Of course, we even had the beginning of Global Warming, although it usually took a back seat to the more pressing problems. Who really worries about what the temperature will be by 2050 when civilization will collapse by 2000?
Of course, Popular Science and the likes were filled with all the solutions. Solar and Wind Power. Biofuels. The Hydrogen Economy. Not to mention all the huge geo-engineering projects just waiting to get funded.
But somehow no matter how much time passed, the end of everything was always still a decade away. And eventually you realize it isn't really coming.
I figure by the time this current '12 years' is up in 2030, most of the Millennials will have realized it was just another false alarm, but by then the next generation indoctrinated in our public schools will have taken up the flag. Not for Climate Change of course, it will have faded just as the past Scares have, but there will always be something. Plastic Panic seems to be the newest fad.
6
@Schitzree
You're absolutely correct. I just went outside and saw that the sky is clear, and there's no visible plastic in the air. Therefore, it cannot exist here or anywhere else, not a million years ago, not today, and not on this cooling planet — yes, the temperature was below zero at least one day last month, so there's no global warming, and the planet is, in fact, cooling.
8
@Schitzree
I find it fascinating that these geniuses can somehow predict the future weather and climate. Too bad they won't be called out for it when it doesn't materialize.
The gorebal warming boogyman is here to stay I think. The UN oppression is helping. Don't forget, also in the 70s they predicted the coming ice age too, then they turned to gorebal warming instead. Now it is "climate change".
1
The old industrial NE cities will be making a comeback. It never made sense to live in swamp or desert areas to begin with.
18
What will a city that can handle another 150,000 residents do when ten times that number, or 100 times that number, decide to move to Duluth and its suburbs? This looks like an opportunity for well-positioned land speculators – if they can hold their land against squatters. For much more on accelerating climate change, see the multiple essays at astronomy-links.net .
1
@Clark M. Thomas I wouldn't hold on to any hope with a liberal mayor, anywhere. Just look at Chicago, New York, Detroit.....
1
If Trump wins again, we're looking at New Zealand's South Island. I'm not sure that Dulutians would want their city to be Texafied. Duluth is not that extreme right-wing region that they would be used to and want to create. There is a social aspect to this.
7
@M.S. Shackleyu
How is your 401k doing ?
From a MN ex-pat: A major contribution to the excellent quality of life in Duluth is its modest population. That quality will be lost with growth, as has happened just to our south in the SF Bay area. For its sake, please stay away.
6
@wg owen correct - it's just not built for a large population, and a huge grow-out would really create a lot of pollution. What makes Lake Superior such a pure source of upstream water at the top of the Great Lakes is its lack of any major population center. So silly that this researcher overlooked Chicago, Detroit, and a multitude of cities in the Great Lakes region (which also have more temperate and less extreme weather because they are on the lee side of the great lakes unlike Duluth-- another point the researcher overlooked).
6
@Brian
If I were to move to a city in the lee of the Great Lakes, I think I'd try for Toronto, because then I'd get health care, too.
19
@Observor And you'd pay a 70%+ effective tax rate, plus VAT taxes.
Health care in Canada isn't free.
2
Anyone who chooses to resettles to an area they believe will be safe from climate change without first taking MAJOR actions -- political, behavioral, cultural -- to work to avert this catastrophe is 1) delusional (the food system collapse is going to impact everyone no matter where they live) and 2) morally corrupt.
This article read like a real-estate ad.
Until we put our bottomless need for our own personal well-being second to the well being of the ecological systems (including species diversity) on which all life on this planet depends, we are ensuring our own extinction.
Seeing ourselves as a part of a whole is the opportunity that climate disruption is asking us to rise to.
21
@Trellan Smith Well said. if they point is to get away from sea-level rise, why is this researcher sending people to such a remote and brutally cold place. Drive to the first ring suburbs of NJ or Hudson Valley and you're +200 feet and more than safe.
If the east coast is too muggy or you like swimming in fresh water-- move to Buffalo or upstate or Detroit. This is not complicated, and you're right, this article is comically uncritical and promo-like.
1
A million year ice age ended 10,000 years ago. Rising oceans separated England from Europe. Temperatures began to rise. In the last 50 years we have developed instruments capable of showing very slight changes in temperature and the chemical composition of the atmosphere. As of last month, per satellite data, the earth as a whole was .36 centigrade warmer than the 40 year average. The earth warmed as much between 1880 and 1935 as it has since 1975.
The most recent IPCC report cannot attribute any weather events to the most recent slight rise in temperature.
1
[Dr. Keegan's research] suggested that present-day Texans and Floridians might make excellent future Duluthians.
__
That's true. Many who migrated south for no state income tax, better weather and lower cost of living would probably be eager to move to Duluth - far from their original home city in the north.
Then, it's funny, there are those along the Gulf Coast and in Florida that think S-N-O-W is a dirty four letter word.
4
Sounds nice but when sea levels rise and the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence rivers back up. and the lakes overflow and flood these coastal cities what's the plan ?
3
@Jamie Keenan
If the Mississippi backs up, the water will be collected in our southern flood plains and reservoirs, a.k.a. Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.
4
Global temperature has increased by 0.8 degC over the past 160 years. Don't try to tell me that I'd notice this.
2
Chicago is also a great city in the Great Lakes region. We do seem to have some changes in recent years, especially in winter. A few winters ago we have a bare ground most of January & February. We have, according to experts, more polar vortices then we used to, but are a city which knows how to heat the hot cocoa and hunker down for a brief winter respite. It also seems to rain more, but, in general be milder than it was 30-40 years ago.
That said, if one talks about Buffalo, then "lake effect" snow must be mentioned. While Chicago gets some of that off Lake Michigan, we sit on the west shore of the lake. With the usual prevailing winds blowing from the west, Buffalo, which is to the east of its lake, gets waaaaaay more. Just sayin'
6
There’s no escape. No alternate planet.
33
What a great piece of journalism, and also photojournalism! I've had a fifty year relationship with the city, they just won the national hockey title for the second year in a row, but can you live here? If you like outdoor adventure, this is your place, fat tire trails, fishing, ski-doing, and well, you know eh, fishing. Flannel shirts outside drinking in February at the brew pubs in west Duluth might be the best experience of your life, or, or not. Nobody needs flood insurance here.
9
On those winter days when the wind picks up speed across Lake Erie and pummels at full throttle the streets of Buffalo, I can guarantee that you will not be thinking about global warming.
9
Then Canada must be THE place to be. Colder and with more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
But we just might need to build a wall on our southern border, to keep out climate refugees sometime in the future.
40
Solving the problem now is the only real option for quality of life. Fleeing affected areas simply transfers human concentration into a smaller remaining area and accelerates the destruction of the last remaining pristine natural areas too. I doubt that the people of Duluth appreciate the NYT's advocacy for their wonderful little area as the recommended destination site for a survival migration.
14
Recent news may require heading to cooler climes more quickly.
Nitrous Oxide, (a GHG 300X more-potent than CO2), whose emissions in the Arctic were deemed negligible by the EPA, as recently as 2010, are rising precipitously.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/melting-permafrost-releasing-high-levels-of-nitrous-oxide-a-potent-greenhouse-gas
“Thawing permafrost in the Arctic may be releasing 12 times as much nitrous oxide as previously thought, according to a new study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, can remain in the atmosphere for up to 114 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Nitrous oxide emissions have been rising globally in recent decades thanks to the expansion of industry and intense fertilizer use. But scientists had long thought that emissions of the gas from melting permafrost were “negligible,” as the EPA described it in a 2010 report.
“Much smaller increases in nitrous oxide would entail the same kind of climate change that a large plume of CO2 would cause,” Jordan Wilkerson, an atmospheric chemistry graduate student at Harvard and lead author of the new study, said in a statement.
“We don’t know how much more [nitrous oxide] is going to increase,” Wilkerson said, “and we didn’t know it was significant at all until this study came out.“
12
@Kevin Greene
The nitrous oxide problems will be fixed soon when the Trump EPA ceases to report on them.
7
Here's a short video of four Australian climate scientists discussing frankly what it's like to live with their knowledge of what's coming and where they are relocating their families to in order to minimize coming impacts.
One of them is David Griggs, a former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific working group secretariat, who said that he thinks we are heading into a future of considerably greater warming than 2 degrees C, and that that means many people will suffer, many people will die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIy0t5P0CUQ
12
Here's a short video of four Australian climate scientists discussing frankly what it's like to live with their knowledge of what's coming and where they are relocating their families to in order to minimize coming impacts.
One of them is David Griggs, a former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific working group secretariat, who said that he thinks we are heading into a future of considerably greater warming than 2 degrees C, and that that means many people will suffer, many people will die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIy0t5P0CUQ
3
In talking to science journalists who follow the domino effect of climate warming, it seems to me that this article is missing the point. We are not talking about one locale vs. another where the thermostat outside the kitchen window is a wee bit warmer. We are talking about massively destabilized global weather patterns, in a butterfly effect. Duluth will be no better off than Mumbai. Just look at the recent Midwest floods.
10
There are many angles, and this journalist chose to show one of them. it may not be satisfactory not interesting to you, but others will surely find it instructive.
As for myself, it's a hard pass on this one.
1
@Pearson
That's a new one. The entire world is going to become uninhabitable. Can't get more hysterical than that.
Journalist are not scientist by the way.
The developed world is struggling with refugee flows measured in millions.
The last time atmospheric CO2 was the current level, sea level was high enough to force 10 percent of the current human population to move. That's 700 million refugees from that one impact alone.
Throw in those forced to move by drought and heat waves and the number climbs substantially.
What was that about the numbers of people that Duluth's infrastructure could handle? 150,000 was it?
6
Our family has a hunting cabin in the Upper Peninsula Michigan. It's been in the family for generations, the younger generation isn't as much into hunting but sees the land and cabin as a good place to 'get off the grid.' Between worry over climate change and hype around tiny houses off the grid, it's nice that younger people aren't so obsessed about urban city comforts and see the benefits to having a cabin in the woods without plumbing or electricity.
7
You guys are leaving out a MAJOR factor. When it all hits the fan, what's the first thing that's going to happen? The people with power are going to come and TAKE the water, the land, everything. That's what happened when Greenland was first settled. One colony had managed its resources wisely and was doing well. Another colony was starving. The starving colony ate up their breeding stock. And promptly showed up to raid the colony that was doing well.
Just because you buy a house in Duluth, pay it off, and think you're sitting pretty when it all hits the fan, doesn't mean you get to keep your Duluth house. Or your Duluth fresh water. Or your patch of arable Duluth farmland.
It will take the more powerful about thirty seconds to take it from you.
31
@Teresa Neal
Hobbes wrote something to the effect that human life without civilization is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".
17
Also, to the few Conservatives who have responded, I am wondering what exactly it is that your party is trying to conserve? The GOP used to care about the environment; it was Nixon who, after all, founded the EPA? What has happened to all of you? Don't you want a habitable Earth for your grandchildren?
56
I love Duluth, a rugged, attractive post-industrial, now environmentalist little city. But wimps need not apply. Lake Superior gets to about 64 degrees if you're lucky and it's a hot summer. That's by August. Winter is endless. Just had a blizzard there last week. But the faint of heart aren't really our kind of Minnesota people anyway.
15
There would be alot less global warming if people would stop eating so much more food than they actually need.
10
Duluth can accommodate how many more people? 150,000 more--or 150,000? Article and picture give different answers.
2
When calling Duluth climate resilient, is the impact of likely changes in rain fall being overlooked. I have heard of predictions that rain fall in the Lake Superior watershed could decrease, which could result in the water level dropping until water not longer flows out of the lake. If this were to happen this fresh water lake could become a salty landlocked sea. It would also be detrimental to the port in Duluth. Is this scenario not longer thought to be a probable result of climate change or is this being overlooked? I don't think anywhere will be spared changes in caused by climate change locally and we are all interconnected in a larger economy. We are all in this together on this one planet we share.
9
@Todd Hart The question is how are people positioning themselves to profit from climate alarmism?
1
There are great profits to be made by denying climate change. Further profits can be made by promoting the denial. One can gain even more profit by denying that humans have anything to do with it.
14
@Todd Hart As salt and fresh waters warm algal blooms grow and cause increasing anoxic dead zones.
We can see how these oceanic coastal dead zones grow and merge in a dead-zonification of the global coastal ocean.
And then you don't want to eat anything grown in it. It's a gastronomical Russian Roulette which doesn't sell.
2
How about some articles about technologies that can reduce carbon in the atmosphere. This seems more constructive that suggesting that lots of people move to Duluth, or expecting everybody to stop using fossil fuels, or putting still more taxes on people.
10
@Amy agree, and moreover, if Duluth, in the middle of the continent and at the FAR interior end of the great lakes became a major population center, if would be very unsustainable getting fuel and goods all the way in there, compared to someplace closer to the coast and to established lines of transport like Chicago, Detroit, or Buffalo-- all places that are built for millions more than they currently have. This article and this "research" is really lacking.
1
If Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, or Finnish blood runs in your veins, head on over!
17
I'm Duluth-born, Duluth small business owner, Duluth career professional.
Please don't come here.
37
@tabasco Why? Is it nice you don't want to spoil or is it bad....
8
@tabasco
And if you do, do not vote.
2
Still pushing that tired lie? Here are some facts that belie 'global warming':
-Glaciers were Already Retreating Before 1900
-Ice ages have been coming and going for eons.
-The last 20 years have shown zero warming (hence the switch to 'climate change').
-Man produces less than 1/2 of 1 percent of C02 on the planet.
-It was warmer in the 15th century than it is now.
-The greatest warming in the 20th century was between 1935 and 1950.
-NASA confirms: Sea levels FALLING across the planet in 2016 and 2017.
-NASA Data: Earth Cooled by Half a Degree Celsius From '16-'18
-Scientists have been caught manipulating and hiding data.
-None, NONE, of their prior predictions have come true.
-In 1995 Al Gore said by 2005 Miami will be under water "due to Global warming". Miami is NOT underwater.
-The highest record temperature ever reported was 136 degrees Fahrenheit in Libya in 1922. The record high temperature for the United States was 134 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California in 1913.
-Excavations in the Antarctic have shown vegetation use to cover the continent.
Let's put on our big boy pants and acknowledge reality.
5
@George Orwell - It is a time honored rightwing tactic to cherry pick isolated data points to mislead people. One only need to go to the NASA website itself (instead of crazy rightwing websites) where there is a graph showing steady and relentless sea level rise from 1993 to today. I encourage readers to go to sealevel.nasa.gov to see for themselves. There are periodic small blips in the curve; and an undeniable upward trend. It is an indisputable fact that NASA agrees with the scientific consensus on manmade global warming. Knowledge is the antidote to modern American conservatism.
95
@George Orwell this is amazing news! Please cite your sources (the ones that are actual science, not share-price protection screens for oil & gas companies or heavy industry)
46
@George Orwell Literally five minutes and some interneting invalidated every point you made (actually I didn't need to invalidate every one, because like 6 of them were too stupid to acknowledge...). That's what happens when your worldview comes not from unbiased research, but systematically honed via propaganda, and filtered through confirmation bias. Next....
64
Experienced two years and two summers in Duluth in mid-80s.
Rust Belt-like industrial city with all its (overwhelmingly negative) consequences on quality of life. I don't believe that any real "revitalization" or adaptive economy took place there since (and Duluth wouldn't be the only one in that regards).
Yes, if you have a livelihood though internet (as too little of it can be generated locally, as many depend on government payments) and buy at bargain one of those industrial and hey day era overlooking Lake Superior, that might be the way.
But you have to close your eyes and be very selective as what you see (some nice public building from the era when Duluth supposedly had more millionaires per capita than NYC).
Cherry, a small place on Iron Range, north of Duluth, close to International Falls (record holding "Icebox of the USA") was the place where the notorious, life-long leader of American Communist Party, Gus Hall, lived. I used to say that his bitterns toward the country was misplaced, as it were bitterly cold winters there, not the social system which made him feel the way it did
So, we are not planning to move to Duluth anytime soon.
5
Good, don’t
11
Clearly you haven't been there for a while.
6
Duluth is the real deal. They recently landed the annual Independent Television Festival, which will host the likes of HBO, Netflix and Bravo. The fantastic natural beauty and ready access to outdoor adventures, not to mention the abundance of craft brew pubs tipped the scale. Interested in owning a spacious historic home - at an affordable price? How about a music concert on the shores of Lake Superior? Intellectual and cultural events at a local college or university? With Duluth you’ve hit the jackpot. Just be sure to bring warm clothes when you visit or move there!
4
I have been praying for climate change for 40 years now. I live in Seattle.
I can't imagine ever feeling a need to move to Minnesota even with severe global climate changes. If I simply move east about 40 miles and up in elevation, its a whole new world weather-wise. If the Cascade Mountains become unlivable I doubt there will be a Duluth.
2
Could having at least two residences contribute to global warming? How does he get back and forth?
If you're in the Northeast you don't have to worry about it getting too hot. The polar vortex will keep us cold.
1
Driving back and forth once a year compared to brutal commutes every workday in larger metroplexes has to be less impact.
1
In 2018, Minnesota is the only state which had a "divided" state government. One party state government such as Florida and Texas have often leads to corruption and silly legislation from state legislatures which have no checks or balances on their practices.
Until Rick Scott was forced to move from Governor to Senator by term limits, his administration banned the use of any phrase referring to "climate change" in state agencies. Not sure what Miami and the Gulf Coast call the regular flooding when high tides coincide with rainfall, here in Gulfport, we call it "Rick's d##n climate change" and wear flip flops to the beach-side restaurants/bars.
4
This was an interesting piece, but the title was, I believe, misleading: it said "These Cities..." And the article described only Duluth.
What are the others?
8
@MikeG
Good point. And kind of absurd that this article runs off the deep end with such a remote city, when there are other northern cities that fit all the criteria but with more temperate climates, or with an already-built out grid with room to spare. Michigan, PA, Ohio, and western NY are much better options, and their downwind position east of the great lakes makes them far less extreme than Duluth. And they contain much bigger cities with room to sustainably and responsibly grow, away from the coasts. Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo are much better options.
1
Pleased New York Times, no more silly articles/columns trivializing climate change.
19
Mr. Keenan suggests that the truly wonderful city of Duluth may be climate-proof, but neglects to mention another environmental catastrophe looming upstream. He celebrates the fresh water of Lake Superior as if it is a given, making no note of the huge copper-nickel mine — PolyMet — that is currently proposed to be built in the St. Louis River watershed. The St. Louis River flows through Duluth directly into Lake Superior, the greatest of freshwater lakes and source of Duluth’s drinking water. Copper-nickel (sulfide) mine tailings react with water to create acid and release heavy metals that, if the mine is built, will pollute Lake Superior waters for centuries. Unless Minnesotans and all Americans stand up to demand clean water before profit (NOW, there is still time), mines like PolyMet will continue wind their way through our ever-weakening permitting process, threatening the pristine waters of the great Lake Superior and the great city of Duluth.
65
So the Times and their crack team of climate reporters have switched from blaming every weather event on climate change to picking winners and losers in the climate change wars?
So this here Dr. Kennan gets paid by Duluth to market Duluth as a climate proof city -- and this here ace reporter thinks it's ok to use him as a source?
Really?
I don't even believe it. My head is spinning. I feel something akin to what those with TDS must experience when he tweets.
First question: Has Duluth warmed? Yes it has.
Second question: If warmer temps are expected to bring more precipitation, why is having water nearby important. How many lakes are there in Minnesota? A whole bunch. None as big as Superior of course but over 11k.
Third question. Why would we expect Texicans to move to Minnesota? I mean, they've got this booming economy, it rarely snows in most parts, and if things get hetted up, you just ratchet up that AC. Heck, Texicans got oil, wind, and a lot of sun. CC ain't gonna scare them. I bet they could even put in a nuke or two if needed.
Seriously folks. How can you take any of this seriously with stellar reporting like this?
3
Please don't move to Duluth, nor to anywhere in Minnesota. We are overpopulated — note the combined population of the Dakotas, for example — and we are already overrun by insects moving northward and westward. We lost millions of elms in the 1980s, and now our ash trees are being killed. One third of our lakes are polluted from farm runoff; blue green algae is killing pets; invasive plants and runoff fertilizer are ruining lakes; and wild rice is becoming a novelty. On the other hand, if you love ticks, this state is becoming a haven for them. Although we have lovely winters with temperatures that still dip far below zero, we no longer have the sufficient number of consecutive days at –30 and –40 to kill off the critters. (And no, they don’t make good pets!) Also, if you are attracted by Rocky, Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right, you need to know that Frostbite Falls isn’t real, and Dudley is Canadian. Stay away ... or you’ll freeze to death during the only enjoyable months of the year.
