Climate change refugees coming to Portland?


Are “climate change” refugees coming to Portland in the future? An editorial at the Portland Tribune thinks so.

The Portland Tribune has an editorial on the subject of “climate change refugees”, and how they might impact the local economy and population forecasts. The Trib article makes some bold predictions–painting a future in which there is a massive exodus from places such as Phoenix due to water shortages, to more water-rich areas like…here.

I don’t endorse the substance of the article (nor am I stating my opposition), but found it interesting–as the possibility of a massive demographic shift to the north is one which would have profound impacts on the region.

The ground rules for debate: Climate change denial is, as always, not permitted at Portland Transport. (Nor is complaining about the policy, which is not negotiable). This is a private blog; those who object to this may start their own (http:/www.blogger.com makes it easy to set one up, and there’s plenty of other free hosting providers besides Google/Blogger). However, since the subject is front and center for this thread, certain discussions that might normally be shunted aside are permitted in the comments here, including:

  • Whether the climate effects posited in the article, and/or the resulting political effects or demographic shifts, are reasonable.
  • Whether a massive influx of residents to Portland (or a massive migration away) are likely
  • The possibility of politically-powerful desert regions diverting water from the Pacific Northwest to meet their needs (the idea of building a huge pipeline to divert flows from the Columbia to California has been proposed before)
  • How Portland should (or should not) accommodate the potential for so-called “climate change refugees”

Etc.

Of course, maybe the answer is for everyone to move to Canada. :)


54 responses to “Climate change refugees coming to Portland?”

  1. Why would people leave California because of warm weather when the don’t leave the equatorial areas because of warm weather?

    Why would people fear rising temperatures which will bring more rain and MORE food production.

    Thanks
    JK

  2. The issue isn’t warm weather, JK, it’s water–either not enough of it (drought) or too much (flooding). It could be that changes in weather patterns turn LA from a desert into an oasis, making it more attractive. (Or rising sea levels could make much of the Pacific Coast no longer habitable). Or it could exacerbate the current dearth of rainfall, including reducing the flow in the Colorado River and other streams from which the region gets its water, making life in LA rather unpleasant (far beyond bans on outdoor swimming pools, car washes, or lawn sprinklers).

    And there’s more than a low-lying areas in the world which are facing the prospect of the fate of Atlantis.

  3. JK:

    People at the equator have water, mostly. It’s not about temperature it’s about precipitation.

    It doesn’t matter if a warmer climate benefits new areas for agriculture and produces more net food, all that means is areas in marginal rainfall places like the Southwest and Mexico — where there are millions of people — will be looking to live in new areas and will be migrating for places with water.

    History has proven that climates change, and the water is going to be our generation’s next biggest issue, not oil.

    Personally, I think we should start selling our water to drought areas. Not only sell it, but gouge people for being so stupid and living in areas that are not conducive to American sprawl-style habitation patterns.

  4. Personally, I think we should start selling our water to drought areas. Not only sell it, but gouge people for being so stupid and living in areas that are not conducive to American sprawl-style habitation patterns.

    We do. We just first mix it with hops, yeast, and sugar, and let it sit around a while. Tastes better that way.

  5. PS:

    The development of the Southwest over the last 60 years is one giant federal government waste “stimulus.”

    …While the topic of government and the “free market” is being discussed in another thread. Though I’d throw that out there.

    There’s reasons they get water and it has hardly anything to do with private investment.

  6. Sorry Guys, the IPCC says we will get both droughts and floods.

    How does this change into only droughts?

    Besides everyone knows warm evaporates more ocean water and that water has to fall as rain somewhere.

    Thanks
    JK

  7. 2 things:

    a) Yes, there will be floods and droughts. But certain areas will be primarily flooded and other primarily droughts from my understanding.

    b) If we were to get a huge influx of population, how screwed would we be? How far off are our plans in terms of handling 5 million people in the next 40 years as suggested? Where would we put them?

  8. And there’s more than a low-lying areas in the world which are facing the prospect of the fate of Atlantis.
    Of course oceans have been rising since the end of the last ice age. Recently the the rate of rise has SLOWED, not increased.

    Thanks
    JK

  9. Recently the the rate of rise has SLOWED, not increased.

    That’s not exactly the mainstream scientific view.

