Climate Change and Mass Migration in the United States - Fabrício Guerra

 Fabrício Guerra

Mr. Zhou

GPHC

14 December 2020

Climate and Migration

     As climate change is beginning to effect people with huge storms and devastating droughts, the opposite is being done to help the people who live in these areas. In the past couple of years, strong economic cities like Houston, Miami, and Orlando in the Gulf Coast Region have been seeing an increase in population from people in the north. Along with this population increase comes big spending in infrastructure and business subsidies. This is all normal, and if it was a normal circumstance it would be good. However, considering the climate estimations for the next 50 years show that this is not a sustainable investment. Right now in the United States there are certain Niche Zones, which are places that are perfect for human activity. The current niche zones are the forests of the southeast, and California Coast, and the Forests of Arizona. If the we continue to look after our environment, niche zones are still projected to move north, and if we continue to not look after our environment, Niche Zones are expected to move all the way north to cities such as Chicago and Toronto. Not only will this be bad for the millions of people who already live in the south, but it will also be bad for another reason: crop production. Some places in Texas are estimated to have a 60-80% crop production decrease due to climate change, and since the big cities are dependent on those rural counties for food, there will be a huge migration northward in search for more hospitable land. This obviously has disastrous economical consequences, although the north will have a lot of economic development, the south will regress tremendously, and that is where a lot today's investment money is going to. There is an estimated 8% of economic output loss to be expected, and compared to nations that are putting in big efforts to curb the effects, it is a huge difference. For now, it is already too late for the United States to stop the northward movement of the niche zones, and for the destruction of coastal economic zones. The main concern is food production, which is still salvageable if we start to grow more crops in the north now. 

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