17
I guess that article about climate change hysteria turned out to be correct.
1
Duluth is a great little city. Fargo is fine. Madison is magical.
Sioux Falls is a real gem: affluent, green, beautiful and some of the country's best health care.
It pains me to see friends choosing to live in hellscapes like Phoenix and Palm Springs when the North (stop calling it the Midwest) is so much more livable.
21
Climate change isn't just about global warming, but extreme weather as well. If not already cold enough at times, places such as Duluth may well begin to experience winters too demanding for even the hardiest of souls.
6
@JHM Very true. Historical global data shows that there has been no increase in extreme weather events - if anything, there's been a decrease. Remember, the USA is only 2% of the Earth. What happens there is if little significance.
Instead of addressing climate change we're now looking about for someplace to hide while the rest of the world suffers??
19
This similar story from Reuters that ran a few weeks ago lists other cities doing the same beyond Duluth and Buffalo. Worth a read.
“Cool U.S. cities prepare as future 'havens' for climate migrants” https://af.reuters.com/article/BigStory10/idUSKCN1RI061
4
Living where winters can cause frostbite every year? NO THANKS! I've come very close to freezing to death on several occasions in my lifetime (once caught unprepared whilst hitchhiking in sub zero weather in Cincinnati of all places) . I have absolutely zero intentions of tempting fate like that again. Moving to anywhere with sub zero temperatures isn't in the cards for me ever again.
4
@Martino
I grew up near Buffalo and was an AirForce meteorologist for 22 years running. Buffalo gets a lot of snow, but sub-zero temperatures are rare events.
4
@JSK
The article also mentioned Duluth, which does have sub-zero temperatures, although rarely in July.
2
Tropical Minnesota? Tropical Buffalo? IDK!
I figured this out at least 15 years ago. It’s Seattle, for me.
Don’t tell anyone.
3
@Phyliss Dalmatian Isn’t Seattle sinking?
2
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I have lived in Seattle for over40 years. I would support a wall across the southern border of Oregon. Seattle is not Bible-thumper friendly.
5
Don't move to the Pacific Nothwest - all it does is rain, rain, rain... all we have is great coffee, great beer, great wine, great music, and civil residents. Did I mention the rain?
6
What effect will Climate Change have on the level of the Great Lakes? If they were to rise or fall substantially, this would greatly affect Duluth, most of which, including all of Industry, sits at lake height.
3
@Dnain1953 - Unlike the oceans, which receive all drained water in the world, the Great Lakes actually drain somewhere (the Saint Lawrence River and then the ocean). So I imagine the extent that their level could rise is pretty limited under most situations. So it’s not nearly as great a threat as ocean rise, I would think.
4
@Jim. No one can predict what the water level of the great lakes will actually be. Right now the levels of all the lakes are all going to almost record levels.the level five years ago were at extremely low levels. The whiplash effect of these fluctuations is entirely in line with climate change. All sorts of weather phenomena exhibit this exact kind of behavior. From my perspective where I live it is not what it used to be like in my youth. And by the way Duluth has got zero on anyplace in michigan.
6
As a native Duluthian, I love seeing this. Duluth is a spectacular city with an extraordinary amount of infrastructure built in it’s first boom. (I date East Coasters to look at the gorgeous historic real-estate available in this city!) This is a city ready for a grand revival. Yet I also have vivid memories in the period in the 1970s when the water Lake Superior was so toxic, due to mine run off, that we could not drink it. Mining and gas pipelines pose a true threat to the future of the Great Lakes, North America’s greatest water resource. We need to act now to protect them.
34
Duluth - it's colder than you think. I grew up in Duluth but left it for good after high school. The most legitimate argument for Duluth as a sanctuary climate change city is Lake Superior (it's vastness, it's freshness, it's inimitability). But here are some other realities of Duluth: 1. There are few jobs for young professionals - there's no base economy that's growing. 2. It's 92% white - when I brought my partner back to visit, she found Duluth to be close-minded and unwelcoming for her, a woman of color. 3. It's winter 9 months out of the year. Brutal, on all accounts.
16
I like Duluth, but give me anywhere along the coast of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Greatest unknown part of the United States. Even the Lower Peninsula tries to pretend it doesn't even exist. Seriously. When I was a kid in Saginaw, Michigan, we'd be shown maps of Michigan that completely cut out that part of the state. It simply didn't exist or matter to the Lower Peninsula people. It's the land time forgot.The NYT went to Duluth. Ha! They missed the real climate refuge. Go to Marquette! Go to Houghton! Go to Christmas! (Yes! There is a town called Christmas!) Go to Sault-Ste Marie! It's almost Canadian! Plus, forget the Detroit Lions!They root for the Green Bay Packers! They'd actually like to be the 51st state and call their state Superior. I think they should quit those snobs in the LP of Michigan and do just that. Yes, the winters are a bit long, and the snow averages around 200 inches a year, but so what? It's great.
9
@Michael Kennedy The snow is a big part of what makes the UP great! Ya, hey!
7
The UP along with Mackinaw Island are the most magical places in this country.
4
@Michael Kennedy. All true statements, but if we are talking about large populations moving off the coasts, the answers should be Detroit, Grand Rapids, CHI, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo. UP is for adventure and visiting, not building-up....and that's part of the problem with this promotion of Duluth-- why would we want a huge population center up on the shores of the purest large body of fresh water we have? And there are tons of places that can sustainably absorb millions....
I've lived in Minnesota and have experienced the severe cold and wind chills in winter that can make it unsafe to be outside for more than a few minutes. Not exactly what I would call a "climate-proof" location.
6
@Jim L
Ever been to Phoenix? Palm Springs?
4
@Jim L There is no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothing. I have spent many winters in Jackson Hole Wy. and enjoyed every minute. Same for Vermont.
I think it boils down to whether you are an indoors or outdoors person. The cold climes are for outdoor people who get out and enjoy the snow. The summers are enjoyable as well.
Florida in the summer is unbearable.
8
@JHD
Florida is unbearable only in the summer? There is only so much clothing you can remove before violating laws without lowering body temperature. In the various visits I've made to Florida, I remember one pleasant day. It was in June, 1959. It was raining, and I was walking on the tarmac, boarding a plane to Chicago, on my way to Rochester, MN. It was my best time in Florida.
2
You know, what happens if a huge volcano blows in the Pacific Polynesian islands putting enough ash in the high atmosphere to start a new ice age? This has and will happen again. This is the perfect location to affect global weather (it has been scientifically modeled as such). So if you were in Duluth at the wrong time a river of ice might just show up.
2
Sounds like an ideal time to join the Detroit renaissance.
6
What will be exciting to watch from cities on the Great Lakes will be the day when the ice-age depression of that area by millions of tons of ice-age material is finally ''sprung back'' from.
The process is moving along already, of course, as tyou can see one or more ships that burned to the waterline now showing above the same waterline because the underlying rock is rising back to its original position from over ten thousand years ago.
Will this or that lake become simply rivers with the prairie recovering most of the bottoms of the lakes, starting with the shallowest?
And how will that affect Lake Wobegon, everyone's home town?
4
Back in the nineties some Iowans were congratulating themselves on warmer winters. Now, though, about half our counties need assistance to cope with the results of this year's excessive rain (ruined gravel roads, fields near the Missouri River that won't be growing crops this summer, whole towns under water, etc.) Warmer weather alone would be easier to cope with. It's the destabilized climate that comes with it that could be a life-threatening problem anywhere.
8
Interesting, my family decided several years ago to make a trip to Duluth and buy some land because of climate change. We live in the Mid-Atlantic South and realized out teenage children will need a different climate to live a healthier life. Climate change is already making life difficult, but in 20 or 30 years the South will be unbearable for many reasons. People can make fun, but we've made plans.
17
@Sabee
Didn't you hear AOC recently? We'll all be dead by that time!
Just like we all died by 2000 A.D. like Hollywood actors warned us. And Al Gore promised Washington, D.C. hasn't seen any snow in YEARS!
1
@The Observer
Please, tell us more!
3
Yep.,
Speak more of the lore of thy people. It’s hilarious.
2
I will say that living in Chicago or any place with sharply contrasting seasons adds a sense of rhythm and passage of time to one’s life.
I hope the Great Lakes can be preserved as we have experienced a Chromium spill, storm water runoffs, coal plant discharges, invasive fish etc.
Indiana has been the most irresponsible.
20
@Anne Stop dumping and the lake will self clean as water drains to the ocean.
2
I grew up in Ely, Duluth, Cloquet, Minneapolis. Love the summers, hate the summers on the East Coast. But let me be brutally honest; this is a great place from May to October. If you can take some seasonal variability, go April through November. But there are 4 months that require adaptability, self reliance, and positive mental attitude. For East Coast reference, Duluth’s winter months are much more challenging than Maine’s. LL Bean’s thickest parkas are not sufficient when the polar vortices drop from Canada.
Weather aside, the people are great, there are a disproportionate number of interesting well educated or well experienced people here and a wealth of good architecture. But do the city, and yourself, a favor and do not move here as “summer people”.
17
@Robert Goodell Whats wrong with summer people?
Those Floridians moving to Duluth will miss their gators, Burmese pythons, and flamingos. They will have to trade their flip flops for snow shoes.
8
An example of a very misleading headline. I was expecting a much broader survey of some kind, not a promotion or profile of Duluth and Buffalo. A disappointment.
38
Thanks, but I think I'd rather battle it out by the pool here in L.A.
7
Assuming there is one, of course.
3
@Robert is one what, a pool or a Los Angeles?(snark) LA has to contend not only with climate change but also the coming Big One (earthquake).
1
More people die from cold weather than hot weather - it's not even close...…. Talk about logic issues. NYT..… BTW, I am not denying the earth is getting warmer...….. Just don't extrapolate illogical deductions......
10
@Average American:
As most "average Americans" do re climate change, you have missed the point. Look up "crop failures" and "ocean acidification" and their relationship with climate change.
It's not about, "Oh, it's a bit warmer today; I think I'll wear a short sleeve shirt." . . .
10
He’s just reciting a typical denier line; see, you’re more likely to get the flu or pneumonia in the winter, especially if you’re older, so death rates go up a bit, so they always try passing that off as “proof.”
See also the LIA, Antarctic pack ice, the Medieval Warm, Vikings in Greenland (not joking), and so on.
Sheer nonsense, bit it’s not like they are gonna be able to slog through the actual data or scientific papers or something.
5
@Average American exactly. The earth is getting warmer. We know that. Although the rate at which it will continue is extrapolation. What we DO NOT know, in spite of what the "sky is falling crowd" says, is how that will affect individual regions. It's almost entirely speculation to say what the climate will be like in 50 years in a given region. And by climate, I mean a much more varied set of data than temperature.
1
Duluth. Take it or leave it. Take it if you like fresh air, fresh water, fresh beer, fishing,camping, snowshoeing, skiing,biking,good restaurants,low crime, low unemployment, vibrant music scene, first-rate universities, (national college hockey champs two years in a row.) Or leave it...please.
11
@peter Lies, Duluth Crime Rate Index is 6/100 (100 being the highest grade..) You have a 1/22 chance of something being stolen from you (which I have experienced) which is over twice the national average. The brutal winters is the best part of the year because no one can pan handle you because staying outside can be lethal after November.
For a few days during the winter of 2013-2014, it was literally colder in Duluth, MN than it was on Mars. I know this because I lived it.
I love Duluth. This is my home.
However, please don't move here because of a poorly written NYT article.
42
So the Times reporter goes to Duluth and interviews some guy from Harvard? Huh. At least the story gave Fitger’s some free advertising and didn’t make the Riviera of the North look nearly as wonderful as it is. Move on, New Yorkers, nothing to see here.
15
This is a truly idiotic article and Dr. Keenan should get back in his lane. Climate adaptation expert??? - You're a designer for God's sake. How about the opinion of a qualified scientist? Climate change is not simply a matter of temperature, its a matter of the weather getting weird. Weird as in polar vortex weird which plunged the temps in the Twin Cities to 28 below and far lower in Duluth, its making it wetter here too and causing things like historically severe snow storms in April and ten foot waves crashing into Duluth (it snows here in April but the big storms we have been getting are unusual.) Shame on you New York Times for publishing this.
32
@ROK
Absolutely agree. Feel-good nonsense that doesn't recognized that climate change is non-linear.
12
@willow
Just thankful the author didn't 'discover' Fairbanks ! (Plus it's really expensive to live
here. Oh, and the mosquitoes . . . but you
really should all come up and visit for a bit.)
3
He teaches at Harvard, his doctorate’s in soc, and his area of specialization is urban planning in response to climate change. I realize you guys ain’t exactly rocket scientists, but come ON, already.
5
Duluth - you've been pranked.
15
Many people don't know what a threat global warming is to humanity as we watch the farming friendly Holocene Period recede in our rear-view mirror.
A population of a few million human hunter-gatherers was apparently beyond the carrying capacity of the planet as many places where we showed up the megafauna disappeared.
Around 10-12,000 years ago, when large climate oscillations settled down, we developed agriculture which allowed us to double our population many times into the billions.
But agriculture faces big challenges if we don’t change our ways soon (1), as do our fisheries, and if they both decline significantly, forcing us back to being largely hunter-gatherers, history tells us that out of every 1000 people you see maybe one survives.
Except this time it won’t be meat on the hoof with Mastadons and large, flightless birds and picking up lobsters off of New England beaches.
Going back to hunting and gathering during the current 6th mass extinction is poor timing, so the one in a thousand could prove wildly optimistic.
1 IPCC Western N America drought 1900-2100
22
@Erik Frederiksen
Well stated, Erik. The only time when the words, "Be fruitful and multiply!" would have made sense was when the population of the new human species had been reduced to a few thousand individuals in East Africa.
8
@Erik Frederiksen
Should be a 'NYT pick' for the first sentence, excellent !
10
@Erik Frederiksen Being an alarmist is not helpful. This will be a very gradual process leaving plenty of time for migration and innovation. Carbon capture is being developed as we speak.
We are not even doing the easy stuff like stop cutting down the rain forests (natural carbon capture) and filling our oceans with plastic. Everyone wants to politicize it to gain some advantage.It's so easy to fool the ignorant masses.
Well, also Fargo.
@KM
Nah, the Red River is no Great Lake and it floods.
1
The broader takeaway from this article is that mankind has migrated in response to climate change since the beginning and will continues to do so. Climate change alarmists are concerned that the status quo will be upset but they never bother to mention that mankind will survive in locations which are now relatively uninhabitable. So, there'll be winners and losers. Our city of Rochester is supposed to have the current climate of Maryland by 2035; maybe they'll be able to produce a decent red wine in the Finger Lakes. Meanwhile, there's still plenty of land available in Canada.
5
@pete: "Mankind" may survive, but in greatly diminished numbers. Those uninhabitable areas have really, really lousy soil for growing crops. For example, Much of Canada has Canadian shield rock to grow crops on.
8
@pete Canada is probably the world's most over-populated country relative to the amount of arable and habitable land, and relative to the carbon footprint required to live here. The last thing the world needs is more Canadians. In any case, the simplistic "winners and losers" concept just doesn't work. Even if somewhere in the Canadian Arctic suddenly had the climate of southern California it would take centuries or longer for soil to develop to support agriculture - you can't grow grapes on glacial till.
9
With one-fifth the world's freshwater drinking supply in the Great Lakes, the entire upstate New York corridor is poised to welcome climate change migrants. There is plenty of beautiful, open land, decent infrastructure, and if you stay out of the snowbelt between Oswego and Utica, you'll have lovely green summers and enough snow fall to keep the aquifer supplied. Furthermore, that region could really use the population. High taxes and low economic growth has prompted many to leave, but climate change may bring them all back.
9
@Maureen: The best part of the Great Lakes Region? Ontario!
2
@Maureen
The article mentioned Native American Reservations that will eventually become prime property.One of the biggest difficulties will be figuring out a way to dispossess the native Americans and cheat them out of their lands
4
Haven't we been there and done that already?
3
As the climate changes Alaska, particularly south central Alaska, will become increasingly attractive. We already have deliciously cool, dry weather from May through September. As the climate changes this will extend to April through October. Add in long days with almost 20 hours of day light in the mid summer and you won't find a better place to live in 2050.
3
@Jack: 2 billion people can't wait to move in.
7
@Jack
Just as long as everyone stays south of the Alaska Range, us Interiorites will by happy. Los Anchorage is all yours.
@Jack - Sounds great till winter when you never see the sun.
I'd almost move there but the taxes are horrible. The 8th worst State and it's empty.... Why? Is snow removal that high?
1
interesting - this headline immediately reminded me of fortnite. as you progress through your match, 99 gamers in tow, you are constantly at the mercy of an encroaching storm. your collective safe space, the eye, grows smaller and smaller until there's barely any room to hide from your opponents.
are people in this country - and perhaps the world - going to crowd into these self-touted safe spaces, building their forts and trying to save their health and "shield" without falling outside the zone?
maybe it's a good thing the kids are playing this game - not until right now did i think it was could potentially serve life skills? and dancing lessons, to boot.
2
Like a lot of current articles, this piece trivializes the issue of climate change, basically reducing it to a decision about moving to a colder climate. I'm just surprised to see this kind of thing in the Times.
29
@Stevem
Disappointing, yes. Deeply disappointing. But not surprising to me. I notice most of the newspaper is an attempt to flatter the existing prejudices of the readership. Try submitting 10 critical comments, then 10 flattering ones.
4
@Stevem Yes even the NYT prints the truth from time to time. Of course you shouldn't give up your car before you relocate. When the heat becomes unbearable, as Florida summers already are, Just get in you car and drive north.
Easy and effective. I have been doing it since 2007.
Or you can be an alarmist and protest until you get heatstroke.
3
Delicious, Devine, Duluth!
this is a disgusting attempt to buy your way out of the mess we are in. instead of giving consumers tips to lighten the load of our predestined collapse due to consumptive lifestyles.. you are offering articles how to save your soul in this last few decades.
really?
16
And as an added bonus the people there are Minnesota nice.
6
The premise of this article is pernicious, and the Times should have better use for its pages. The idea is that I can beat climate change by seeking my own private well-being. This will only result in the destruction of the environment of the Great Lakes. I'm sure this thinking wins some notoriety for the professor; but he should really think about what he's fomenting, as should the author of this piece. Look at Florida and the Southwest. Humans are a plague which destroys the natural world.
16
@John C.
More west coast nonsense. Humans are the plague as can be verified on the west coast.
1
I'm totally disappointed that this article is nothing more than cherry picked stories. Where is the data and evidence based analysis? At least provide links to places with data so we can judge for ourselves. Just so stories picked based on some personal hunch are not a basis for moving.
8
@Craig Warden Just common sense.
Cooler climes, big cold lake, thousands of other lakes and rivers, beautiful country, infrastructure for double the existing population. Seems mighty appealing to me.
Common sense trumps data produced with an agenda.
1
From Minnesota: Sorry -- WE"RE FULL.
9
The climate crisis is global and there will be no escape.
We must stop and eventually reverse our insane population explosion.
We must abandon consumerism.
We must stop swarming all over this planet and settle down and care for the place we live in concert with all people in all places.
We must end this era of insatiable greed.
We must realize that Earth does not belong to us.Rather we belong to Earth!
29
@Craig Millett
That's all great but impossible to get the world to comply.
South America and the rest of the world is destroying the rain forest, we are filling the oceans with plastic, polluting the worlds waterways, Islam is causing mass migration,
Even the great Paris accord allows the worst polluters to continue polluting the atmosphere.
It would take a world war to reduce the population of the world and forcibly stop the destruction of the earth.
A world wide pandemic killing half the population would do the trick and maybe mother nature will solve it for us.
An example of how we are unable to solve the co2 problem is our unwillingness to use Nuclear power. As long as the ignorant rule the world we reap what we sow.
3
@JHD
Rather than nuclear power try cutting total power consumption by stopping our 24/7 lifestyle, calm down and stay home. Most of what we do is unnecessary distraction from simply living on Earth. Please try thinking outside your tiny box.