    A few posts from the Skeptical Science blog:

    Are Sea Levels Rising? – Takes on the cherry-picked nature of the claim that the rate of rise has slowed.

    Has Sea Level Rise Accelerated Since 1880? – Shows that the decadal trend has been acceleration.

    How much will sea levels rise in the 21st Century? – Shows that measured sea level increases are toward the high end of IPCC model preductions.

    Back to the core of this topic, supposing there is a large net migration of people to Portland from the southwest. The manner and timing of such moves would have a big impact… If people gradually gave up and left their homes and came to Portland without jobs or a plan, it would certainly be a drag on our local economy. But if entire major factory employers were to coordinate and relocate, bringing their workforces with them, it would more resemble a boom time. Somewhere in the middle, of course, is how it would probably play out.

  10. This article included the statements,

    “The Southwest has suffered a severe drought since 2000. That will be exacerbated, as average temperatures soar by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.”

    These statements about a severe drought since 2000 and future temperature increases are very puzzling because the National Climatic Data Center indicates that annual temperatures in the Southwest Region have been trending downward at a rate of 1.34 degrees F per decade since 2000 and that annual precipitation in the Southwest Region has been trending upward at a rate of 2.10 inches per decade since 2000.

    Ken

  11. per decade since 2000

    Given that it is now 2011, making a statement of “per decade” rather than saying “in recent years” is a bit of a stretch.

    Still, can you provide a link to the data on the NCDC web site we should be looking at?

  12. Bob R: A few posts from the Skeptical Science blog:

    JK: Of course the Skeptical Science blog is totally alarmist.

    [Moderator: Alarmist only if you respect the science. Truth can be alarming. – Bob R.]

  13. I HOPE that tripling our regional population isn’t in the cards. If it happens, a lot of stuff will sort itself out through the market — housing will get VERY expensive, leading to (probably) large numbers of small units. Generally, cities should allow denser zoning in downtown and other regional cores and along major transit corridors, and look for creative ways to do more with the housing already out there (more granny flats, accessory units or trailers in the back yard, etc). A corridor with ten homes per acre can support effective high-frequency transit.

    We can deal with the water issue by tripling efficiency (or at least aspiring to do so) — cut residential water use by 2/3rds on a per capita basis and do as much as possible with commercial and industrial water efficiency. We already have high water rates; that will help give incentives for more efficient use.

    Statewide, push for increases in irrigation efficiency to keep agriculture growing. Reform water policy to promote efficiency rather than waste (which is ofter a problem with the “first in time, first in right, use-it-or-lose-it” water policy in most western states). Tighten up on land use protection to keep farm land from being lost to development — farm land that might be economically marginal today could be very valuable tomorrow if large parts of the middle of the country become dust bowls.

    JK asked:
    Why would people fear rising temperatures which will bring more rain and MORE food production.

    [Moderator: Personally-directed remark removed — ES] … more rain doesn’t necessarily bring more food production. Where and when the extra rain comes down is critical, as is where the water goes after it falls. In Oregon, we WANT the rain to come down as snow in the Cascades and build a massive snowpack that melts throughout the summer. There are potential agricultural benefits to flood plains as well if we get rid of the riverfront development and line all our rivers with farmland.

    But rain that come as a driving monsoon outside the growing season that washes hillsides into rivers, or creates seasonal flash floods in the desert, does farmers very little good at all.

  14. [Moderator: Series of relabeled links to the climate-change denialist blog removed. See original post for rules of discussion in this thread. – Bob R.]

    Al,
    That video was like a WES Works video. Really dumb.

  15. [Moderator: Refutation of moderator decision to remove Steve’s earlier links removed. This isn’t up for discussion. Period. – Bob R.]

    As for the refugee piece how convenient that the expected 1 million additional people Metro has been planning for now is 3 million and much more planning is needed. And all of it is for more the same infill, high density, TOD baloney.

    FYI

    The moderating here is very much like at ClimateProgress and RealClimate which is widely viewed as inappropriate censoring.

    [Moderator: Two blogs I respect which have reasonable comment policies. “Censoring” does not apply to private blogs with established guidelines. We’re here to discuss our topics within our parameters, not necessarily yours. Go get your own blog if that’s a problem. – Bob R.]

  16. As a person who has been banned from my fair share of blogs, and while I disagree with a lot that is said on Portland Transport, the rules on the blog and allowing people to speak their mind are pretty darn good here.

