America's Climate Boomtowns Are Waiting: Rising Temps and Migration

In the US, the USDA publishes a “Hardiness Zone map”, used by citizens to identify plants and trees that will do well in their location. Since the nineties, they’ve had to make changes to the map as areas of the US warm, as it has a material impact on level of success a given planting might have. They changed the zone just south of mine in 2023 actually. In my zone (a northern/colder climate) there are plants and vegetables that, thirty years ago, would have had difficulty growing or yielded crap in a growing season. Anecdotally, last summer, hot peppers did amazingly in my parents garden.

This is imo an example of a change with an economic impact that might drive “a migration” (which brings to mind something drastic/ immediate, but this isn’t). There are counterpoints to this specific example (hydroponics for example) but it’s hard to argue the basic premises that climates are deviating from the established norms we’ve built into our society, and that this change will move humans around, either seeking a newly available resource or fleeing the new absence of one. Or fleeing a net-new resource, like sea water.

That all being said, your argument is imo valid; how many times can I yell that your sky is falling before you start treating me like a quack ? :) Who knows what will happen, and for how much longer we will *have to* quack, or *have* to quack. (That last one was nonserious, I couldn’t help the play on words)