7
@Craig Millett "Calm down and stay home"? How do you expect to enforce that, planet wide?
1
This article and, apparently, the guy with the "where to move" ideas, makes the simplistic assumption that the only issue with climate change is heat waves. Interestingly, the article happens to mention that one winter week the temperatures were a negative 60 degrees, and it was dangerous to go outside. Arctic inversions are a symptom of climate change — in recent years are more frequent and cover more territory because the Arctic itself is warming. If the Great Lakes warm, they will expand, flooding the infrastructure lining their coasts. (Not to mention all the other environmental issues they are facing — which will only get worse if a bunch of wealthy Floridians and Arizonians move there and start building beachside housing and resorts.
So, overall, the idea that we can just move and and everything will be ducky is pretty stupid. Global warming is global — and its effects will be devastating to all parts of the planet in the coming decades.
19
Sure, I guess we are at the point now where people start to consider places to flee to. Good luck!
3
Being a "lecturer" (i.e., not on faculty) in Harvard's design school is not a qualification for dispensing climate advice. A three year old could easily suggest moving to someplace colder if the climate gets hotter.
15
Maybe, except that that’s not what the article’s about. Maybe if you read it...
1
This is demented. In most parts of the U.S., bad weather is an inconvenience. In northern Minnesota, bad weather will kill you. For much of the year, if you make a mistake outside the sanctuary of a heated building, you may be discovered as a human popsicle in your broken-down car, in a snow drift with your also-frozen dog, or in plain sight having slipped unnoticed on the ice and become immobilized. Your survival time will be measured in minutes. There is the fiery furnace, and then there is its opposite: northern Minnesota. The weather there is no joking matter.
13
I ask permission to criticize your newspaper, because I find this article notably unintelligent.
When and if migration is spurred by climate change, those migrating will be fleeing economic disruption and consequent social disruption. Anyone on the sea coast need only move inland by miles (or yards). The number of people apt to find their climate too hot to bear can probably be guessed at by considering how many people presently find Phoenix and Las Vegas suitable places to live.
In other words, the problems will be tumbling living standards, a collapse of security, outbreaks of war, and social strife, not thirst, slow inching inward of the ocean, and scorching heat.
The article trivializes an apparently grave matter down to a sophomoric level. A grown-up mind would have screened out this piece with speedy gusto.
23
I've been saying for the past 28 years I've lived in WI that there isn't a cheap enough house or big enough lottery winning to make me move south of Chicago. Now way, no how. I'll be retiring soon and if I move at all, it will be further north.
8
@crystal: to Winnipeg?
During the climate crises of the 1970s, Texans put bumper stickers on their cars that said "Let the Yankees freeze in the dark". We've lived in Albany for 23 years and during that time the winters have become milder, yet we have never broken 100 degrees in summer. If it would pass zoning, I could get my water from a 20 foot point well so I'm staying put. You can always put more clothes on when it's cold but without air conditioning, the southwest is unfit for habitation. Maybe we should build a wall at the Mason-Dixon Line.
12
@Nana2roaw
I like the "Ski Dallas" bumper stickers we see here occasionally.
Duluth has been a refuge for Minnesotans from summer heat for decades. When its 95 and humid here in Minneapolis, its a wonderful 65 in Duluth. In fact, as we were leaving last summer, the temperature downtown by the lake was 65. We drove up the hill towards Minneapolis and 20 minutes later, it was 85 degrees at the top. The city has a decent arts scene, and is architecturally reminiscent of San Francisco from decades ago. Beware, the winters are harsh, though, and snow is possible about 9 months of the year.
3
The article misses the point oh, it's not a bad things just getting warmer so they called places will be more habitable oh, cool places might become too cold in winter. In addition to that climate change is more about droughts, flooding, fires, which will make our food supply and other kinds of resources in a manatees that we rely on today much more scarce. So if you're living in a remote region, maybe it will be cooler than in India or Saudi Arabia, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you will have access to food and resources. Probably, people need to band together around the most habitable regions to survive. In a book on reading on climate change, there is mention of the concept of half Earth, where buy in a certain scenario, only half of the earth's surface is truly habitable by people ~100 years from now. There will be a lot of human migration which will occur before then as people search for the best places to survive, which will most likely precipitate Warfare. The situation is looking pretty bleak for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
4
@Percaeus
Well, considering that 70% of the earth's surface is cover by ocean, we're well below 50% habitable now.
2
There's no arguing the need for fresh water. The article doesn't address how badly inhabitants of places like Duluth are for the original "problem" (ecosystem destruction, euphemistically known as "climate change" or "global warming") in the first place. This makes the article seem more like a "chamber of commerce" piece than a global warming article.
From the article: “We had one week in particular that it was negative 60 almost every day with wind chill...”
Do you have any idea how much fossil fuel is being burned and turned into CO₂ emissions to keep the interior habitable in the winter?
There must be many other areas that will have a solid fresh water supply but not require planet-killing, coal/gas-powered AC and heat most of the year.
9
Minus 60 degree wind chill? No way. This Floridian wants palm trees and no cold weather in winter. When it hits the 50's I'm shivering. I grew up in Chicago, so been there, done that. No more.
8
The Great Lakes are being drained for from fracking and for bottled water sold for profit. None of us are safe until all of us.
10
@Mel
How many bottles of water will this fill if there is never any more rain or snow:
"Superior is so voluminous that, if poured out, it would submerge North and South America under a foot of water."
2
The problem with these types of articles is they assume that climate change is simply about warmer temperatures and that there is some "escape."
Climate disruption is being caused by global warming, but the form it takes is quite varied. After five years of drought California got near record rainfall this winter.
But then, so did the Mid-West in the form of rain and snow that produced record flooding.
There is no "escape" from climate disruption because our "climate" is a complex, interconnected system. Global warming makes the entire system unstable and subject to extremes of both heat and cold.
While there is no mistake that average temperatures are going up every years we are also seeing drastic dips in the jet stream bringing extreme cold followed by unusual warmth.
The combination is bad for all North American species, from insects, trees and humans and especially bad for those humans called farmers who rely on a level of stability that is rapidly going away.
26
@Drspock
Thank you for adding a broader, science-based perspective to this article. That was also my first impression after reading it.
C'mon, NYT, you can write better, more informative articles than this. Lazy, poorly researched articles maybe for celebrity reporting, but not for issues relating to climate change.
21
@Drspock
The loss of the relatively stable climate that allows for annual agriculture is something most people seriously don't get. Especially those advocating to 'kill the cows' and 'go vegan'. As climate destabilizes, grasslands (much more resilient to harsh weather than annual cereal grains) and the animals they nourish will become ever more important, partly because the grasslands are an excellent carbon sink and partly because the animals will nourish us. At the moment,
it's really important to focus on preserving the 'heritage breeds' of cattle, sheep etc. as they will do much better than the commercial breeds in marginal conditions.
5
Articles like this only hint at the desperation that is coming as climate change worsens and the degradation of our environment continues. Without large-scale immediate mobilization of the federal government to address our carbon output our society and economy will not fare well.
16
I once lived in New York City and lost my heart to it. Living in Minneapolis I discovered Duluth in 1998 and still gulp on cresting I-35 and seeing that beautiful city on the edge of that amazing lake.
20
All of the negative comments about Duluth here betray a profound ignorance.
...which is probably fine with most Duluthians. Why share its stunning beauty and cool temps and cool culture with parochial coastal elites?
12
@Bob New Yorkers love to think that rural towns and cities are just desperately waiting for them to show up.
4
New York City elites look negatively at all flyover country dwellers.
4
@Cap21 This is the same view stated by the West Coast elites about "fly over country."
2
Wasn't it the local lad Bobby Zimmerman who sang, "the climate is a changin'"?
4
Duluth. Really? And why would I want to be that cold in the winter? And what is there to do in Duluth in the winter?
Honestly, this is an infomercial. No science. No thought. It's amazing people get paid to think up this stuff.
13
@alocksley. While I was growing up ski jumping was the big thing. Not so much today but there is downhill skiing within the city limits and cross country skiing within the city limits. Ice boating. Snowshoeing. Ice fishing. Great to watch the national champion hockey team in a comfortable arena that hosts many many other various events year round.
4
@alocksley have you ever been to Duluth?
4
I take a vicarious pleasure in seeing photos and videos of people dig themselves out from under a snow storm from the comfort of my own cool 65 degree apartment right here in Oakland. No, there's no moving to Duluth or Buffalo. I spent a night in Buffalo several years ago, that was enough for a lifetime.
However I am surprised Trump has not yet appointed a "Fresh Water" cabinet post to figure out a way of exporting all that water to his buddies in Saudi Arabia...maybe after his upcoming visit to Minnesota he might do that.
7
As a Wisconsinite, it still shocks me to hear the vociferous responses to any suggestion that the Midwest has something desirable that the coasts don’t have. I love New York! And San Francisco is enchanting! Yet I have no trouble seeing how people might be willing to trade broadway shows and museums, or wine country and tech culture, for clean air, fresh open water, affordable housing, easy bike commutes, good public schools, honest middle-class employment, and friendly neighborhoods. How many of you naysayers have even been to Duluth? I visited for the first time last summer and was blown away by the geography of this city climbing up a cliff on Lake Superior. We also had a lot of fun (Duluth has the largest freshwater aquarium In the world, I believe) and ate and drank very well. Go ahead and say that the idea of Duluth does not appeal to you—I get it—but don’t put it down unless you have actually experienced it yourself, because that’s just ignorant and, with all due respect, a tad arrogant.
24
My next move is will partly be based according to emf radiation levels and whether there is or is not small cell deployment on surburban streets. My guess is Duluth, with 86,000 population and growing, will not qualify. Just looking at the artificial light at night in the photo is a turnoff for me.
2
Ok, So what happens after that? Where does the world go when it rises another 5%. Humans have an amazing ability to put off thinking about death - and this now extended to that of the eco-system!
9
@scientella
It's already a die off, it is just waiting to happen. We are gone, but other species will likely survive, and certainly the planets will spin, the galaxy expand, and the universe continue without its privileged headaches.
2
This article is terribly misleading and demonstrates a new form of climate denial - pretending that escape to a safer place is possible. This is a dangerous fantasy. Food production and other essentials will be hugely impacted. Forest fires will wreak havoc. Let's stop pretending we can just move somewhere else when global catastrophe and worldwide instability reigns, as it surely will based on our current trajectory.
36
@David Jordan Yep, this comment nails it. We can't simply acquire our way out of the upheaval that climate change will bring across our society.
9
Duluth, ha!
I lived there for 4 years, the worst 4 years of my life. The weather: freezing in winter, rainy in spring, humid and buggy in summer. I will admit that fall was very nice.
The climate it is the least of it. It's the people. Ever seen Fargo? It's not a send-up, it's a documentary. I once asked a guy if there was good coffee in town and he said that Burger King's
Stay where you are and buy AC. Stay out of Duluth. You'll thank me later.
14
@vbering
For someone from Pullman to put down another municipality/region say volumes...
2
You never had a mocha triple whip cappuccino at the BK? Pure heaven in a Solo cup.
What a weird article. The author seems to ignore (or be unaware??) that climate change, although it means a warmer planet overall, also brings more brutal winters with record-breaking low temperatures and snowfall, as well as big storms very late in the season- like the blizzard in the Midwest just last weekend! Who wants to be buried in snow for 6 months out of the year?
I myself am a climate refugee of sorts- I moved from a midwestern city on a Great Lake after the brutal winter of 2017-18 to sunny, warm Florida.
3
As a Florida resident for the last 40 years I can tell you this is the last place I want to retire, too stinking hot from March until November. Problem is the perfect places like Sydney and San Diego are too expensive.
5
I suggest that people move to Florida. The more the better (for us who stay).
2
Buffalo is in the top twenty for most segregated cities in the USA. It was deliberately segregated during the mid 20th century as highways were built and whites fled to the suburbs and has remained just as unequal since.
Buffalo has a sizable Puerto Rican and refugee population, but they are concentrated in the poorer parts of Buffalo along with the African American population. Most minorities are crammed into the city while many white Buffalonians occupy the mansions by Delaware Park or Orchard Park and dominate the suburbs. That is not to say that white Buffalonians are all rich (they aren’t) but that white people disproportionately make up most of the wealthier Buffalonians. The stark reality is evident even by just driving down Main Street—the buildings and businesses go from successful and clean to foreclosed and falling apart.
Buffalo is currently rebranding itself with the Medical Corridor and apparently now as a destination for climate change refugees. (The Medical Corridor has brought jobs and wealth into the city at a cost for residents in its immediate area.)
If Buffalo really wants to become a destination for climate change refugees and continue to call itself the “city of good neighbors”, then it must treat its residents equally first.
9
People in Florida want warmth!!
@Karl
I always wondered why they didn't just go south. The Equator is warmer, and it has far fewer Floridians.
Last year I had the same thought about Cleveland, OH thinking of how empty its center is and how in need of climate refugees it is.
2
Only 56 people were added to the population in six years? Apparently those long cold winters do not contribute much to the birth rate.
2
Climate Change means anything can happen at a regional level, even if the world is globally getting warmer on average.
Hot places can get hotter. Cold places can get even colder.
What if Climate Change means that northern USA actually gets a much larger and more severe polar vortex four winters of five?
10
Welcome. Move to Metro Detroit. We have plenty of fresh water, a city where a group of developers can purchase land pretty cheap, and who knows, with long term arrangements with the City of Detroit, may even be able to form own township / enclave with its own police, schools & administration. Detroit area has great infrastructure in place with 2 major high ways - yes they need fixing. But over the long term it will be worth economically, climatically & socially. Major hospitals, a leading 150 year old State university (Wayne State), sports & entertainment & just across the border from Canada. Think of warming climate on the shores of Great Lakes and Detroit River.
We are friendly.
12
@Zor "Fresh water"? Really?
@Alexandra - “Fresh water” means not saltwater. It doesn’t mean crystal clear spring water. It means unlike the ocean, it can be cheaply treated and then consumed.
3
@Alexandra On the banks of Lake St. Clair / Detroit River, close to Gross Point.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Detroit,+MI/@42.4023352,-83.1356055,11z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x8824ca0110cb1d75:0x5776864e35b9c4d2!8m2!3d42.331427!4d-83.0457538
Advertising certain cities as climate refuges does none of those cities a favor. This type of feature article is worthless as news and harmful as entertainment.
18
Wait, wasn't it the 1970s that you were predicting another ice age?
1
@Tamar: You're thinking of puff pieces which appeared in the 24 June 1974 _Time_ and the 28 April 1975 _Newsweek_. That was sensationalism, not science. Better throw out that stack of old magazines from your garage.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-coming-ice-age/
12
@Tamar
That was a claim made by a single scientific paper put out by two scientists based upon them doing a trend line from just a few years of history.
It was immediately ripped apart by the scientific community. The mainstream media however hyped up the “story” so they could sell more product.
So yes in the public eye this occurred. But in the scientific world, it was fake news.
13
Your headline is misleading. It implies the story will give a list of cities where one can escape the effects of global warming. But you only covered Duluth.
32
@Joe Mostly but they do mention Buffalo in passing. Still a misleading headline.
5
@Joe
Yes, you could sail two supertankers side by side through the gaps in thinking here. Which areas will approach uninhabitability will be determined by wealth and social cohesion, not raw temperature or elevation.
Just as Earth may soon pass or have already passed the point of no return on climate devastation, the Times may no longer be capable of doing better than this. For both, it's been a long, slow slide.
5
Move to Buffalo!!! No, thanks. I spent two years in college there. I'll take the global warming, the locusts, and fire breathing dragons that you'll are predicting, and wear whiter shades of T shirts. Thank you.
13
I live near SLC at 7000'. There are elk in the yard in the morning and an occasional lion. I can be on a 10,000 ridge in 30 minutes. The clean air you boast about in the Midwest is whatever we discard and send East. Don't come out here. Duluth? Ha ha!
1
@Rob SLC is beautiful but the temperature inversions in winter can create a quality of air that can be as bad or worse than Beijing.
5
@wanderingblonde I live in Park City, crystal clear air every day. The NYT's recommending some midwest city is the height of hilarity. For that matter, you could not pay me to live in NYC either.
1
its not global warming
its climate change.
Change for the better... better for the biosphere.
warmer, wetter, more tropical.
further away from the last catastrophic ice age.
finally, tropics increase, plants grow in the north.
people can move. Earth needs its green life.
2
@KC2020
No.
Emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are warming our atmosphere (global warming) which is increasing the energy (heat) in our atmosphere, disrupting our planetary circulation, which is climate change.
Unless you love poison ivy, this warming is not good for plants in the way you misrepresent.
21
The new GOP/Trump spin. From denial beneficial.
13
considering the cities recommended in this article, I will take my chances with hurricanes, floods, alligators, snakes here rather than move to those cities.
Surely, there must be better places to recommend.
5
jesus christ, like minnesotans need another reason to be smug af. “10,000 lakes.” “great state-level arts funding.” “not wisconsin.” “climate refuge.” okay! we get it!
10
Green New Deal. Feel the Bern. The smart Europeans and Canadians and Australians and Japanese are doing all they can to stop global warming while the myopic selfish Amerikans are destroying everything as per their actions not words. Guess the stupid Amerikans never read or cared to read or understand Dr. Suess "The Lorax" especially the hollow republicans and their lackeys and loyalists and Trump hick supporters. How'd that work out for ya with that Global Warming denials in the South and the coasts?! Go ahead and keep voting for destructive republicans and against your own interests Trump hicks.
18
@republicans r a disease.
Looks like you might have to scratch Canada off your list:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/canada-climate-carbon-tax-elections.html
1
Hey! What about Acworth, NH? 1. We had nearly a foot of snow just four days ago, 2. we're not far from the ocean, 3. Despite that snow, we have a very mild climate, and we're just 40-50 minutes [if Massachusetts turnpike folks aren't snoozing on the job] from Boston.
Why, we even live on almost 50 acres of forested mountains and open pasture.
AND! We even have bears and deer and hawks and lovely rolling grassy "knobs". In fact we live on one called "Coddy's Knob" about the size of a football field -- all lusby green and guaranteed to wear your labs out as they run from one end t the other.
AND,
If that doesn't sell you, how about all the maple syrup you can guzzle [I like it on New England packed ice cream :)...seriously about half of our forest is tapped by an old New Englander neighbor who gives us one helluva discount, so we pay about 1/3 what you do wherever you are.
:)
8
@Melvyn D Nunes:
Thank you for saving me the trouble! While somewhat farther north of your location, we share much in common. There are deer in the front yard as we speak, and every time I take a walk I carry the NH Guide to Animal Tracks.
One morning late last spring, my dog alerted me (silently) to the presence of a pair of moose walking up my driveway. Surrounded by woods, but for the footprint for my home, I enjoy the good life--clean air and water and skies devoid of the haze commonly associated with smog and related climate issues.
Live Free or Die indeed!
7
@Peggy
Heading our way? just keep your eyes open for our brother-sister golden Labrador tandem. They'll bark like they're ferocious, then roll over for a tummy rub. :) tough job, being a lab on 50 acres. They'll keep you warm, too, in winter...
4
Stop it. You're killing me. Nobody is moving to Duluth. If anyone wants to sell their Florida beach front real estate at a discount because the global warming maniacs are having a hissy fit again, please call me.
7
Head for Duluth? That might not do much good. I don't think enough people appreciate the role of amplification in global warming. The warming is amplified in the polar regions. The Arctic has already reach 2C which has increased melting of ice. There is now less ice in the Arctic Ocean to reflect back solar radiation and more dark open ocean to absorb solar radiation. This increases the warming in the Arctic. What many scientists are extremely alarmed about is the vast amount of permafrost in the Arctic which contains organic material. Thawing from increased warming can result in the organic material decaying and the bacteria releasing methane or carbon dioxide and thereby an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the last thing we need. Rather than looking for some favorable location to flee to it is more use to think of global warming leading to "game over." Perhaps human energy directed toward fleeing could be better used by directing it to reducing emissions before it is too late.
41
@Bob You got it 100% correct!
12
The idea that any of us can "escape" global warming is a fantasy, and the Times should be ashamed for publishing an article that essentially encourages climate refugeeism (for those who can afford to move, of course) rather than getting involved with conservation efforts or local politics in the parts of the country likely to be affected the most.
26
I hate the cold, I hope global warming makes NY at least 20 degrees warmer in winter!
2
@David - Move.