    JK:“Sorry Guys, the IPCC says we will get both droughts and floods.

    How does this change into only droughts?”

    ws:

    No doy, JK. It means we can experience more droughts and more deluges. Areas prone to the either pole can probably expect the extreme of either end.

    Warmer temps = more evaporation = more precipitation.

  17. What came to mind reading that article is that people predicting the end of the world radical large scale change have been wrong a lot more often then they’ve been right.

    If there were a large scale migration, I’d bet we’d see a Seattle-Portland megapolis not unlike Chicago and Milwaukee. More change in Washington then here.

  18. I have a simple idea for solving the water shortage in the Southwest. But since it should be, by rights, worth multiple billions of dinero I am not going to share it here.

    Is there global warming? Yes…aeons ago cavemen were complaining about the disappearance of the ice sheet and the corresponding loss of megafauna.

    Are there climate refugees headed for Oregon? Yes, and 75 years ago they were called “Okies.” Today we call them “urbanists.” They are not so much climate refugees as merely refugees from the typically dangerous weather conditions that exist in most of the rest of the US.

    Should these “refugees” come here? I think former Gov. Tom McCall had a good answer. Now, see, if we had elected another popular celebrity personality last fall this discussion would be moot. Oh well….

    Will the Oregon economy, predictably, falter again and reduce the population growth rate? Yeah, probably.

  19. The Oregon Democrats in the legislature killed a bill that would have enabled Columbia River Water to be used for irrigation.
    It was a throughly reasonable bill.

    Likewise they also killed a bill that would have raised logging slightly yet kept it well below sustainable yield levels.

    And “the density of forests and woodland across much of the world is actually increasing, according to a respected scientific study”

    I would provide the link but it is not allowed.

  20. Link for the Columbia bill killed in the legislature? A Google News search for Oregon Columbia Irrigation didn’t turn up anything in the first few pages.

    I would provide the link but it is not allowed.

    Links to global warming denial web sites are not allowed, correct.

    For those interested in pursuing the issue on another web site (one which acknowledges, by the way, increases in forest density), here’s an article on the whole “CO2 is good for plants” argument and the fallacy of exclusion:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-Good-for-Plants-Another-Red-Herring-in-the-Climate-Change-Debate.html

    But the discussion here should be focused on the idea of a mass influx of “climate refugees” and what, if true, that might mean for our future.

  21. Steve,

    It’s not that hard to believe that forest density is increasing, due to the forest fire policies of most governments. The problem is that the number of acres of forest land, particularly rain forest is decreasingly rapidly. I appreciate your attempt at confusing the issue, though.

  22. Steve,

    If you have a “respected scientific study”, it’s no problem–simply provide a link to the original article as published in a respected scientific journal. Google Scholar will help you find the appropriate reference.

    If it doesn’t appear in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, OTOH, it’s probably a big stretch to call it a “respected scientific study”.

  23. EngineerScotty Says: If it doesn’t appear in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, OTOH, it’s probably a big stretch to call it a “respected scientific study”.
    JK: Here is what Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal had to say about peer review:
    Peer review does not replicate and so validate research. Peer review does not prove that a piece of research is true. The best it can do is say that, on the basis of a written account of what was done and some interrogation of the authors, the research seems on the face of it to be acceptable for publication…Experience shows, for example, that peer review is an extremely unreliable way to detect research misconduct. [bold added]
    http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf, page 129

    Thanks
    JK

  24. No, peer review doesn’t prove anything is true. Lots of papers which later turned out to be fabricated (or just plain wrong) have appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

    But it sure weeds out a whole lot of BS.

    And the way research misconduct is detected is by failed attempts to duplicate experiments–scientists routinely check each other’s work, after all. It’s only a part of the process, but it’s a very important part.

  25. Nonetheless, this is all a distraction from the topic at hand.

    To those who dispute most of contemporary climate science, that’s fine, just don’t do it here. Instead, please treat the premise of the original post as a thought experiment: What might happen if climate refugees come here en masse.

    Thanks.

  26. What might happen if climate refugees come here en masse.
    Ala Tom McCall, we can post signs:

    Welcome to Oregon, but please don’t stay:
    Why not enjoy a millionaire condo in BC?
    Alaska is wonderful this time of year!

