My House Will Burn Down
See the lovely green house in the lovely green redwood forest. I live there. This house will burn down to the ground. Maybe not this year. Maybe not next year. But it is coming, I know that.
The lovely house is in the lovely hills above Santa Cruz, just below Silicon Valley and less than an hour south of San Francisco. Last summer (2020), the huge CZU lightning fire complex came within a mile of it. We had to evacuate the area for 10 days — amidst a global pandemic, to boot.
Last year was a drought. This year is a drought. There is every reason to believe we are at the start of a forever megadrought. Check out this article, What tree rings reveal about America’s megadrought. The article is short and mostly pictures, and very nicely produced (you’ll see what I mean if you scan the article). The data in the article suggests something like a 10-year megadrought, but I think that climate change will drive it to be much longer—probably longer than I will be around (I’m old) so that is effectively forever.
And so the trees in the forest are getting drier, making them more vulnerable to fire. And so my house will burn down.
Oh well, that’s not the end of the world. The house is insured. For now, that is — until the insurance companies stop offering fire insurance in our area. In fact, it is still probably insured only because our wonderful congressperson, Ann Eshoo, negotiated a 1-year moratorium on changes to fire insurance policies after last summer’s disaster.
But even if the house is not insured when it burns down, I am fortunate and privileged to have accumulated a substantial financial cushion over my professional working career. I will be able to afford new housing, and I won’t go hungry. I pity those less privileged and fortunate than me, which is practically everybody in the world. I hope I can help some of you.
The immediate question for me is, where will I go? Do I rebuild on site? I don’t think so. As lovely as the area is, why rebuild the house just to have it burn down again? Besides, it won’t be so lovely after the fires consume the forest. The redwoods will probably survive, but the Douglas firs, the madrone, and the oaks are gonners. The fire scar will be ugly. And smelly. And subject to mud slides.
Somewhere in the American Southwest? Fuggedaboutit! Rising heat will make the South and Southwest uninhabitable in ten or twenty years. Really. Las Vegas and Phoenix both hit 118dF in the last two days as I write this. That is already uninhabitable for me. Same goes for most of the interior of California.
Fuggedabout the hurricane targets — the East Coast and the Gulf region. Sandy? Katrina?
Fuggedabout the tornado corridors — much of the Midwest. Tornadoes increasing in number and severity.
Fuggedabout the upper Midwest. I’m a progressive liberal with a radical leftist agenda, and I am transsexual. Trump country is not for me.
I love the further north coastal California areas, but there are no large cities there and I am concerned about access to Medicare-based medical care as I near retirement.
Clearly, Portland OR and Seattle WA are the places for me. I don’t like the constant drizzle, but I’m sure climate change will take care of that before too long. And the warming temperatures will give them the mild climate I currently enjoy in the Santa Cruz hills. I even have a sister and a brother, and nieces, nephews, and great-people in Oregon. But you know what? Climate change is going to get them too, one way or another. Sea level rise. Maybe the insect populations that are being driven north. Maybe drought or floods. Could we see Pacific hurricanes? Surely more pandemics. Or maybe just overrun with climate refugees.
There is no where to go, inside the good ol’ USA or outside. Climate change is coming to get us all. Bummer. And bummer that my house is going to burn down.
Published: 6/20/2021
8/19/2021: These maps from ProPublica indicate that the upper Midwest, upstate New York, and New England may have the most favorable outcomes from climate change.