5
@David You realize this comment of yours puts you in the wrath and fury of all the zealots who take this stuff more seriously than life, itself. Be careful fellow traveler; I'll see ya in a few years in Mexico-on-the-Hudson as we walk arm in arm wearing our T shirts in January, enjoying a large ice cream sundae.
1
Ah, but what if those 20 degrees come to stay, through summer?
4
The population of Duluth is currently just over 86 thousand, and I imagine they are very civic-minded with strong back bones to survive a harsh climate. Move 1 or 10 million global warming refugees there and say goodbye to the clean air and watch the water levels dry up. There is no point giving endless false hope of fresh new « pastures » to the billions who will be affected in one way or another. Instead, lets start discussing planetary population control.
15
Lake Superior is headed for a record high this summer. Duluth may be under water before Miami.
5
“As the West burns . . .”
Dude, LA just went through the coolest winter in recorded history.
I got a place on the beautiful Pacific in California and in Mexico. I’m not moving to Duluth.
Sigh.
It’s called climate CHANGE for a reason.
You might want to look up, “wetter, warmer.”
And while you’re at it, maybe think through why you’re taking one season as proof we’re not warming the planet. Were no snowballs available?
5
@RLS Do you have adequate fire insurance? Fire season in CA is all year how-all that rain grew grass that will fry in the heat, and burn in about a month. Also, make sure you have insurance for the mud slides that will follow the fires...
5
I find the premise of this article to be morally repugnant and the entire mindset on display to be shockingly narrow and fundamentally wrong-headed. Climate change is going to create a worldwide refugee crisis of unimaginable proportions, the knock-on effects will be unpredictable and unmanageable. There is still so much we can do as a species to limit the damage and try to turn this Titanic around, but it requires long-term thinking, an acceptance by the powerful that the science is real, a commitment to helping those in the hottest regions survive, and an all-out push for habitat restoration, carbon limits, reforestation, new ways of eating and producing food. We need to be centered on the idea that we are all in this together. Don't fool yourself thinking Duluth is going to be your cool gated community on an overheated planet.
30
What global warming. The earth is cooling off. Expect this trend to continue for another 50 years.
1
@Tony Wicher - Nope. False.
2
@Tony Wicher - not true. According to the NASA website:
"Eighteen of the 19 warmest years all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998. The year 2016 ranks as the warmest on record. (Source: NASA/GISS). This research is broadly consistent with similar constructions prepared by the Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
We've been going to Duluth and other Lake Superior destinations for years. It's a secret, don't tell anyone else please! 'sconnies and 'sotans know it's a refuge, so please, shhhhh already! And yes it's cold! So cold, you might not want to venture this far north.
6
Duluth in July and August. After the mayflies and gnats. In September thru June, you can have it. The Apostle Islands Nd Madeline Island are spectacular.
7
So what is the purpose of this article? Telling the few privileged who can afford to move freely that there are places where they can go and be sheltered from the damage caused by climate change? Showing that climate change isn't so bad after all because some places will remain cool? However you see it, this doesn't look like the kind of topics that journalists should be spending their resources on, when talking about the catastrophe of climate change, specially when the government is only making the problem worse.
18
this is not the stupidest thing I've heard a public official say.......but it's up there !
4
One thing Duluth will never be able to change is very long winter nights. On the other hand those long summer days could be appealing if you don't mind spending some time sleeping during daylight hours.
3
Having to move to Buffalo or Duluth? OK. NOW I will support AOC's plan.
4
Great way to confront climate change! Let’s all move to Duluth where we’ll be safe from the heat. Instead, let’s all die from boredom.
10
For most of humanity, the scariest consequences of global warming are not changes in the local weather or even the possibility that their own homes and businesses will be inundated due to rising sea levels. The citizens of Duluth may escape those horrors, but they can't avoid the massive economic and political disruptions that will surely result from rapid global warming. Duluthians, the bell will toll for thee, too!
7
I would guess it will toll in Austin a lot earlier.
I'm sold on Duluth.
Save for the following: Where are the Tex-Mex restaurants, chicken-fried steaks and barbecue?
Once you have those establishments, I'm packing the Chevy pickup truck and heading north!!!
1
Disruptions in the Polar vortex will get more severe as a result of global warming.
Duluth is not immune and extreme cold is a deadly as extreme heat.
6
This kind of alternative-reality thinking is on par with those calling for Mars to be quickly colonized as a "Planet B". It leads the less informed and intentionally obtuse to believe that we as a species have options that we do not have.
When the oceans have sufficiently acidified and the plankton collapses, it won't matter whether you are in Duluth or Dar es Salaam or Dusseldorf. We'll have three to five years left to live.
All of us.
9
I'm fascinated by the fact that only 56 people moved to Duluth in a 6 year period. I think at least 56 people move to our town every day... I'd consider Duluth just for that reason.
3
What is not mentioned in this article is that cities like Buffalo and Duluth were already impacted by climate migration. Buffalo easily has some of the worst weather in the entire continental US. Buffalo has tons of snow and it's colder, damper and windier than the Windy City, Chicago. People left in droves and not just because of Buffalo being a city in the US Rust Belt. The impacts of climate change are just as likely to eventually affect Duluth and Buffalo, because one of the main components is more erratic weather patterns. There will continue to be colder colds, hotter hots, drier drys and wetter wets, not to mention more powerful tornadoes and hurricanes. And as the climate changes, who's to say that water level fluctuations in the Great Lakes also won't experience wider extremes. The article is more of a puff piece than a scientific explanation.
7
@Roget T Have you ever lived in Buffalo? Everything you said is NOT TRUE. While certain parts of Buffalo can get hit with tons of lake effect snow, if you live in the city of Buffalo, you won't - it is the south towns that get all the snow that you see in videos/photos.
Buffalo is not windier than Chicago and the people are much much nicer.
I suggest you live in a place first or least do some research before commenting.
1
What they forgot to caption those photos of Duluth with was they were shot in June of last year. Hahaha, if you enjoy ice well into spring and drab gray landscape for 9 months, head there most definitely.
4
Moved from Brooklyn to Duluth in the 60's. We had 2 young kids and wife thought I was crazy. I had been stationed there at the Air Force Base and loved it. We were there 10 yrs. and hated leaving. Still miss it.
5
After having worked in Duluth and surviving without getting frost bite, this message might be more applicable in 500 years. People will always want to live on the ocean and they will adapt. Towns like Duluth need to be able to provide more than just stability in the face of a changing climate. They will need to learn how to attract emerging industries and provide services/infrastructure that will draw the accompanying talent. Places like Minneapolis and Chicago are already better suited for people who want to migrate.
5
The article missed the downtown skyway system designed to keep workers, residents and shoppers out of the sub-zero winter temperatures. Also not mentioned were the boardwalk along Lake Superior, lake fishing and cooperative efforts between MN and WI to clean up the St. Louis River Bay between Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin. The University of Minnesota-Duluth offers many robust programs while Wisconsin state colleges, just across the river, are handicapped by budget cuts and are reducing programs.
6
@PV Oh yeah and how high does the Skywalk system go? 1st st, with the exception of the hospitals. Hillside alone extends up to 13th let alone the "robust programs" that UMD has. The only thing that UMD has that's world class is a hockey team. So if you're into that great, but do yourself a favor and watch it online.
This is a rather bone-headed article. Not because there is anything wrong with Duluth, but because it assumes that climate change will have stable, linear effects. One, climate change is non-linear and its effects may be different in 50-100 years than they are now or are even predictable now. Two, the social and economic effects if nothing is done now will be overwhelming in 50 years and go far beyond how hot American cities will get. Globally, the World Bank predicts over 140 million climate change refugees in 50-100 years, scientists predict cascading effects on food supplies as fish stocks crash, cultivated crops drop in quantity and quality, and water supplies vanish and the Pentagon predicts trade is disrupted by food and water wars. The basic reason climate change is an existential crisis is that it will take on a life of its own that goes far beyond just what the temperature is. The article doensn't acknowledge this fundamental aspect of climate change. So move to Duluth or elsewhere now taking climate change into account but don't expect that to work 20 years from now.
53
@willow
when first we spoke of climate change
when first we heard its sweep and range
encompassed several hundred years
at least, we tried to squelch the fears
that rose in us like unshed tears.
but now we do assume the worst
that we will live to see it first
destroy the homes of polar bears
an avalanche of heat, that shows we care
for self alone, for comfort, that is clear.
7
@willow Plans to prevent/limit climate change do not prevent the need for a plan to mitigate climate change. We do need to reduce emissions but we also need a plan in case some of the impacts are inevitable.
Agreed. This is idiotic. When will scientists with PhDs learn from their economist friends that predicting the future is not in their skill set -- or anyone's.
Anyplace that already has weather will likely see greater extremes in that weather. Which means if you move to Duluth, prepare for the below-zero temps to get lower and the snow to get deeper.
5
I'm grateful that they didn't mention the Queen of Lake Superior -- our home, Marquette MI. As I type this I'm looking out across the Lake to a seemingly endless horizon. And still near a foot of snow on the ground. You gotta be tough to live up here, but it's so worth it. Our air is pure, and so is our water. There's no noise pollution by day nor light pollution by night. We can see the aurora from the deck. We're visited by deer, bear, moose, lynx. Then there's the University of Northern Michigan. No, you don't want to move here. Too many tourists. :)
285
@Old Owl been there a few times to visit relatives. It is a hidden jewel.
18
That's a beautiful place indeed!
18
@Old Owl. Whenever one of these articles comes out, there are always a handful of people who write in and talk about how beautiful and inexpensive and wonderful their little patch of the world is.
But I grew up in an inexpensive, pretty little patch and couldn't wait to get out. The racism, provincial view of the world, lack of diversity, culture, ambition and jobs made me glad to live in a more cosmopolitan place, even though it had myriad problems of its own.
91
What happens when hundreds of millions of starving people move northward from the regions close to the equator in search of food and water? Think a wall is going to keep them out?
"Escape" is only going to be temporary. To a significant extent, the big influx of impoverished Central Americans coming to the US is due to crop failure caused by increasing droughts rooted in climate change. It's going to get worse.
40
@The Poet McTeagle: The Republican solution is, We have plenty of guns and ammo. How that will help when they're trying to barge into Canada is left unanswered.
3
The wealthy that find it cynically amusing to mock climate change know that they more than anybody will be better able to buy haven somewhere and maybe even find some way to profit off the misery of others (and to increase their "relative wealth" - the gap between them and the rest, which is really the only kind of wealth that matters to them) as the climate intensifies ("change" is too neutral and vague). And the wealthy that mock those that dismiss climate change in order to feel morally and intellectually superior also know that they will fare better than most, so they'll take the rhetorical high-road as long as nobody expects action that is too "extreme" in combating it.
13
Where did you get the idea that you have to be wealthy to live in the Upper Great Lakes?
2
@Joe Olivier
@ Clearwater
@Bluenote
Your suggestions that place like Chicago and Detroit will attract climate change refugees rests in part on the assumption that the factors that caused people to leave these places (Chicago in my case) will no longer be a consideration. I do not agree. The wretched level of municipal services, the corruption, and the hate in both places will remain a disincentive.
7
@Quiet Waiting: Someone who lives in Texas already has no problem with a wretched level of services, corruption, and hate. (Full disclosure: I'm in Dallas.)
3
Future generations will look back and wonder how we ever could have turned a blind eye to climate change as if it was a hoax.
23
@Tim Miltz. Because it would force the GOP to admit that Al Gore was right.
And they cannot abide that.
7
@Tim Miltz. I feel the same way about people blind to the fact that Islam is a political system, not a religion.
@Tim Miltz The only people who are turning a blind eye to climate change are our idiot GOP politicians. No social progress on their part. God, how did Trump ever get into the White House.
5
“Duluth! A great place to stay cool while your family slowly starves from climate-based global agricultural collapse!” (This message brought to you by the Duluth Tourism Bureau).
Sorry folks, but renting a UHaul won't save you from global warming.
24
A better plan would be to move to a big swing state like Texas and register to vote.
58
@Steve Evading climate change goes far beyond the topic of Republican/Democrat. There is no firm plan on either side. Trying to balance current livability with the need to mitigate and limit climate change is not an easy task even with determination.
7
@ John.
Quick - name a single Republican proposal to address climate change and a single Republican candidate for POTUS who is running to address the matter. As an alternative there’s the Green New Deal and Jay Inslee.
At least one party is trying while the other, well, not so much. Agreed that Democrats need to do much more but Republicans seem hellbent on stripping Earth of its resources with no consideration for the consequences.
39
@John: Maybe no firm plan, but all of the denial and obstruction is on one side. There will be no progress while the Republicans are squatting on the seats of power.
11
Just goes to say that like Duluth Canada will be more of climate change refuge as well as the corn belt moves north.
So maybe those Never Trumpers were right all along!
2
@Kevin Niall The assumption that the corn belt is going to proceed northward in an orderly fashion is extremely unlikely to happen. You might want to do a little more research into the predicted effects of climate change on Canada. It is not a pretty picture.
2
"The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in Duluth". Not really what Mark Twain said but close.
11
@Jon Tolins Actually what he said was, I believe, "the coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco."
2
This has such dishonest, career promoting hype. It is so embarrassing. As someone born not far from Duluth, I think northern Minnesota's charms can be sold honestly. John Lammi PhD
8
These cities are exactly two!
5
Maine is becoming real nice.....in 15 years our growing season in Portland is now 20 days longer.
Downmside; we have more and more invsive species moving into our area and now able to survive such as the Brown Tail Moth, Gypsy Moth, and a host of new birds (like turkey Vultures) and a whole bunch of new ocean creepy crawlies such as the green crab which is decimating our clam and oyster beds.
There's no climate change....as long as you are among the whillfylly ignorant.
18
@citizenUS....notchina The devastation of ticks that survive the winter killing off moose in Maine has been well-covered in the nYT. Another catastrophic effect of climate changeand a hideous fate for the moose - covered in ticks for years and slowly bled to death.
4
Keenan did not make a great impression among Duluth's progressive community. Seemed more like an appeal to real estate investors hoping that gentrification will finally arrive here. Meanwhile, this same month we have thousands of Sunrise movement town halls about the Green New Deal, including one in Duluth at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center, 9:30 am- 3:30 pm. Bring a dish to share, and ideas, questions, and hope.
9
Marketing greed and ignorance is now a major.
4
I'm laughing at all these posts!
Tucson is hot, hot in the summer but I'd rather live with the occasional 110 degrees and the snowbirds going home than to months of -70 degrees.
At least mornings and evenings are lovely in summer in Tucson when we can walk outside.
Our summer monsoons also bring much needed moisture and relief.
Please don't head down our way though, go to Phoenix!
5
Temperature is a matter of preference while access to water is a necessity.
7
@randy sue: Get back to us after the extended periods of 120+ degrees have started.
2
@randy sue
Do you suppose a warming earth won't change that?
It seems reckless to encourage climate change migration. Be careful what you wish for. Eventually people really are going to migrate in droves which will create enormous stress on currently stable infrastructure and environmental resources, creating all kinds of new complex problems. We should stop thinking about how to "escape" those states that are failing and start demanding that those states invest more financial and intellectual capital into solving very real problems. We don't need refugees from the mismanaged states - we need those states to start managing their resources responsibly.
39
@KFree The complexity of this situation is being missed. An area can effectively manage its resources and still become uninhabitable due to climate change. Mitigation such as migration cannot be taken off the table. It may be the best option for people in areas prone to flooding in coastal regions or areas prone to wildfires.
4
@KFree Too late, climate-change related migration has already begun. The “problem” at our southwestern border is related to states failing to address climate change related problems and people are voting with their feet (to quote Reagan). Our problem with this is that we refused to acknowledge the problems and we continue to refuse to respond to this problem in a humane and legal way. Refusing climate refugees is as nonsensical as refusing the Jewish refugees before WWII. Remember, we changed the law, locally in the US and world wide through the UN, to make sure we never made the same mistake again.
We have “forgotten” this to our own detriment.
8
@KFree
"It seems reckless to encourage climate change migration."
But, for example, the sophisticated EU counts on tens of millions of "climate change migrants/refugees" from Africa to resolve its problems with decades of dying out population. EU leaders thus repeatedly declare that in Africa lies Europe's salvation.
1
Maybe instead of moving, chasing the next best place, Americans could get serious globally and locally about climate change. From yesterday's NYT:
America has a lot of lawns. All together they cover an area roughly the size of Florida, making grass the most common irrigated plant in the country - all that grass comes with an environmental cost.
Homeowners dumped around 59 million pounds of pesticides onto their residential landscapes in 2012, according to the EPA. Some of those leach into the waterways, potentially exposing children and pets to harmful chemicals.
66
@kat perkins Getting series about climate change doesn’t inherently eliminate the risks. There are too many intangibles including emissions from China and India. We can be the most serious nation on earth on the climate change topic and still not avoid the impacts.
4
@John
so ..do??? nothing??
5
People used to migrate in rhythm with this changing environment. Climates are constantly changing towards an equilibrium, a balance. Large populations of people remaining in one place with diminishing resources is not sustainable. The snow birds have it figured. Move to Duluth in the Spring and head south for the winter.
4
@Donatello P.
Thereby increasing emissions with twice a year migrations and increasing waste associated with moving as well. Schools? Lots of problems with encouraging the wealthy to maintain two homes.
12
@Donatello P.
Good suggestion if people do the moving back and forth under their own power. Using fossil fuels, not so great.
6
I am in my early 70s and want to get out of Manhattan, mostly because of high cost of living, but also because of unreliable public transit, expensive private transit (surcharges on yellow cabs for short rides), and insufferable weather from April often into Otober now (hot and humid; hot and dry might be okay with me). I don't mind cold winters.
I want to be in another city with lower cost of living, decent public transit (at least for a city away from east), a major university medical center within a couple of miles, and a hub/international airport (that is, no commuter airlines). I also like access to the out of doors. Am considering Salt Lake City. Any other ideas?
3
@ellienyc try Albuquerque. It’s sometimes hot, but the mountains are close and it’s a dry heat. For the next 40 or so years, the comfort factor in Albuquerque is supposed to improve (but droughts are supposed to increase as well). Since we are experiencing out-migration, cost of living is pretty good.
1
Ithaca
1
@ellienyc
Seattle - still cheaper and greener than New York.
The Great Lakes are vulnerable to toxic waste and species invasion. As for the northern midwest, that has been cold lately, and flooding from erratic freezes and thaws. As water vapor increases, the snows are getting bigger. So no, that's not a better bet without an improvement in everyone's care for our resources, particularly clean water and not building in flood zones. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we have to cut out our addiction to waste.
18
All I can say about this article is that rearranging the proverbial deckchairs on the Titanic is the work of the career politician (and others). And deciding that Duluth is "the most climate-proof" is a good example of this.
We need to get serious folks.
73
Well, it seems that liberals are just as delusional as conservatives when it comes to harboring fantasies of escaping global warming. Once the oceans are warmed and acidified, killing much of the phytoplankton responsible for a majority of the world’s oxygen production, we’re done for. All the doomsday prepping in the world won’t save you. You want your kids to survive global warming? Then your best bet is preventing or minimizing it.
23
@Jim
A lot of this really does sound delusional. Run for your lives! Where exactly? To what end? Not all of us are delusional, but we are at the end of our ropes with those in power. I keep wondering why aren't we in the streets? Vietnam, Civil Rights, why not for the End of Life as We Know It?
2
Southwester Pennsylvania, pick a hillside.
1
@Chuck - Or better yet, a hillTOP; Keeps you out of the path of occasional flash flooding. Downtown Pittsburgh is 800 ft above sea level, and many of the surrounding areas are a couple of hundred feet above that. So the oceans won’t claim us anytime soon. But you have to be ok with nonstop rain, sleet, and snow. Not for the faint of heart or the Vitamin D deficient.
3
Climate change aside, Duluth has done a great job marketing itself for years as an outdoor paradise. It's been on my bucket list for a long time. In the same way people love Bend, OR and Asheville, NC--I think there's a big draw to city dwellers wanting more nature to move to these kind of cities. In terms of climate change, a more logical and forward looking federal government would be looking at ways to incentivize people, businesses and builders to move to climate friendly cities around the great lakes. Unfortunately, everything ends up being about the short term as we build more and more in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Florida. Places that will be uninhabitable in the near future.
7
60 below for a week straight? Imma pass.