    Thanks
    JK

  27. It seems like the conversation needs to move towards: How do we handle 3M people instead of talking about global warming. But maybe noone else is interested in the thought exercise.

    Would we just want to build up all over our ‘regional cores’? How much sprawl would be ‘OK’ in this scenario? Would we need to build completely new transit lines and build up around them (preferably funded by ‘value capture’)? Will conservative companies ever be willing to fund the liberal utopia of PDX or would we as a whole become more conservative?

  28. Ron Swaren Says: “They won’t come here if the economy is in the tank.”

    Really? That’s odd. Because the economy is in the tank now, but they’re still moving here.

  29. Economies being in the tank is a relative term. If Portland has a depressed manufacturing base, but reasonable infrastructure and utilities, and Phoenix has the situation where water is nearly as expensive as gasoline; then Portland will look quite attractive in comparison. (Besides–much of Phoenix’s economy is based on the inflow of pension checks from other parts of the country). A population that is growing is a far better problem to have than one which is shrinking.

    That said, I’m not sure that the scenario posited by the author–of southwestern cities being abandoned–is too likely. Even if weather changes alter the hospitability quotient of some region, I suspect that some technical/political endeavors will counteract that.

  30. That said, I’m not sure that the scenario posited by the author–of southwestern cities being abandoned–is too likely. Even if weather changes alter the hospitability quotient of some region, I suspect that some technical/political endeavors will counteract that.

    Cities like Tucson and Phoenix are already uninhabitable, IMO, and yet there are all those people… If you took away their air conditioning they’d probably leave, or even go to the effort of building homes that don’t require massive electrical power.

  31. @SteveS
    And “the density of forests and woodland across much of the world is actually increasing, according to a respected scientific study”

    The fire suppression model of the US’ management of forests is abysmal, but how many loggers are interested in selective cutting?

    Not many. They want the old growth trees and they want to clear cut and they want to turn them into monoculture crops.

    The logging industry needs to change. I’m all for selective logging of our forests. It’s either that or letting it burn down completely.

  32. Cities like Tucson and Phoenix are already uninhabitable, IMO, and yet there are all those people… If you took away their air conditioning they’d probably leave, or even go to the effort of building homes that don’t require massive electrical power.

    Would you take away heat from the folks in the Northeast and Great Plains?

  33. “Big Government telling free citizens with the right to travel within the United States to “move along” … to America’s most subsidized (per capita) state?

    Also the state with the most scattered population and wildest weather. Just saying…

    A population that is growing is a far better problem to have than one which is shrinking.

    I don’t think our population is anywhere close to shrinking. Gov. McCall isn’t here. Also, a number of cities on the west coast had shrinking populations during the 70’s-80’s recession. Did it turn out bad?

  34. I used to read this blog regularly. I can’t bear it any longer.

    [Moderator: Complaints about JK’s posting tactics removed, as they just provoked more reaction out of JK. – Bob R.]

    I came back and saw this post, thinking it was an interesting and plausible topic; this could really happen in the next five decades in some form or another.

  35. Was this population decline a problem?

    “BAY AREA / After several years of decline, population starts to grow again
    http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-04-05/bay-area/17240268_1_bay-area-san-diego-online-resources

    The San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas are slowly rebounding from the dot-gone population bust of the early 2000s, new U.S. Census Bureau data show.

    The nine-county region’s population grew by almost 2 percent, adding more than 136,000 residents between 2000 and 2006, according to data to be released today. That brought the Bay Area’s population on July 1, 2006, to 7.2 million, with about 57 percent of the increase due to international immigration.

    “There is something of a comeback for the Bay Area,” said Brookings Institution demographer William Frey. The impact of the high-tech industry downturn “may have receded and people may be coming to grips with the expensive housing market. It’s a modest good news story for Bay Area.”

    The growth is sluggish, however, Frey pointed out. The combined populations of San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont and their surrounding areas grew just 0.5 percent between 2005 and 2006. The area had previously lost population each year this decade, according to Census Bureau estimates., The population of the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area grew 1.5 percent between 2005 and 2006.”

    Just wondering…

  36. from the Tribune article:
    Kat West is director of the Multnomah County Office of Sustainability, but wrote this Eco Thoughts column as a private citizen.

    Would that be environmental sustainability or financial?