13
Where is the list of cities? I could only find one, Duluth Minnesota.
13
@Leejesh
The article claimed three cities, I thought. But I only read two: Duluth and Buffalo. Waiting for the third, unless I read too fast.
3
@Leejesh Exactly. I am seriously looking to get out of NYC and was looking for a list of alternative cities. All I saw was Duluth and Buffalo.
1
Oh, let me be the spoilsport and focus on the reasons that so few people have moved to Duluth or Buffalo - and here we can skip over the stagnant (at best) economies. They both have climate problems of their own that are going to get worse.
Buffalo routinely has snow storms that can keep people confined to their offices or homes for days on end. With the increased precipitation that is a part of global warming, those storms are apt to become worse. Of course that begs the question of what sort of outdoor activity you can have in weather that is fifteen degrees below freezing other than shoveling snow.
Then of course there are the state income taxes in New York and Minnesota that do not seem to have yielded the positive results people would expect of higher taxation. Wait a minute - this is the NYT and there are many residents of that fine city reading this paper. Do residents of Manhattan really need an excuse for not living upstate?
2
@Quiet Waiting
Actually, after a bad snowstorm in Buffalo, the streets are normally cleared by the next morning. Nobody is confined inside for days on end.
21
@Quiet Waiting We do pay higher taxes in Minnesota. In return all four of my kids went to public school K-12 and on to state universities. They all are very successful. We don't pay private school tuition here, so I believe we are getting our money's worth. Also the day after a foot of snow falls the road are clear and everyone goes about their business normally. Again our taxes at work. We lead the country in most quality of life measures including longevity. Again, our taxes at work.
You want a low tax state, try Mississippi. Just don't plan on having any decent schools or services. You get what you pay for.
36
@Quiet Waiting and Houston has had three FEMA events in the last four years.
How often can that go on before businesses stop locating there?
7
Does anyone realize that statements that say "we have never seen temperatures ....like this before" means maybe75-100 years of record which is next to nothing if you consider what the term "climate" (1000s or millions of years) means?I wish the Times would stop publishing these meaningless scary stories about climate. Climate changes with or without human contribution. To expect a stable non changing climate is ignorant of how the climate system (which is way more complicated than just c02 in the atmosphere works!) works and that as much as we think we know we do not completely understand it!
3
The West burns because of poor timber management, the South has always sweltered, and any fool who believes the premise of this article and moves to Duluth is in for a rude awakening when reality sinks in: year after year of long, bitter cold winters, and short ephemeral summertime. I hope some of the doomsday folks do move to Duluth, because it will be the beginning of their education in weather and climate.
1
@Edwin winters have actually gotten shorter and mostly warmer (more snow recently though). My boat used to go into storage in September. Now I keep it out until end of October (on the lakes in April).
13
At the height of the cold war, people pored over maps showing the parts of the globe least likely to be affected by a possible nuclear winter. Now they apparently have in mind moving to places like Duluth, Minn., and Buffalo, N.Y.
The motivations change, then, but the end-times fixations remain the same.
3
This sounds like a truly horrible game of musical chairs. Who's going to have a place to sit when the devil stops playing his banjo?
15
The headline trumpets, "These cities," but the only city I read about was Duluth.
8
@Taylor
There was a nod to Buffalo as well.
1
Excuse me, NYT, but your headline here is inappropriate and oxymoronic.
Your headline (and the topic of the article in general) perpetuates the same wrong idea that Trump regularly repeats: that "global warming" means "warmer temperatures everywhere at all times and in all seasons."
If you really want to use the word "Global", then you need to title this article "Want to Escape Global Warming? These Extraterrestrial Objects Promise Cool Relief."
8
This article should have had a "paid for by Exxon" sign on it. There is no safe refuge from climate change!! It is enveloping us as we speak. Even the 12 year warning is turning out to be too optimistic. These articles are nothing more than an excuse for delay and false hope to billions who won't find their own Duluth!!
14
Wow, that is a heartless attitude towards our global catastrophe.
9
Check out Marquette Michigan in the "Upper Peninsula" The north's best kept secret,
2
You must not have gotten the memo. We don’t spread the good news about Marquette. If anybody asks, emphasize the cold winters and tell them wolves, bears and trucks with shotgun racks roam the streets. If they persist, go nuclear and tell them they may have to sit next to someone at Big Boy that did not vote for Secretary Clinton. That normally is enough to send the typical NY Times commenter (you’ll have to explain Big Boy to them) to go elsewhere. Even though I believe Secretary Clinton did win the city, it is a university town, we need to the shade the facts a little.
2
Methinks Duluth is often shrouded in fog.
1
Duluth is livable if you live near skywalk.
It’s great that we finally have a plan for climate change: move >300 million people to Duluth and Buffalo. Solved!
I’m sure the devastation to crops from insect extinctions and monocultures inviting bacterial and fungal wipeouts, the billions of people fighting over ever-scarcer resources, the inability to continue industrial agriculture on any meaningful scale, and all the other problems associated with destroying the ecological balance we depend on to survive can all be circumvented thanks to Duluth’s infrastructure.
14
When I hear of acquaintances moving to Florida or Arizona, primarily for retirement, it reminds me of the Poseidon Adventure. Specifically the scene in which two groups trapped on the ship pass each other, one group heading in the wrong direction. Despite warnings, they just refuse to listen.
12
If retiring, I doubt they will be around in 2050.
Northern Berkshire County, Massachusetts: North Adams, Adams, Pittsfield. Come for the art (Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Berkshire Art Museum, Rockwell Museum a few miles toward south county), summer theatre, Williams College events, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Berkshire Community College, Mount Greylock, (muse of Melville - see if you agree, from his window), Appalachian Trail, skiiing, Berkshire Medical Center and affiliated facilities, nearby Northampton and the 5 Colleges and all of Central Mass, daily Amtrak to and from Boston with convenient midday schedule if you don't want to do the beautiful drive, the sanity of Massachusetts politics (Richard Neal, a current "get those tax returns" hero of the House is our Rep), an hour to Albany and its airport, a few minutes from the beauties of Vermont , Inexpensive Housing, whether fixer-upper or new-build, friendly people, inexpensive services compared to city life, great restaurants, on and on and on...
9
@Barbara
What a beautiful and informative reply. Thank you, especially for all of the cultural reviews.
4
@Barbara" Just wondering,why Albany instead of Bradley in Hartford for air travel? Thanks for all those grat travel tips, all day trips for me.
Frustrated with the lack of government action on climate change
I thought back to a course on public policy and the lesson from @Ronnie Heynitz ‘ book “ Leadership without Easy Answers” a brilliant study of public sector leadership. Quick summary: our relationship with leaders is co-dependent. We expect them to fix all problems. They try to be always successful. Wrong. Like a doctor they can fix some problems like setting a broken leg. But some problems are in our lane. Diabetes...s/he can help me adapt to a new diet and exercise routine but s/he can’t fix it, stage 2, only I can fix it.
That’s when I realized I was a climate denier. I haven’t really changed my lifestyle even when I know the data. It is up to me - up to us to make drastic changes. I have started...you have to as well. Government needs to go after business and itself.
9
I grew up in Duluth. Back then the goal was to stay just over 100000 population. There is a reason most of us left. No jobs, very tight community (and I say this as one whose father was a native Duluthian) and so forth. Hills. Snow. Real beauty if a rugged coast is beauty for you (no sand, sorry). And my defining thought: when my parents bought a (cheap) house right on the shore of Lake Superior, their friends said, "Why would you do that? It's so cold and windy down there!" They sold to someone from Texas, who didn't know better.
8
@NKO You grew up in Duluth and say there is no sand? I guess you never made to Park Point and three miles of sand beach along the shore of Lake Superior.
3
How about getting on board with the rest of the world in mitigating the causes to prevent a looming catastrophe. How many areas of the world not under our control are in the process of harming the environment beyond remediation due to an ignorant populace, a corrupt government, or even our own mining and extracting corporations operating in foreign countries?
13
Instead of publishing reactionary articles like this, which doesn't solve anything, why not publish "Pro-Active" articles that promote solutions?
We're not talking about fantasy "La La Land" solutions!
I want to see what your so called experts have to say when there is 8.6 Billion people by the year 2030. I want to see their solutions when there is 9.8 Billion people in the year 2050.
I want to know if there solutions take into account the water and food shortages that will lead to conflicts. What are the predictions for all the Governments of this world working together?
It's great that so called "Experts" are calling for zero carbon, but they haven't been providing verifiable figures for their claims!
Does the planet have enough rare earth materials for wind power? Is there enough copper and other metals? What replacements are there for the tons of concrete that will be required? Can solar panels be made without using fossil fuels and is so, can they be made on an industrial production level? Can our oceans continue to support the growing world population?
Why not start small and show how many solar panels would be needed to supply New York City and the surrounding area with power? (Hint: NYC alone uses 11,000 plus Megawatts of electricity every day!)
19
We shouldn't joke, I suppose but there is definite comic potential for the story of a young family headed by an actor like Steve Carrell or Seth Rogan, moving from Palm Springs to New Ulm, trying to stay ahead of the changing climate.
6
Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedalia already made the movie. It tanked.
1
I'm selfish so please, please, please don't move to Duluth. My family loves to travel to Duluth and points north and part of the appeal is the small town feel.
2
@Peggy
No worries. As a native South Carolinian, the description of Duluth in this article was not appealing in the slightest haha.
1
Have y’all ever noticed the shining cities, the beautiful scenery, and the pristine outdoors depicted in automobile commercials?
Ahhh the thrill of the open road!
Now, look around. Survey the ravage of fossil fuels.
In 1953 Dinah Shore’s TV show had a theme song:
“See the USA in your Chevrolet.” (And use leaded gas!)
We still buy into it.
How many people drive SUV’s and luxury cars?
The same drivers are oblivious to global warming.
Until we improve our modes of transportation, we stand little chance in the fight against fossil fuels.
4
I don't see any moral aspect to any of this. Species overexpand, and die off. So maybe we reach the point where there are too many people, producing too much carbon dioxide, and parts of the earth become uninhabitable, and people die off. Then after the climate moderates, humans come back, maybe. That's the way nature works.
12
@Dave; My sentiments exactly. Technology has destroyed the natural equilibrium between humans and the planet. And people insist on continuing to have children when they must know they will reach adulthood in a world that will be falling apart.
13
Every week I see stunning ads in the NYT for these beautiful condos and homes in Palm Beach, Boca, Miami and other lush and luxurious areas of Florida. They are usually priced in the low seven figures.
What I can't understand is, who would actually buy property there now? Are these people completely clueless about climate change or just in denial? Are they so rich they're not worried their property may lose most of its value or become uninsurable in a few short years.
I like Florida, I would rent there, but I would never buy. What am I missing?
8
@Sparky
Parts of NYC are projected to be underwater... who in their right mind would want to live in that city?
1
Duluth :
Home of the Two Time NCAA Div 1 Men's College Hockey Team..... BULLDOGS !!!
Duluth winters are long, cold, snowy and dark. But with good hockey and beer the wait for glorious summer is just around the corner. Then everyone leaves town for the lakes....
7
I live in a cold city that gets about 130" of snow a year. I've been cold since October and I'm still cold in April. I don't expect to begin my four months of relative warmth till late May, then it's another eight months of being cold. Most of the citizens here celebrate when winter ends. Winter and cold weather is awful. We all know it. As soon as I am able, I'll be moving back to a warmer climate, as so many Americans have done and will continue to do. This article is silly.
5
Yes, run, run away to a place climate change hasn't touched. And then when your'e exhausted and find that there is no such place as climate change is not a new status quo but an ever-escalating crisis, you can reflect on how your effort might have been better spent educating your fellow citizens and organizing turn-out for climate conscious politicians (yes, there are a few).
But in the meantime, by all means, run. Run to Duluth and wait for Trump to build a wall against climate change.
9
Anchorage is much warmer in the winter than Duluth and never reaches 80 degrees in its beautiful summers. The scenery is spectacular and with over 300,000 residents, already has infrastructure. Also has one of the world's busiest air cargo ports. And no sales or income taxes. In fact, you get a yearly dividend from the government.
5
@DanielB
Yes, but you have to put up with dead moose and other beautiful animals slung over car tops and dripping blood down the sides. No thanks. High rate of alcoholism as well with those long, dark, dark days.
Well lets take a look at New Mexico for a moment.
The state leads the nation in alcohol related deaths!
Haboobs, which will be getting far worse, will darken the skies!
New Mexico doesn't have wild moose roaming around, but there are deer, elk and pronghorn being mounted to the front of vehicles during hunting season!
Worse, New Mexico will be building all those polluting power plants and sending the electricity to California - who will then make the false claim of being green!
If we all move to Canada we would all have universal health care too.
11
@sguknw
Yes! And if the Brits had won, we’d have Healthcare as well!
4
I wonder if that Harvard professor has moved to Duluth?
I grew up 4 hours NORTH of Duluth across the border in Canada.The weather is EXTREME and it really limits your life. The Winters are long and cold and the spring is wet and cold. The summers are short and very nice but emphasis on SHORT.
I now happily live in Arizona and we have no weather disasters here. Just a tad hot in the summer.
2
The two most important factors for people fortunate enough to choose where they can move as the earth heats up are 1) will we have a reliable, consistent source of clean water? and 2) will the air quality be as good or better than where I live now? As someone who lives in a part of the U.S. that is getting far more water than normal and whose air quality has improved a great deal since the 1990s, I recommend that everyone move to Duluth since they can handle the increased population. It currently feels as if North Carolina is becoming a victim of its beautiful weather, mountains, oceans, and universities. Even the best parts of our metro regions are getting loved to death--congested and no longer affordable to anyone below the middle class. That will change as we heat up over the decades.
1
What we really need to escape is Trump. With diligence and world wide cooperation we can still avoid the worst effects of Climate Change.
China is mitigating pollution in its major cities because it fears another uprising, not necessarily because Xi has a green thumb. But whatever the reason, the US needs to get onboard and the place to begin is to replace defective leadership.
19
Really? If I thought I was in a safer space, perhaps Duluth, I wouldn't be spreading the word. Human overpopulation is already defiling the planet, which is the elephant in the room everyone walks around while averting their gaze. Climate refugees coming into Duluth mean more waste, more degraded land, more interpersonal conflict and freshwater contamination. And what if the Great Lakes become greater?
If any humans survive until the end of the century, it will be those in groups small enough to know one another individually and to support one another for the sake of the whole group - sort of the way we began a few hundred thousand years ago.
13
@youcanneverdomerely1thing
You are absolutely right. Not all but MANY of our major problems would be solved, or at least reduced in seriousness, by reduction in the human population. This may be the most moral cause anyone could embrace today.
What we really need is a new economic model--one that aims at prosperity for all but is sustainable. This means a system which is NOT built on more, more, more--humans, pollution, destruction. Imagining such a model will require the greatest minds we have. Bringing it into existence will require courage and compassion by the rest of us.
13
When I was growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s, our nickname for Duluth -- and it was pretty widely used beyond that town -- was "the air conditioned city."
2
Hundreds of thousands are moving to Florida, the Carolinas and Arizona primarily because they have warm winters (taxes are just the icing on the cake).
Why? Because the predictions made 20 years ago regarding global warming about what would happen today have not come true, and there is no reason to believe the predictions about the future will come true.
7
@Erik. You might want to check out how many folks leave those states to get out of the ever more intensive summer heat. When 117 degree temps keep commercial jets grounded as happened in Phoenix in 2017, you might want to believe there are problems ahead. In Texas there have already been 90 degree days this spring.
5
@Erik - One thing that many people can’t get through their heads is that predictions of global warming have been pretty accurate for a couple of decades now. The only glitch in the data is that air temps haven’t warmed quite as much as expected due to the ocean absorbing more of the heat than expected (much to the detriment of the ocean and the dying coral reefs.) Bottom line; the scientists were right, are still right, and will continue to be right. If you jump off a skyscraper I can’t accurately predict which injuries you will sustain, but I can probably accurately predict the general outcome.
15
@Erik
Does Westchester have a science book laying around or a scientist somewhere? If you think Florida is not having issues of climate instability you are in a bubble.
This is not a time to celebrate ignorance.
14
I'm disappointed how this article makes light of climate change and climate refugees. As if we can just move north to mitigate the problem. We will all have to do so much more, and it will be nearly catastrophic for millions.
27
I'm from Boston, but have lived in Seattle most of my life. Every time we go east to visit family, we're reminded of New England's charms, but also that we could never live in such a continental climate with extremes of cold/snow and heat/humidity. Duluth is worse for extremes and I expect it will get much worse still with climate change. In my honest opinion, it's weird to think of Duluth as a safe haven.
Seattle isn't completely safe, either, although we have a relatively mild climate and wonderful freshwater runoff and snow melt from mountains nearby. We also get smoke from (mostly Canadian) wildfires, the earthquake risk, some water risk if we don't get enough snow pack in the mountains... but at least the earthquake risk won't change at all with climate, and it's relatively easy to prepare for the next shake.
Unlike Phoenix AZ, or probably Duluth, or (some sad day) Boston, you won't have to live in an air-conditioned space ship to survive.
6
@Astrochimp
There's a trade off there that you didn't mention: The soul-crippling grey that envelopes the PNW for 9 months a year.
As a Southern Californian native, I'd take snowy/sunny over damp/cold/cloudy any day. But that's just me...
7
@Astrochimp Don't you folks have volcanoes out there
1
While we are lining up candidates for refuge fro climate change, let's not forget my state's metropolis-Burlington, VT. We are located on the East Coast, welcoming to new-comers, and have Lake Champlain in our backyard. Add in some great universities, more affordable housing than most cities, and a progressive mindset and I think Burlington should be at the top of the list.
11
Every time I go to the mid-west, the sense of climate change urgency is abated because of the nature of the landscape. Perhaps it is hard to feel how individual can effect the climate or the imminence of change when one stands in a seemingly never changing environment, especially in the winter. It is not because the person is disconnected from nature, I think, it is the living in the middle of a 'steady' environment..
8
I don't think we know enough about the unfolding of this human caused climate disaster to conclude where is, "The most climate-proof city in America." Global warming may have occurred repeatedly during Earth's history but this is the first time we will learn what is not revealed in the fossil record, ice cores or Earth's geology.
That said, I would move to higher ground.
4
This entire premise is based on the dangerous fallacy that there is somewhere "safe" from climate change that you can move to. There is no such place, if you like to eat.
We have an increasing population and a food production base that is being undermined by unsustainable practice and climate change, on land and in the ocean. The "math" for a population peak of 9 billion people, who all need to eat every day, only works if we reverse climate change and (global) land degradation. We are all in this together, whether we like it or not and whether we recognize it or not.
"To bad about the hole in *your* end of the lifeboat..." is an unrealistic, short sighted and ultimately immoral position to take.
189
@Jonathan from DC Just about to say the same thing. Thius is a myth. Wars and famine, floods and general devasation of populations will take its toll everywhere!
15
We used to say: think globally, act locally. I find it ironic that there are two competing views of what is happening climatically published in today's Times: in Duluth (this piece, touting it as a survivable city in an era of global warming); and Geoff Dembecki's editorial commentary about Canada, which deems the 'best case' scenario as unpleasant at best and 'worst case' as enviornmentally disastrous. The major difference would appear to be local versus global effects. Today we must think and act globally.
10
the general direction of the vector -- "go north, young man, go north" -- is accurate because it is obvious. although i see only two cities to fill the promise of "these cities" in the headline.
the idea that there is escape from climate change in any location -- either from its direct effects on weather, ecology and wildlife, or its indirect effects on the national economy, international trade and politics -- is of course naive.
dr. keenan is selling a consultancy. the rest of us (and our progeny) will have to live, not for decades but for millennia, with climate change consequences that will compound for centuries after we finally get off carbon combustion as an energy resource.
14
According to the NYTimes a few days ago, Minnesota is LOSING population rapidly, >10% over a decade, while the area around Miami, Florida is GAINING population rapidly, >10%/decade.
Sea levels in Florida rise at the same pace as 100 years ago, NOAA data shows, oblivious to a 100 times increase worldwide in industrial emissions.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8724580
We need to give our great climate scientists another few centuries to adjust their models. They have never yet come to terms with what sea levels actually do, when measured.
1
@novoad What are you talking about? Minnesota's population is growing, from 5.3 million in 2010 to an estimated 5.6 million today.
3
@novoad - the data in that graph suggest no increase until around 1940 then a 0.2 foot increase per decade since.
1
I look for a place where the policy makers and citizens are already aware of collective and individual responsibilities to handle the challenges before us and are working toward alternatives. Taking care of number 1 won't work for the long term -- selecting the best location. But working together to build safety and harbor is also part of the American experience -- we just need to build on it without calling it names.
12
I remember coming back from a camping trip in the Canadian Rockies and driving into Duluth about 6 o'clock in the morning.
It felt so cold and this was in August. We lived in Michigan at that time. I will never forget that feeling of cold running through me.
We live in Florida now and can't wait to return to the North. The cold will feel different after all the heat and hurricanes in this state.
11
Cute exercise in futility. What about how insects will function when birds are no longer able to migrate normally, how fungi will proliferate, how viruses will mutate, parasites, bacteria? What about unforeseen changes in air currents, which meteorologists have never figured out how to track correctly even in normal times...etc. Please.
Paris accord. Paris accord. Paris accord. Period.
104
@Jane L
Alas. Paris Accord was little but feel-good words. Accords, promises, pacts all seem like they might lead to some amelioration of our carbon-pumping ways. But it just doesn't happen.
4
@Jane L Moreover, an improved, more stringent Paris accord.
4
@Jane L I bet you didn't read what was in the Paris accord. It was a give away of American tax payers money. China didn't even have to comply until 2030. It was a feel good trophy for Obama that lacked any teeth.
1
I retired a few years ago. In determining where to, climate change was on top of my list. I chose Port Angeles, with ocean view, moderate climate due to influence of the Pacific. My house is at 200 feet altitude, safe from ocean rise. The risk, I ignored are earthquakes and the occasional smog from Canadian wildfires. There may be a long term wildfire risk on the Olympic peninsula. But I manage that by carefully removing the underbrush on my property and also changing to a metal roof. I hope this is good enough until I am underground.
20
A couple other states where it should be very good living for at least the next 50 years: New York State and western / northern Massachusetts. Both are sparsely populated, have incredible intellectual capital, and are incredibly beautiful. Weather is warming and getting a bit wetter.
9
All that fresh water is fresh because of limited habitation on the shores of Lake Superior. Residents take keeping the Big Lake clean rather seriously.
Once all those climate refugees show up that water isn't going to be fresh for long unless the imports adjust their lackadaisical attitudes about the environment.
Oh, and learn how to drive in snow!
20
Don’t forget the mosquitos! Sometimes you can’t even go outside on summer evenings without screens or mosquito netting! And the spraying to control said mosquitos!
15
The point is well made that people will move the nearest possible. Given that the devastation from climate change will be visited really in the near term on Florida and the Gulf Coast, Atlanta should prepare to become a city of 5-10 million within the next 50 years. Good planning can make it happen; I'm not so sure about fresh water supplies though.
6
@fullkeel - Exactly. Refugees from Florida aren’t hoofing it all the way to Minnesota if they can safely stop in high/dry northwest Georgia.
"On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia" (W.C. Fields)
12
Duluth is built on hills. A few years ago, 10 inches of rain fell over just a few hours and the torrent down the hills destroyed culverts, cracked open streets and filled the lake with sediment. Every place on earth will feel the effects of climate change. Best to deal with it where you are than expect refuge elsewhere.
52
@Karen
Karen: That is an important information and fact, i.e. that Duluth is to a large extent located and built on a cliff overlooking, often from great vistas the Lake Superior. Many magnificent mansions from of the great industrial and trade era offer spectacular, long range views of that inland sea the Lake Superior is.
Thus I believe that a flash storm-caused torrent might indeed damages you describe.
2
Where I live now, in Florida, the summers start weeks earlier and last longer than they used to. They are also hotter and too humid to be outside getting exercise every day.
The red tide and green sludge we had for most of last year was probably due to overbuilding, inadequate water management infrastructure and an enormous corporate fertilizer spill. It made life miserable and the beaches were toxic and unusable for most of the year.
This area is just one major hurricane away from losing its beaches and barrier keys. I’m leaving for a state where they believe in the reality of climate change.
435
@Too Hot
I feel that way about DC, I can't even imagine what Florida is like
11
@Too Hot South Florida is only part of Florida. In central Florida the weather is more perfect than ever!
5
Readers might also wish to consider the coastal city of Naiba. It's small, has plenty of fresh water and an extremely stable government. The sea off Naiba's coast is warming so that soon it will be ice-free during late summer. Oh, lots of room to expand. Naiba is in Siberia It's also spelled Nayba, or Найба. Today's weather: 2°F and mostly cloudy.
12
@Muskateer Al Add the bonus of living under Putin. Trump is bad enough.
1
Chicago is an obvious choice that deserves mentioning. Also on the Great Lakes, it has ample infrastructure for at least 900,000 more residents (the difference between its current and peak population, which topped out in the 50s).
While the summers are not as mild as Duluth or Buffalo, s city’s response to the heat wave of 95 included the planting of tens of thousands of trees to help reduce the urban heat island effect. Cooling centers are opened to the public during heat waves now, and all public schools have been retrofitted with air conditioning.
More adaptations need to be pursued however, especially when it comes to managing storm water. The current Deep Tunnel infrastructure project, begun in the 70s and it projected to be completed until 2029, is already inadequate to the task of protecting the lake and the river from raw sewage discharge during heavy rain. Subsidence or the sinking of land is also an issue that needs to be taken into account by city planners and engineers.
While being better situated geographically and relatively depopulated compared to our ocean coast dwelling neighbors, the Great Lakes region will only be as strong as the protections afforded to preserve its namesake asset. The Trump administration is now trying for a third time to strip the region of hundreds of millions in environmental restoration funds.
234
@Joe Olivier
Some years ago all the states that ring Lake Michigan formed a consortium to keep the lake healthy, and help protect it from invasive species, global warming, industrial damage, etc. (including the oil pipe lines that run under it, near Chicago's water supply). Trump's & his EPA have done everything they can to ax it's budget.
83
And yet you hear that Chicago is losing population to such places as Phoenix, AZ, where a water crisis is inevitable.
16
@scrumble People don't like to shovel snow, but we need to live where there is fresh water.
7
I grew up in Niagara Falls,NY. Survival is possible there,even with the winters. My kids and I live in California and have seen the wildfires from our front porches .We have struggled through the latest drought.I have half kidded with them that we should buy a place on lake Ontario, north of Buffalo, as a possible refuge from climate change.Better yet,if they would have us ,Niagara Falls,Ontario.They're worried about the snow.But as the article points out,when our taps run dry....those massive frozen lakes,full of fresh water, will be a little more inviting.If we sold just one of our homes here in California,we could afford quite a large place back there.My family is still not convinced....I've emailed all of them this article.And then there's the beautiful fall colors,maybe I can hook them with that angle.
14
@Iamcynic1 Yep. California, Florida and Texas. Storms galore.
Growing up in the Great Lakes, I have long understood the environmental fragility of the region and worried for its vulnerability to water and climate crises that would drive people from the southwest and the coasts. Without highly restrictive environmental policies that protect the coastline, water quality, limit urban development, prohibit pollutants, and preserve rural and wilderness areas, this refuge too will be ravaged.
482
@ The big saving grace around the Great Lakes is that the U.S. doesn't exclusively own it and therefore can only mess it up so far. We have to deal with the Canadians. That's probably the only reason there isn't already a giant pipeline draining the Great Lakes basin to replace the Ogallala aquifer, which has been largely drained in the Great Plains (and when it goes, so go the wheat and corn).
132
@Oriflamme
I remember about a decade ago when there was a drought in the southern states, and they proposed diverting some of the Great Lakes (GL) water. One of the GL City Mayors/Governor told them they could have all the water they wanted, but they would have to move to the GL area. Diverting water outside its natural water zone could be disastrous.
63
@Oriflamme. The Great Lakes Compact is between Canada (the provinces?) and the states abutting any Great Lake. Lake Michigan, however, has been compromised by Scotty Walker's plans for FoxCONN.
4
My partner Anna and I met while she was a lawyer for Scottsdale, AZ. I lived in Chandler, AZ, at the time. When she retired, we hit the road in an RV. We recently got a co-op site in an RV park in Chimacum, WA, out on the Olympic Peninsula.
We have divested ourselves of our stored possessions in Arizona and plan to make the Pacific Northwest our primary residence. Much of this has been driven by concerns about climate change and the availability of water. It's not hard to imagine the southwest becoming inhospitable to life within our lifetimes, so we're hedging our bets by relocating before everyone else figures it out. Unfortunately, a mass migration northward could destroy what we love about our new home, but at least we'll have our place in the sun - when it's not raining.
It's frightening to think that our retrogressive government is still poo-pooing the science, but here we are. Wouldn't it be ironic if the rust belt experienced a revival when the population migrates back from the sun belt? How times change!
19
If Lake Superior has so much fresh water, why isn't the water piped to drier regions of the country?
Because it’s not the rest of the country’s to have. The states that border the Great Lakes own that water and determine how it gets used.
45
@Jim - And it also belongs to Canada. The joint management is very challenging, but it has maintained the protections so far. But more recent policy proposals have threatened the Great Lakes and the environment around them.
19
Don't forget Canada ...
2
Oh please, hasn’t there really been too much talk already as it is about sanctuary cities? As the planet collapses, like all those fish trapped in a shrinking pond rather than emphasizing where the water still remains maybe tips for where it isn’t might be more useful? Do you really think all those fish crammed together like sardines in a tight can are really glad to still be alive living like that? I hear some fish in the Sahara burrow down into the mud of temporary season rain ponds to hibernate when it’s dry and await the next rainy season to come to rehydrate and spring back to life again. Think of all the clutter that would eliminate from our lives if we could learn to live like that.
4
Stick with college towns in the midwest: Start with Ann Arbor and East Lansing. Lots of water and relativey light traffic. Lots of culture and recognizing Trump for what he is.
50
@arp
no,no,no...not East Lansing and Ann Arbor! Life is awesome in Ann Arbor - and that's after spending 5 years in San Diego packing up for fire threats, dealing with water restrictions and nightmarish traffic. Keep Michigan a secret or we'll be overrun! GoBlue!!
7
@arp
Unfortunately, going north from Ann Arbor on US 23 is a driving nightmare. Plus, the highways are horrible. There needs to be more public transit. Everyone has to have their precious car here. It’s insane.
4
Duluth is a college town and while not as liberal as MSP, still leans toward the DFL. On summer weekends, hotel rooms are expensive and booked. There’s also a very good theater program. https://norshortheatre.com/
3
As one who lives on the shores of Lake Michigan, I have feared that, when climate change makes access to water an existential threat for millions, politics will mean moving water to people and not people to water. The Great Lakes Compact's restriction on water exports has seen two recent breaches (one for Foxconn). When water needs elsewhere become dire, our democratic system will tilt in favor of pipelines that will drain the Lakes to provide water for Texas and Georgia.
27
@Jack - No need to worry. As the Iraqi insurgency showed, it’s really easy to disable unwanted pipelines. Hypothetically speaking, of course. Besides, it wouldn’t even be a “pipeline” because it would have to be so huge it would be something more like a man made river or aquaduct. NYC gets its water from the Catskill Mountains in tunnels so large you can drive a truck through them. It would be easier for Texas to desalinate nearby sea water at that point.
3
The whole premise is flawed. We cannot escape what we are doing to the earth. Encouraging people to move around to find "better" places to live just puts pressure on different environments. The way we live is the problem and until we can face and alter that we continue down the slippery slope, dragging all of our beautiful planets co-inhabitants with us.
353
@JS The unfortunate thing is that it is about survival and the continuation of civilization more than being about a simple choice of a better place to to live. I had read that by 2080 New York will be as hot as Arkansas, which means Arkansas will be as hot as, Mexico City? Mexico City will be as hot as...
While it may be possible to say if we should change things instead of moving it is really too late for that. In the last 30 years we have doubled the amount of carbon we have added to the atmosphere. Changing that ever accelerating equation requires such a massive re configuration of everything we do that it is not likely to happen anywhere near as fast as it needs to.
18
@JS I wonder, however, if some grand "resettling" could be imagined that would be net better, nationwide if not worldwide - thinking of the huge populations surviving in Phoenix and Austin, for example, and all the attendant water shortages, car use, and year-round reliance on air conditioning. If those populations were more evenly distributed to more temperate places, where "the way we live" is generally better for the environment, wouldn't it help?
4
@erhoades Mexico City has a very mild climate.
9
Marquette, Michigan (just a couple of hundred miles East of Duluth and also on the shores of Lake Superior) is seeing migration already. Over the past 40 years, high-end real estate has appeared as a thing in the region. People who can telecommute or who are free-lance-anything, can live there in an outdoors paradise, and for much less than they would pay for housing in a big city. It's a region that still loses young people who are just starting out, because the local heritage industries (mining, pulp cutting) are shrinking fast. Tourism, on the other hand, is thriving for the same reason as people are moving there if they don't need a local job: extremely nice summer weather with biking, kayaking, hiking, etc. Not to mention, once people find out, winter sports and hunting/fishing.
12
@EB
If this were the beginning of the game for me instead of the last quarter, I'd be on my way!
9
@EB Traverse City, Michigan is a locale that seems to be adjusting to global warming, at least for rich people. It's been a popular summer resort for the last 150 years, especially for affluent people from Chicago and Detroit. Now there are an increasing number of telecommuters, at least in summer: e,g. Fly to Chicago on Monday morning and fly back Friday afternoon. I'm not sure if there are many teleworkers in the area as the cost of living is high and telework pay is low. But Traverse City does seem to have adjusted to changing times as the population has been increasing in this region.
1
Oh, gosh...
The underlying ideas of this story are repellent. Climate change will have dramatic implications EVERYWHERE. One may be enjoying the newly balmy temperatures in Duluth, but will be wondering whether or not food will be available due to crop failures elsewhere. Fish from the lake? Nope, because of systemic changes which have reduced the stocks to practically nothing.
It's not possible to be too concerned about climate change. The planet is the mother of all complex systems and one thing we know about complex systems is they are very stable...until they are not. Then, collapse is very quick and very devastating.
Enough of the "interest" stories on the subject, please. This is too serious an issue.
169
People in Rochester, NY like to complain about the winters but the longer I live here the more I'm grateful to be here. The Great Lakes moderate the temperature and the Finger Lakes provide fresh water. And they're beautiful, too.
26
The winters in Rochester are getting shorter and the snowstorms are fewer and far between.
1
@Liz Cook Though "shorter" is a relative term (winter's down from six months to five in which you can expect significant, plow-worthy snow). Unfortunately, nothing can be done about the darkness in winter. And Duluth is further north still.
2
A dead serious point in the middle of the amusement is about how precious fresh water is to our survival. It should be on billboards. It should be sent out regularly as an alert to cell phones and on broadcasts, as are other safety alerts.
We waste it via leaking water supply aqueducts and lines, pollute it by allowing industries carte blanche to operate for "profit," and allowing residences as well to dump dangerous chemicals into the sewage systems. And simply even by failure to conserve. Air and water: if they are clean and sufficient, we have a chance at health; otherwise we suffer.
52
Hey, if Duluth really needs some more people they can have some from Bend, Oregon. Duluth has infrastructure for 70,000 more people? Well, the Bend area has 100,000 people, at least, and infrastructure for 15,000. That is an estimate, but it sure does feel that way.
But remember if they do start showing up in Duluth, they will bring their cars with them and there are two of those for each person. Be prepared, Bend wasn't.
31
Interesting but this is the same short-sightedness that got us here in the first place and is basically defeatism. Mars is also a great climate refuge.
There are relatively small things each of us can do to reduce our footprint and impact change. We don’t need to do them perfectly, it would suffice if we all tried to do them imperfectly.
I’d love to see the NYT do an article on the ability of large groups of people to change behavior to solve the tragedy of the commons. What have we done in the past? What incentives are needed, if any?
63
@Sam
What exactly is the military doing to 'reduce their footprint and impact change' ? (Other than studies
and on-base recycling). We are expecting 2 squadrons
(if that is the right word) of F-35's to be stationed at Eielson Air Force base, just south of Fairbanks, in the next few years. Why should I worry about driving my car to town with those things screaming overhead ?
(And yes, we are definitely seeing a lot of different weather patterns here, but it's too early to tell what
will happen as climate change continues to accelerate)
5
@Sam
Although I agree with the sentiment, I would gently remind the New Yorker that Duluth is not Mars.
4
According to historians, it was the discovery and use of coal for heating that allowed Northern Europe to expand enough to become a powerhouse. Until then, there wasn't enough wood to burn for heat to support large populations during the cold winters.
Those who can afford it can install more efficient heaters and better insulation, but the rest will have to shiver through winters. Also, small efficient autos are famously bad in snow. There's a reason why people in those places favor SUVs and full-sized pickup trucks.
8
Full size pickups serve zero functional purpose for most people who own them, they are just fashion statements. There is no reason people up north can’t get by with a small efficient AWD crossover vehicle. Throw on a good set of snow tires, and make it a hybrid and you’ve got a 50 mpg vehicle that serves the needs of 99% of Americans.
17
@Jim
I would never drive a hybrid in our climate.
In fact, for safety I insist on driving a standard transmission, which allows much more control on bad roads. Pickup trucks are very useful for many hauling chores such as firewood, water (yes lots of people haul their own water), trash
(no trash pickup service), building materials, etc. Many people rely on them. Although the fancy new ones are, I agree, over the top 'fashion statements'.
The 'urban' vehicle of choice here is the Subaru Forester with Blizzak tires for winter.
Affordable, safe, and handles very well.
1
If ecological systems collapse because of climate change there will eventually be no good places to go. A big question is to what extent animals and plants will be able to adapt to rapidly rising temperatures. Scientists have been studying this but I think there are far more questions remaining than answers. The warming of the oceans has already created dramatic changes, particularly with regard to coral reefs which may not last longer than a few more decades. And the acidification of the oceans from carbon dioxide will also cause changes as time goes on. If global warming goes beyond 4C, which could occur before the end of this century, some scientists have predicted that half or more of all species will go extinct. People should not be thinking that there is any safe place when it comes to climate change, at least in the long run. That is probably an illusion. They should concentrate on reducing emissions which is the only real solution to the problem.
26
Come to Elk Rapids, Michigan!
2
If I could afford it, I'd love to have a SUMMER house in Duluth.
1
I do near Duluth and I use it year round with great cross country and reasonable downhill skiing, considering it is the Midwest.
2
@Ambient Kestrel You know the state bird of Minnesota is the mosquito right?
2
I’m just glad I’m in my 60s, and will likely miss the worst effects of climate change. If you are a youngster, I suggest you make some plans.
22
Getting climate advice from a designer is like going to the chiropractor for a toothache. The fact is that climate scientists are unable to predict the effects of climate change at any specific location. Shifting weather patterns due to climate change are unpredictable and places like Duluth could just as easily become colder rather than warmer. Here in northern California, some people say it will get wetter, some say drier.
13
Lake Superior is a giant air conditioner. I remember driving down the hills from sweltering on trout streams near the Boundary Waters and the rush of cool air through the windows was similar to having an air conditioner on which at the time my car did not have.
But before anyone reading this article sells everything and moves to a more northern latitude I have a cautionary word.
Here on the taiga of north central WI today, April 15, I see out of my window at least 6" of snow cover. At our lake cabin in the Western UP of MI the snow cover is still over a foot deep and Duck Lake is still frozen over.
Last weekend we were scheduled to drive to St Paul for an event and snow, sleet freezing rain with 50mph wind made the interstate impassible.
But on Memorial Day a vest or light jacket may be useful and one can wear a long sleeved shirt on the 4th of July.
If I were to move anywhere it would be to the north end of South Island, NZ.
13
@Edward B. Blau I checked that out. You need to have a LOT of money to emigrate to NZ.
9
@Edward B. Blau: "If I were to move anywhere it would be to the north end of South Island, NZ."
Nelson, Motueka, or maybe even Graham Downs?
Oh NO! The secret is out. I grew up in Western NY. Yes I now live in a small hip beach town on the North FL coast where we can wear jeans and have fires in winter but I do still go home to visit friends and family in the summer. Not only is Buffalo a great city for many reasons don't forget Toronto and the wine district of Niagara on the Lake, Canada. I wish I could be around in 50 years to see if this article still holds up as a marketing campaign to lure businesses to the rust belt cities of the Great Lakes.
8
@Claire If you think Buffalo is so great, why are you living in Florida? Buffalo is still the armpit of the east with its declining population, hellish winters, one of the highest crime rate in the country and summers which have required most of us to install a/c. Why am I still here? Because the property values are so low that I could only afford a garage in a more desirable area, so I remain & get out of town as often as possible. Lake Erie? so polluted and coated with a thick growth of blue green algae that beaches are closed for much of the summer. Enjoy Florida!
2
@Judie
Life is short...if Buffalo is like being in an armpit for you it’s time to move along and live in a garage somewhere else.
Forget Duluth. How about Canada?
14
@Wendell - Canada? By then we’ll probably be on the southern side of THEIR wall, getting what we deserve.
7
56 people moved there in 6 years?
Look at Coldfoot, Alaska. Yes a real place with a ZIP code. Some folks there spend the winter in balmy Montana.
So it's all relative. For now.
2
@Roman
I'm guessing that's the net change which would include people moving out.
1
@Erik
I wouldn’t be so sure. Duluth population has been decreasing for decades.
1
"In 60 years our weather will be as good as Toledo, Ohio's!"
Worst. Marketing. Campaign. Ever.
38
Regarding Duluth being safe from sea level rise, inland areas lack the infrastructure for large refugee flows from the large coastal cities.
2
@Erik Frederiksen I'm not going to Duluth. They ain't got no infrastructure. Really?
1
@Heckler no, my point was that people will go, lots and lots of people.
Finger Lakes. The area south of the Onondaga Escarpment in the western half of the lakes is in a bit of a snow shadow that gets about 60% of the snowfall of the higher elevations closer to Lake Ontario. Mostly light powdery stuff, rather than heavy wet ocean-effect snows of the Eastern seaboard megalopolis. That said, winters are less sunny because of the way clouds form and hang around on the windward side of the mountains.
3
If avoiding hot weather was so important to people, they wouldn't be moving in droves to Florida and other southern states. I'm sure Duluth is a nice place, but I'm staying put in Massachusetts.
6
@DB
And a daily Amtrak will connect you between the wonders of Boston and the wonders of Western Massachusetts. Leave in early afternoon, arrive early evening.
2
"The world is ending. Here's where you can comfortably continue your lifestyle."
116
so many things wrong with this kind of thinking. warming weather, beetle infestations, dead trees, more people, more pollution, more desperation. goodby Duluth it was nice knowing you.
3
A smart angle to address climate change for sure.
But since we cannot all live in Duluth + use up THEIR water, how about conserving where we waste billions of gallons - like fracking, use less thirsty crops, animals etc.
22
By these criteria, most of Canada will be a desirable refuge. Better build a wall!
32
It makes me sad that the cultural calculus has come to this - finding where to run from climate, rather than addressing the problem. I know it's a realistic take. But it's realistic because we'd rather accept this looming reality than make some sacrifices in the moment to avert its coming.
64
@Dan Oh, we're going to make the sacrifices. It's simply a matter of whether they will be voluntary or mandatory.
15
@Dan Because "some" would rather run than mitigate, and that "some" are senators, looking at you Mitch McConnell, who decide what comes up for a vote and what does not. It's high time we vote these selfish, myopic ancients out of the way of the future.
11
Even if lots of people could somehow be persuaded to move to places like Duluth and Buffalo, which seems doubtful, I'm not sure this would be a good thing for the environment, given the energy required to heat homes and businesses during the long, cold winters. Seems like it must take a lot less energy to cool a building to 75 when outside temps are, say, 90, than to raise the temp to 70 when the temps outside are, say, 30. And of course, it often gets much colder in Duluth and Buffalo.
4
@Dan Frazier
Okay, lets all move to Iceland then. Geothermal for everyone.
1
@Dan Frazier Coming from CO to Eastern Shore Md. From mountain cabin to large Colonial. Heating is much more $$ than cooling. Not sure, but possibly, solar panels could mostly power AC for a house. No way to do that for heating. It is a poor answer to global warming which is about extreme weather events and desertification of large areas of land.
1
@Dan Frazier People who attend to such things tell me that housing prices are rising in Buffalo. It's a milagro!
1
It seems that global warming is not only taken for granted but that we are giving up fighting against it.
The new call for action is: let's get ready for the consequences, instead of fighting against it.
9
@Cesar Barroso Conquering global warming seems like a rather long term project, decades minimally. One may prepare for consequences while fighting.
Kindly ease off with the lash, Cesar.
4
The article does not address how the Lakes will be affected by climate change. Will they expand because of snow melt, or dry up like the Aral Sea as temperatures and evaporation rates increase?
Water is not unlimited. Cities with shores on Lake Michigan are permitted to draw water from the lake. Further inland, they need other sources.
River flooding is an annual problem in Chicago and its suburbs. More people means more bad land development. More people also produce more waste water. Chicago sends its waste water across the state to the Mississippi River. Can a small city like Duluth build a sanitary and shipping canal or will they dump their wastes into the Lake and drink them?
11
I have to say I am a bit disturbed by the coming catastrophic climate change written up as a cheerful little economic development piece for Duluth and other Midwest cities. This won't be pretty. To be honest the best preparation we can do is to minimize the population growth of areas of the country running out of water. Nothing like building, moving and abandoning; then building again elsewhere, for wastefulness.
How many housing developments are being planned in Phoenix and Las Vegas that don't stand a chance long term? How many Central Americans are resettling in the southwest? What can we do to control the population explosion of those Central American countries? This is what we should be looking at.
110
Ironically, all the Rust Belt cities around the Great Lakes will be best in the U.S. for fresh water and non-life-threatening temperatures. Personally, as the local saying goes, I'd rather be in Rochester (NY). It's smaller, doesn't have the nasty old heavy-industry infrastructure, has gorgeous parks planned by Olmsted (the guy who designed Central Park) and century-old neighborhoods with trees planted by the world's leading nurserymen of the 19thc, a ton of top-class colleges and universities, world-class classical and jazz music (the Eastman and RPO), great medical care, a history of progressivism (Douglass and Anthony, among others), oodles of fresh water, and above all the Finger Lakes, probably the best-kept vacation secret in the U.S. since it's JUST far enough away from large cities to be inconvenient for their weekend getaways. But keep it quiet. We like home just as it is. Including the way the winters keep away weaklings who can't plow their driveways or drive in snow.
24
I'm sure that Easter Island also had a post catastrophe hold out. But it too came to an end, and from the same man made problem.
2
Oh god. My parents laughed that I had my bags packed the week of my 1979 Duluth Central High School graduation - I left that city as soon as I could! Please don't tell me climate change will now force me to move back there in my golden years...
21
Duluth! The San Francisco of the north.
3
I could not help noticing that in the video the interviewer was wearing a big winter coat and other person was cool in a just blazer. Does that tell us who should move where? I jest of course!
2
Funny they talk about competition between cities to attract migrants. That's not going to be a problem when 2-4 billion people are looking for better places to live. It's not just Californians, Floridians and Texans, but Chinese, Indonesians, Central Americans, South Americans, Africans, and anywhere close to the Mediterranean. Places North and South (as in closer to the South Pole) of these locations will absorb migrants outside of the U.S. of course, but there will be enough latitudinal (East to West and vice versa) migration mixed in with the longitudinal to fill up all these wanna be centers of diversity and cultural complexity. As the other comments on war and xenophobia suggest, it will not be a pretty picture. Perhaps at the start, things will be interesting, but the flood of people will build and intensify into a forced emergency of immense proportions.
10
I've been saying this about Cleveland for years! Cleveland has so much potential and so much to offer; beaches, great restaurants, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a world class orchestra, great museums, and the Metroparks system. On the shores of beautiful Lake Erie, we, too, have fresh water (toxic algae blooms notwithstanding), and no fear of sea level rise. There are many parts of the city that would benefit from an influx of people. Come to Cleveland!
11
That is why we retired in the upper midwest near lake superior. We could have retired anywhere we wanted without regard to the cost of living but chose this area with the future in mind. Other data missing from the article, weather disasters. No hurricanes and barely a handful of tornadoes the last couple of centuries. No earthquakes. One of the most geologically stable areas of the continent. I can move snow. Even the yellowstone volcano fallout didn't reach here.
12
But wait, Donald Trump said the country is full.
18
Oh sure, the snow birds are going to start landing in Duluth.
Not.
3
No place will be safe, the changes coming will be dramatic.
11
Winter is the best time with lots of rental homes - actual owners are then in Florida.
3
Like the rest of us living in the "Upper" Mid-west, Duluth may be less affected during the summer months by global "warming" but as we have already seen, climate change also affects the Polar Vortex bringing us Arctic weather in the other seasons. Our grandchildren are all going to suffer the effects of climate change.
20
All in all, I think I'd stick closer to Duluth, Georgia.
1
It’s safe as long as Yellowstone the worlds biggest volcano doesn’t blow its top.
1
so where's the city list? you've only mentioned duluth...
26
You can run but you can’t hide from climate change.
15
Climate change bodes more extreme weather both hot and cold. There will be more weeks when it will be too cold to go outside in Duluth. See Polar Vortex.
8
@Paul
I'd rather than than have water shortages. And already in the Pacific Northwest, we can't go outside many days in summer because of wildfire smoke, either nearby or blowing in from Canada or other places.
4
@Syliva That’s right Syliva. The Pacific Northwest is terrible, especially west of the Cascades. That’s why so many people keep moving here from across the country.
Considering how the United States can't get their act together - especially when it comes to this GOP that is owned by the oil industry - I would move out of the United States were I younger. I may still.
Why aren't we rebuilding infrastructure, not limited to but including our coastlines, our transportation routes, our sewer systems, the hillsides that are increasingly becoming landslides and not just hillsides....
As evidenced by what is currently sitting in the Senate as well as the White House, the biggest threat to climate change is an ill-informed electorate.
270
@Jbugko plus a government largely run by lobbyists and ex-energy company CEOs. And as for rebuilding - well, it's more important to give those CEOs and their companies huge tax breaks.
3
"...Superior is so voluminous that, if poured out, it would submerge North and South America under a foot of water."
And South America?!
That stunning factoid just made my day.
9
@John
And Lake Baikal (in Siberia) is over twice as voluminous.
3
@Erik
And it's drying up.
So instead of having an average low winter temperature of 7 degrees, Duluth could have an average low temperature of 9 degrees. That will lead to a mass migration there? Come on.
5
Leave New Orleans for Duluth? I'd rather second line into the sea.
11
That’s why all the climate change refugees are flooding in from Central America.
They have heard of the utopia that will be Minnesota.
9
@Ken
We in New Hampshire have already found our refuge! It snowed a trace last week but I have the first flowers blooming in my garden already. No shortage of water foreseeable. Only one poisonous snake and they are in the rocky areas of the woods, not in town. No alligators and no hurricanes. I don't miss South Carolina at alL
6
Meanwhile in the real world the rest of us will continue to enjoy the longer Life spans than ever with more food around than ever. Hey maybe we will even by your houses in Texas or Florida or California where the weather continues to be within historical norms.
3
Canada: join the millions of Americans already living here. It's America with a little bit of compassion.
90
@Bill Kennettle Except for people over 40, impossible to qualify even with education, bilingual English/French, etc. I'd definitely be in British Columbia by now...
28
Canada is undergoing climate change also.
6
how about spending a bit more ink on propagating real solutions aimed at mitigating climate change, rather than advising people to move to Duluth?
30
Funny thing...Climate Change. They say that there will be winners and losers.
Here in Las Vegas...where it's already hot and dry, Climate Change is frightening, and running out of water is a very real possibility.
But wait. This winter's "anomalous trough pattern", that has caused so many storm troubles across the country, brought Las Vegas cooler temperatures and enough rain to end the long drought. As it continues to snow in Colorado, the snowpack is now in the top three of historical records. This means more water for the Colorado River...our water supply.
Predicting winners and losers when Mother Nature is in charge is risky business. It might just be possible that 10 years from now people will be migrating to the desert southwest!
8
@Fosco
There's a difference between climate and weather.
Living with 300+ days of sunshine and the beautiful crystal blue pollution-free skies of northern New Mexico will keep my plans of moving to Duluth on hold for now at least until we start running out of fresh water.
4
Duluth? Buffalo? No thanks, I'll take my chances with the heat and storms. There is a reason only 56 people moved there over the past decade!
Geez, the pictures you show are supposed to entice people? They are depressing. And telling me that by 2080 the climate will be more like Toledo? This article is supposed to be funny, right?
8
All the world can burn, but let's go to Duluth!
More and more articles are being written about climate refugees who are betting on that perfectly invulnerable place against global warming. Duluth may have an abundance of fresh water, but if hundreds of other climate migrants move north from the North Africa and Middle East region, as is predicted, just how abundant will that water be? Selfish self-interest is what ignited the Antropocene in the first place. It seems it will continue until all that once lived is ash.
17
You must be kidding! Just because some junior flack from Harvard gets paid to create a campaign for Duluth does not make it true. Winter is nine months of gray skies punctuated by 40 degree below zero wind chill. At least you will never need to worry about the windmills slowing down! How lovely that climate change will leave all that unperturbed! Personally, when I was being recruited for a Professorship to Harvard, I told the chairman that after my Grad School experience in Wisconsin, I preferred my ice in a glass, not in the wild!
7
Global warming is already taken for granted.
2
Duluth’s infrastructure will need a major upgrade if this is true; the storm sewers especially cannot handle a large increase in rainfall.
5
It will not take much to once again set in motion enormous forest fires in the northern woods of Minnesota. There are several "fire museums" in the area dedicated to regional fires that devastated the region decades ago. (Google Hinkley Fire.) Those fires occurred in Spring when temperatures rose quickly before spring green up had overtaken winter deadfall.
Additional human activity and global warming make a recurrence likely. Please don't come.
12
What the heck are you talking about? The 1894 Hinckley Fire was in September and the 1918 Cloquet Fire in October, and they were both caused by drought, wind and the tinder-dry detritus left behind by logging crews. Way to make stuff up.
1
Back in the 1970s, when Harcourt Brace Jovanovich bought the trade magazine I worked on, they offered me a job—but I had to move to Duluth. After a bit of checking, I found that Duluth is one of those "if you don't come in Sunday, don't come in Monday" kind of places.
Needless to say, I still live and work here in NYC.
6
I’ve lived in Duluth and A) Minnesotans have a tendency to constantly remind you that you are not from there B) You’ll need the Coen brothers to help you learn that lovely accent and C) It’s boring there so you’ll need to haul any toy/book/movie archive you can imagine and then some.
11
If you want to know the truth/I don't think much of Duluth/weather there may stable be/if to frostbite you must flee/if you plan on moving there/I hope you are part polar bear.
9
If you peruse the NYT’s archives for weather/climate related stories during the 1930s and 1950s, you will see that the US today is significantly cooler and drier than it was then. The difference is that today the huge numbers of competing media outlets have reason to promote stories of climate apocalypse. But the facts—like NOAA’s own unadjusted temperature data for the past 100 years (and the layer of snow that is on the ground here in Michigan as I write on April 15!) show otherwise.
3
@ehillesum
The truth is that 99% of climatologists support the findings that the world climate is becoming warmer, and that the cause is humans burning fossil fuels. This includes the US.
That's solid research, not anecdotal reading.
35
@Dr. M You do not know that of which you speak. And that is a polite term. All the raw climate data has been adjusted up. You'd know that if you took the time to look. Sure 99% of climate scientists want a big paycheck, so they keep up the charade.
Follow the animal migration who follow the plant migration. Plants “ move” to where they can germinate and grow. Animals follow to eat them. Humans follow the animals to eat them. Plants are moving northward.
...at least that’s how it used to work.
6
Calais, Me., St Stephen N.B. are worth a look. If our political climate continues on its downward trend, a change of country- just over the bridge- might just be in order. Coup, anyone?
7
This article reinforces a hoarding mentality, the same everyone-for-themselves attitude that Trump puts forth in his demonization of migrants. We need to accept that no place on the planet will be safe from the effects of climate change. We are all in this together.
121
How naive to think Duluth will somehow miraculously avoid the impact of rapid climate change. I suggest the authors and the fine folk of this somewhat baron outpost take a look at the devastating changes in Ulaan bataar over the past decade, once like Duluth, but now the world's most polluted city. This is folly.
5
What is so bad about addressing climate change? Good jobs and clean air and water will be the outcome.
9
So much for the idea that our country is "full." I live in Pittsburgh, a city that in 1960 had twice as many people as it does now.
The price I paid for my pre-war 5BR house with a terrific view started with a "1" (and didn't have a comma immediately after it). Want to convert a cool old warehouse? This--and many other American-heartland cities--might be just what you're looking for.
13
Yes sounds great, but do they have a coffee shop?
3
As the East floods?
Where I live on Staten Island, there is a wealthy community right on the water in Annadale. Large homes going for 2-4 million. Its been there for many years, and as I have a friend there, during the summer we hang out on the beach. Yes, a couple of them did get flooded during Sandy, but the water receded right back to where it was before. The way this community is built, its not like they are high on a bluff. Its a straight 90 degree angle from the water right to the back of these homes. Been that way for 30 years, and the water line at high tide hasnt moved an inch closer.
So if you folks want to get all hysterical and move where its cooler, sure, go to MN, where it gets to 30 below during the winter.
Enjoy!
2
@Sports Medicine
In the mid-1800's Staten Island was a refuge from the summer heat for wealthy southerners and plantation owners.
1
@Sports Medicine, thanks for that perspective, with a 30 year history. This climate change debate needs counter-arguments so that we are all more knowledgeable in reaching our own conclusions or best bets.
1
"The average American uses 80 to 100 gallons" of fresh water/day.
How is that possible? Our household of 2 uses less than 30 gallons/day - 15 gallons/person. Sure, we're careful about water waste here in this high, dry desert of southern UT, but we don't resort to extreme measures.
The mindless wastefulness in our society is mind-boggling. When the future is written (by what survivors?), it will be that we wasted the resources of our Little Blue Orb as we watched it steadily become uninhabitable for us - we fouled our own nest.
We're creating climate change (here's where the Ostriches jump in, shouting, "It ain't my fault") through our addiction to fossil fuels, yet we WASTE more than half of the energy we produce in the US. If we each took responsibility for our own over-consumption, we could reduce our creation of GHG, save money, improve our national security and leave a habitable world for our beloved grandkids. But we just don't care enough. Sayonara, homo sapiens… Nobodies' fault but ours.
23
It's coming. Americans better start moving inland and north now, while land is still cheap and unoccupied. I won't be here more than likely 40 years from now, but the relative trickle of immigrants we already see fleeing not only violence, disorder and economic chaos south of the border is going to continue to spread across the globe as climate change deteriorates conditions the world over - those immigrants are going to become hordes of people clamoring to get into the United States. I've been saying this for years - and now it's coming sooner than most people have yet to actually digest! They didn't bother to read the UN report on climate change - that's enough to give religion to just about anybody; and they don't read the increasingly alarming articles in their local newspapers about what's happening in our oceans, the high atmosphere, Antarctica, the Arctic, and the disappearance of the source of drinking water for billions of people - glaciers and ground water reserves.
12
@Jan N
You wrote:
""The average American uses 80 to 100 gallons" of fresh water/day.
How is that possible? Our household of 2 uses less than 30 gallons/day - 15 gallons/person. "
It is possible because you are not considering the water usage by industry. When you add that usage to private usage and then divide by all Americans, you get the increased figure.
9
There are many places in the United States with unlimited fresh water that are high enough to survive rising seas. Rural Maine for example is not as cold as Duluth, has water ad has adequate elevation.
1
I wonder how many people have been to Duluth reading this article. Well I have - fine people and they have lots of great places for great pastries for breakfast. Also if U happen to like curling - they have tournaments lasting 24 hours a day all winter - which is long!
The summers are great - they have the Boundary Waters Canoe area where U can find your own lake and swim with the loons. If U are a fisher person, U can catch huge Northern Pike which are great in the summer.
Lake Superior is a huge lake which has fantastic storms in November, the Ruben Lee which lost all hands. Great in the summer but forget the winter. BTW it is a great place to write books and make things in the winter.
I like Atlanta, just finishing up planting my tomatoes!
3
Cleveland is open for business as well- at one point in our history the city alone had almost 1 million , now it is 350,000. We have room , cheap housing costs, beautiful summers and much better winters than Duluth. This is the story of almost the whole Midwest.
15
Overlooked joys of old age, with the fortunate proviso of good health. I live in the Pacific Northwest in the summer and here in the winter and could not be any happier. Duluth in the winter? Brr. I have watched Fargo.
7
Years ago, I lived in Buffalo (actually Tonawanda-N. Tonawanda) and true, the summers are pleasant. Not especially humid and never hot. But the winters? Brutal. Long. Snow for days! I am glad Buffalo has had a resurgence and now, maybe a boost from this climate change news if they choose to take advantage of it.
7
Given enough time and space humans have adapted to live in and around temperate and tropical forests, plains, swamps, mountains, lakes, rivers, islands, volcanoes, reefs and deserts.
The only escape is " Space the final frontier" .
1
Places like Duluth will get increased population due to global warming, but, also, look to Canada to undergo some upheaval as well. Canada's population and population density are small, it's cooler of course, and it contains a very significant fraction of Earth's fresh water. Canada will need to expect an influx of climate refugees from various countries including the United States. The Golden Horseshoe of Canada will grow as will cities to its north and west such as Sudbury and North Bay and Sault-Ste-Marie.
7
@VJR
I agree. In the new world coming, Canada will be the big winner
2
The Great Lakes region is heaven on earth for 3/4 of the year. Not too hot, plenty of rain but in discrete systems rather than the constant drizzle of the Pacific NW. Green things do very well. And yet plenty of sunlight.
But The lower Great Lakes (Buffalo) are nowhere near as cold as the upper Great Lakes region (Minnesota) in the winter. C’mon, stop hyperventilating here.
The USA did a disservice several times over when it fostered movement to the South and especially Southwest, instead of focusing on where there is fresh water. Lots and lots and LOTS of fresh water. Probably the largest single reserve of fresh water on the planet. You can live without golf in December and February. You cannot live without water.
The Great Lakes are a no-brainer for the coming century as the SW dries up and the south withers from heat. The highways and especially rail already exist. The roads are wide, buildings strong, and there is room to grow.
You also don’t have to worry about flooding. Ever. Even the lowest of the cities there are hundreds of feet above sea level.
31
@A Contributor
Excellent points. And it is not a question of 'if' but 'when' the anti-government radicals suddenly demand that their government build giant, expensive water projects, such as piping Great Lakes water to parched Arizona, Nevada, Utah, etc.
10
@James G.
...where the development of communities should never have been allowed to occur, because of the lack of water. There has been plenty of 'talk' about relocating Great Lakes (especially Lake Superior) water to arid locales in the United States. People in those places apparently think they have a right to access public water, wherever it is found - as they did with lake and river water in California, Washington, etc.
11
@A Contributor
You don’t have to worry about flooding? You will not be inundated with salt water, sure, but our river systems flood here often enough in the spring doing extensive damage. In fact, it made the national news not too long ago.
9
Duluth is beautiful, but rents are surprisingly high. Be prepared. There are also many cool and historic buildings waiting for renovation.
Open your minds to the winters. My life changed the day I put on snowshoes. I am 67.
25
By 2080 all life as we know it will be extinguished after a 5 degree centigrade temperature rise, which is projected by Arctic scientists to kick in much more quickly than previously projected by the conservative IPCC.
Not only that, with the obliteration of the ocean’s phytoplankton, there will be hardly any oxygen left to breath, so if the heat doesn’t get us, our anaerobic atmosphere will.
19
One should definitely include Detroit, and Michigan in general, when discussing cities that can accommodate an influx of climate refugees. It has cheap, abundant housing and plenty of vacant land. There are considerable transformational possibilities in the city as it grapples with post industrial realities and the reduction in population that it experienced over the past several decades. Inner-city farms have appeared, educators are some of the most innovative in the country, and the city has a history of embracing immigrants in its diverse communities. Oh yeah, and then there's the water.
19
@Mark I’m not sure how much abundant housing will remain. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos of Detroit’s decline. Miles and miles of housing has been destroyed due to blight. It is hard to fathom.
Cute story but pure hyperbole.
The climate is always changing and always has been, regardless of human activity. Doggerland, we hardly knew ye.
Now, humans have been changing the climate since at least 10,000 years ago to be sure.
But wildfires have always been a problem in the West. There is a drought each and every summer.
The sea level has been rising for many thousands of years and building on Miami waterfront was always a bad idea.
It's time for sensible legislation to mitigate the consequences of a changing climate. But we should avoid alarmist claptrap and the trend to replace the old boogieman with the new (eg Russian, now terrorst, now climate change)
9
@Little Donnie
Apparently, you need to learn about the Keeling Curve and The Hockey Stick Graph. Do that, and you will understand that, while "humans have been changing the climate at least 10,000 year ago" (even more, actually), it is only since the Industrial Revolution that things are now getting bad.
Indeed, the science behind the root-cause of anthropogenic global warming is so basic that it was first predicted in 1896 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Svante Arrhenius (whose name every competent chemistry student knows) in his paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid
in the Air upon the Temperature of
the Ground" (Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276. ). He then published a book in 1907 titled "Worlds in the Making" in which he wrote:
"The enormous combustion of coal by our industrial establishments suffices to increase the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air to a perceptible degree."
11
@Little Donnie the level of green house gasses in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for 800,000 years (how far back we can go with ice core samples). Soon we will reaching temperatures that are above anything humans have experienced in the entire 200,000 or so years we have been on the planet. When the the last ice age needed about 12,000 years ago, the rise in temperatures was much more gradual than what we are experiencing now, and there were about 5 million people on the planet. Alarmist? The things climate scientist predicted are happening 50 year earlier than they thought 30 years ago. Time to stop with the complacency.
3
I've been thinking for a while that the Great Lakes would be the place to be as climate change gets worse...interesting to see that research bears this out. If I were in my 20s I would strongly consider moving someplace like Buffalo, Detroit or Duluth.
Incidentally, I grew up just outside of Chicago and I've always thought the Great Lakes were underappreciated as both a geographic phenomenon and a cultural and economic region. It looks as though their time may be about to come.
8
The Great Lakes area is indeed an excellent place to live. I grew up near Buffalo and now live near Detroit. I can’t imagine living away from these waters. I love it here. The boating and golfing are fabulous. We spent a week in the UP last fall. The scenery was exquisite.
5
@K. Anderson
Whichever Portland you are in, water will not be a problem!
What a great piece! I plan to retire in 12 years and have been considering Duluth as a top spot for several years now. It has very close access to amazing recreation - the lake as well as top notch XC skiing, and the city is progressive. This article helps me along the way and to convince my husband to head to MN!
11
It has been mentioned many times that the younger generation is tuned into these changes. But it doesn't stop them from booking a high emission CO2 Jet trip to a friends exotic wedding somewhere warm.
Humans are a reactionary species, but exactly "when" we will collectively react to Climate Change is not a binary answer. It will all depend on when undeniable climate change catastrophes occur. So far they are deniable to many.
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@Bob
It's not just the younger generation that thinks jet air travel is their birthright. My sister, in her mid-sixties, likes to brag about her friend who 'flies all over the world warning about climate change.' She fails to see the irony.
7
@Bob
Blaming individual consumer choices for global warming misses the forest for the trees. People fly to weddings because it is cheaper and faster than taking the train. That's because of political decisions we have made to effectively subsidize car and air travel while starving mass transit and long distance rail. If we decide as a society to invest massively in high speed rail and tax air travel to reflect its actual environmental costs, people will adjust how they organize their wedding plans and travels. This is what a Green New Deal would mean. The media mocked AOC mercilessly for suggesting that we need to radically reduce air travel, but she was right of course. And her proposal makes a lot more sense than relocating half the country to places like Duluth.
9
@Christopher I think people fly to exotic weddings because of LARGE OCEANS that trains can't cross. Or the great distances within our country.
1
Nice hoping...but none of it will matter when the tropical zone expands both north and south, spawning millions of mosquitos and other insects that will carry the new diseases born of a warmer climate. It's not weather that will get most of us, it's disease and famine.
90
This is all common sense but I think a mass migration north won't be happening too soon. All of my friends, and I mean all, complain if the temperature gets below 55. They couldn't take Minnesota winters. I grew up in upstate NY and winters are way too warm for me these days so I want to move north, while everyone I know is moving south.
20
@CJ
We lasted just over ten years on the South Carolina coast before the mosquitos, snakes, alligators and bigots drove us north
9
We live just up the shore from Duluth and there is really some potential for this place being a wonderful escape for those people experiencing climate stress. There are several negative features not mentioned. Homes are in short supply, people often end up in bidding wars for houses just under 200,000. Seasonal Affective Disorder is real with very dark days in November through February; stock up on full spectrum lighting, and a treadmill. Duluth has fairly diverse population but outlying areas are not diverse and may have a difficult time adjusting. If there is a train again between Duluth and Minneapolis the traffic on I35 and 61 in the summer and fall may get better, but now, Fridays and Sundays can be almost no-travel days. Duluth does not have a botanical center and should. Fire may become a problem outside of Duluth with broad climate swings in dense forest areas. But there are no earthquakes and rare tornados. If you can overlook those negatives, come join us.
35
@Laura S. I forgot the black flies, and make sure you have a garage and a snow blower and extra cash for heating.
10
@Laura S. And the mosquitos and wood ticks. I love and miss Lake Superior. The thing I've noticed about people who live in areas of extreme cold is that they prepare for the cold and snow all year. Think of the Aesop's fable about the ants and the grasshopper. When we first moved to the Central Valley of California 40 years ago, I found myself getting anxious every fall. I finally figured out that it was because there was no need to can or freeze food as fresh food was always readily available. When we were able to move to the mountains where we have snowy winters, I felt much better. The difference is it rarely goes below 0 and the mosquitoes are manageable.
3
@Laura S.
I'm not sure that bidding wars for "houses under $200,000" will dissuade many readers of the New York Times.
11
You can add Detroit to the list of climate-proof cities. Plus, no hurricanes, earthquakes, and only the very very occasional tornado. We have plenty of fresh water, too.
24
There will certainly be huge migrations, and you can bet that when the surge comes any so-called climate change havens are not going to welcome refugees with open arms. This will be a huge test of ours country's stability. Watch, as we wait to the last minute, build hugely expensive and ultimately futile dikes around cities like Miami, and then quickly try to relocate millions of people. Does anyone really think this will be accomplished peacefully? Sorry to be such a curmudgeon, but I'm also a realist.
157
@otto
This near-certainty of large migrations makes it all the more important that smaller inland cities like Duluth start planning now.
2
@Johannah S
This is a genuine question. What shall they plan for?
3
@otto Plan for a zombie apocalypse. That should cover all bases.
1
Do not forget the possibility of a "mini-ice age" brought on by climate change.
The Gulf Stream conveyor belt that distributes equatorial heat to the poles, and polar cold to the equator could break down, concentrating cold in the upper latitudes and heat in the lower.
Ain't destroying nature fun!?
42
It is surprising that two cities with cold winters would be featured in an article about climate disruption, without mention being made of the need for winter heat.
In the north, we produce lots of CO2 by heating our homes with fossil fuels. Either we keep doing so, contributing to the climate disruption that will force people to migrate, or we insulate better and switch to heat pumps, which require a plentiful supply of clean electricity. (Minnesota does have a sizable wind resource and a commitment to develop it.)
We need to plan, and not daydream about where the best place to live would be if things were otherwise to remain as they are now. Because they won't.
145
@Brian Stewart
Air cooling equipment is unnecessary in Duluth and Buffalo.
8
@5barris
But heating for long periods is essential.
13
@Brian Stewart. Also, with all the additional moisture in the air, aren't winters going to be even more devastating than they are now?
5
Almost everything about climate change is unpredictable, apart from the fact that it is happening at an increasingly rapid rate. This is because there are innumerable different factors to consider many of which are acting upon and altering each other.
My advice would be to stay put and think about how to make the best of what you have.
43
I agree with John Pastor. And yes, Lake Superior is huge, but I doubt that means there is enough fresh water to go around, as Jesse Keenan stated. Maybe he wasn’t serious?
4
@Jana Pastika Lake Superior has 4 quadrillion gallons of water
1
And? Read MD/Michigan comment and read Egan’s book.
Lake Superior holds ten percent of the Earth’s fresh water.
1
Mayor Larson said. “I think we have a tremendous amount of work to do as a community to truly be a place where migration and immigration are seen as being strength and vitality and growth."
Even truer closer to home. Try moving from Brooklyn to Sleepy Hollow. Some people nice, but hard to ignore threats and hate from "lifers" on local social media.
10
@migrated44
Mayor Larson's quote sounds like a corporate speak translation of "Duluth is a hotbed of white extremists."
“At the end of the day, it’s really about fresh water,” Dr. Keenan said. “It’s that simple. You’ve got to have fresh water.”
If anyone is hedging their climate-change bets that the Great Lakes (which hold 90% of the fresh water in the U.S.) will be a safe haven, I urge them to read Dan Egan's "The Life and Death of the Great Lakes" which outlines an ecological disaster happening in real time.
190
@MD, remember - the great lakes don't "belong" to just the US. And do you seriously think we're going to be able to stop the influx of people when billions of people from the African continent, Asia, India, and the Middle East go on the move in search of potable water and food? All the walls in the world won't keep desperate people out. THAT is the vision nobody wants to face - but we need to - in order to stir ourselves to put people, to put our planet, over profits.
36
@MD
I did read this book. We must do everything in our power to protect and rehabilitate this vital resource.
The Clean Water Act helped, and the discovery of lampricide helped. We must find solutions for the more recent threats, or risk poisoning the water supplies with toxic algal blooms.
But I still think the Great Lakes region is a relatively best bet for climate change resilience. Which makes protecting the lakes all the more important.
25
@Jan N luckily,unlike Europe, we have two oceans and our southern border can be closed, if there is a compelling reason for doing so. We will always be “safe” from mass migrations. However, if you lack resources you shouldn’t be having children.
11
What about Detroit? Lot's of infrastructure, if the Big 3 haven't completely torn it down yet.
And some of the coolest houses - again, if they haven't been torn down yet.
69
America needs to think about developing habitable areas and colonizing some of its vast public lands for refugees of coastal regions in danger in the near future, American citizens are likely to be refugees in their own country.
Now is the time to plan ahead.
The first thing we need to do is enlighten our minds about human migration and what causes and results from it?
Duluth won't be able to handle the swell of people the same way Toledo, DesMoines or Pittsburgh could not.
We should be building an underground freshwater collection and distribution system for essential water needs throughout the regions of the country. Throw a new electrical grid in the same ditch while you have it dug up.
We can pump oil sludge from the Arctic to the Gulf, but water has to be trucked everywhere.
I would like to hear some big green futuristic infrastructure ideas to challenge and unite the country from Mayor Pete!
This is the 21st Century after all.
23
@R. K. F.
Ummm. Instead of "colonizing vast public lands", how about reducing sprawl and learning to live more efficiently with less resources in the places we have already developed? The last thing we need is to pave the continent over, from coast to coast.
399
@R. K. F., I can guarantee you that millions upon millions of Americans will be refuges in their own country. How could people have forgotten what happened during the Dust Bowl years out west? That's not even a thimble-full of what's coming. Nobody is going to live on the coasts 10 feet under water unless, like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, they grow webbed feet and fingers!
15
Never been in Duluth, but spent almost 2 years to study in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Summer was beautiful there, but winter very cold. I guess 2 to 3 degree increase in temperature would make Ann Arbor much more friendly in winter to residents. Besides I love the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Would consider moving back there if Houston were flooded by water, a distinct possibility.
9
@Usok Yup. Being nestled in between all three Great Lakes is kinda nice, too.
9
There are actually 5 Great Lakes.
5
@Usok, I believe that when it comes to surviving because you have clean fresh water and food, you'll learn to live with long, cold winters.
2
Global warming has no boundaries. Duluth will see the consequences of it in one way or another. If wildfires can devastate Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, they can hit the Duluth area, It was not too long ago that ore carriers were reducing their tonnage on Superior due to drought and low water issues. At least it is far enough above sea level to avoid the most immediate effects happening in coastal areas now.
40
@John Warnock, of course. I don't believe the author was suggesting that moving north is an absolute panacea. But the alternatives are going to be either far worse, or non-existent. In the worst case projections, we have to understand that we could lose as much as a a quarter to a third of the land mass in the United States and where the land isn't inundated with salt water it will be too hot for most living things, including human beings, to exist. People who are relying upon "science" to somehow save us in some blurry future are smoking stuff from a bad pipe!
5
In Buffalo now after watching UMass compete in the "Frozen Four" final (we lost). Buffalo has beautiful urban amenities (one of Olmsted's best park systems, walkable neighborhoods crammed with outstanding houses and lots of art and cultural attractions). Even better, the city has a friendly community vibe that welcomes newcomers from near and far. Things are happening here.
116
@Michael Di Pasquale, I've come to my city's defense in the NYT before and am usually told by readers here that it is a festering wound. That's because so many people regard Buffalo based only on what they've heard, or perhaps what they've experienced two decades ago. I'm glad to hear that you've enjoyed yourself in the Buff! There's a lot going on here, and it just keeps getting better.
23
@Michael Di Pasquale
And Buffalo offers residents cross country skiing at their doorstep at least twice a week, every Winter.
16
Grew up near Buffalo. Quite heartened to see it doing so well on my last trip back there. Mass transit - what a concept! (We don’t have that in Detroit.)
17
For many thoughtful people, the notion of where to seek refuge in a changing world has been a small-but-growing concern. But for most of the population, moving won’t happen until the ability to remain in familiar surroundings, with all the comforts of a rooted existence, is overcome by undeniable disruptive forces. And the recipient areas of those climate migrants will have to contend with not just the trickle of a few early planners, but something more akin to an onslaught of distressed, displaced people, a level of assimilation we’ve already seen does not happen easily.
102
Great job, Kendra! Really enjoyed this piece. Living six hours away, I’ve had the chance to spend time in Duluth and it is a beautiful, fun and funky city. I hope people reading the piece will reflect on the need to mitigate climate change so they don’t have to migrate.
40
I have been thinking about this idea a lot. Duluth beat me too it. Detroit will likely hold up also. Also the coast of Lake Huron in Michigan is beautiful, unsung and cheap. Put on a hat and sweater, you'll be fine.
59
Please do not move to Duluth (at least not for a while). This is a beautiful place and I wouldn't live anywhere else. But our infrastructure cannot support 150,000 people as the article says. When we did have 150,000 people, many of them were living in tarpaper shacks and working in a steel mill (now closed). We have potholes that swallow cars (really). We live in the same neighborhood as the mayor and we have to leave our faucets running a trickle in late winter to keep the water supply pipes from freezing.
We need to improve our infrastructure a lot before we can accept a large climate migration without harming Lake Superior. This will take some time. Come visit instead - it's a wonderful city to spend time in.
311
@John Pastor
John Pastor is spot on! I've lived in Duluth most of my life and I cannot even begin to imagine a population of 150,000 residents in the Duluth area? There is simply not enough available real estate to even begin accommodating the road infrastructure needed to handle this many people. Besides, because of our long winter season coupled by ice/snow on our road surfaces, we can no longer sustainably use salt and other ice mitigation if we want to preserve our already strained Lake Superior water quality!
Once again, please visit but do not move here!
38
@John Pastor 😀
3
@HT that’s kind of how everyone feels about outsiders, give us your money then leave please.
13
I always thought that the Pacific Coast from San Francisco all the way to Canada will be a wonderful place to escape the effects of global warming and overpopulation.
Wild, sparsely populated, stunningly beautiful, it can probably take 2-3 degrees of temperature increase without too many problems. And if the freezing sea gets a little bit warmer, it will attract more warm-water fish and perhaps it will be more comfortable to swim in.
Still, even though such safe havens will exist, this does not absolve us from the duty to reduce and eliminate CO2 emissions (through renewable energy but also through innovative carbon capture technologies - see the revolutionary Swiss company mentioned recently in the NYT).
65
@Andy
The only part of California I have ever visited is Monterey. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, truly a paradise. But they've got these earthquake things from time to time!
Another great place is Tampa, Florida, a truly lovely place. But those hurricanes!
Thank you, but I think I'll stay in Milwaukee. No earthquakes, no hurricanes, and it's not all that far from Duluth.
18
@Andy. Three words: Cascadia Subduction Zone.
38
@Andy... Suggest you research: Cascadian Fault. There was an award winning article about it in the New Yorker a few years back.
17