  37. In general, shrinking populations are a bad thing for a region. When regions grow, the urban footprint will often expand, unless geography or law (such as our UGB) limit said expansion. The developed infrastructure requires additional resources to maintain. When regions shrink in population, the footprint doesn’t normally shrink, instead you get uneven patterns of blight and abandonment.

    Of course, not all population shrinkages are a bad thing.

    If those leaving are net consumers of social services, having them move somewhere else can be beneficial to a reasons finances (keeping in mind, that driving out the old/poor is probably poor policy for other reasons, including grounds of morality and equity).

    If there presently ISN’T enough resources or jobs to house/provide for a large population, then having some leave may be beneficial as well.

    The key, of course, is balance.

  38. If those leaving are net consumers of social services, having them move somewhere else can be beneficial to a reasons finances (keeping in mind, that driving out the old/poor is probably poor policy for other reasons, including grounds of morality and equity).

    A lot of the “old” have taken off for either the US sunbelt or other countries where they can live quite well on their well funded US retirement. As for the poor, if they are from places like Mexico maybe they can get in on some privately sponsored housing projects like this, something generally not available to people in the US:
    http://www.cemexmexico.com/se/se_ph.html

    And then, a lot of poor people leave a city neighborhood when it gentrifies.

    In Oregon, we WANT the rain to come down as snow in the Cascades and build a massive snowpack that melts throughout the summer.

    Most of the water flowing within Oregon boundaries comes from the Rocky Mountains….via the Columbia and Snake rivers. I don’t see any likely Oregon drought within the next century. The more massive our snowpack is the more devastating the floods would be, during our recurrent wintertime warming spells. There was a horrible flood back in in 1964 after blizzard conditions followed by a warm spell.

  39. Sorry, I should have provided this English language version of CEMEX’s “Property Now” program for enabling people in several Latin American countries to have their home built, under the direction and organization of a major corporation.
    http://www.iccwbo.org/uploadedFiles/WBA/CEMEX.pdf

    Now, if your manufactured home in Missouri is sucked apart by a tornado, just pretend you have a concrete one south of the border somewhere……

  40. A follow-up on Ken’s comment:

    Here’s a recently-released graph from the National Climatic Data Center showing precipitation in the United States Southwest as being well below normal.

    This spring:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/Divisionalprank/201103-201105.gif

    Full Year:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/Divisionalprank/201006-201105.gif

    And the temperature trend… The graph interface appears to limit selections to 60 months, but those past 60 months show an increasing trend line, not decreasing:

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=5&year=2011&filter=60&state=107&div=0

    This does not mean that Ken’s statement is incorrect, as he is referring to a different time scale. So again I ask for a specific reference.

  41. I may be late to this game, but I should explain something about climate patterns. In west coast regions, temperatures and precipitation are inversely correlated. That’s why California has almost no rain in summer, and why the Pacific Northwest has much less rain in the summer than in the winter.

    Now, there isn’t much of a chance Oregon will have droughts, except in the summer. It has too much precipitation for its temperature, and on top of it has water from snow-fed rivers. However, there’s a serious chance of more droughts in California and in the Southwest.

    Whether it leads to climate refugees in Oregon is another question…

  42. Alon:

    This is all presumptuous.

    1) 2/3 of Oregon is arid.
    2) Oregon had serious drought problems statewide 2004-2005 during the winter time, and this wasn’t a complete anomaly. Snowfall in the mountains simply did not happen, which is where most people get their water.

    Sure, the Southwest has a proclivity towards drought but don’t count the NW out. It has happened and will happen.

    Last year, a trace of rain dropped in Seattle during all of May. The weather is weird in the NW, and so I assume predicting future climate of the NW will be just as weird.

  43. One difference between Central/Eastern Oregon and the deserts of the SW is that east of the Cascades, there’s nothing resembling Phoenix. The biggest metro areas are Bend and Klamath Falls; but beyond that, there isn’t a large population out there consuming water for things like swimming pools and lawn sprinklers.

  44. You’re forgetting agriculture…

    It’s true that there’s quite a bit of agriculture, and a reduction in available water would be very bad for that, but in terms of mass population migration, it would be less impactful.

  45. Portland is sufficiently far upriver that rising sea levels are unlikely to flood any part of the city–the elevation is about 50′ above sea level IIRC.

  46. No, the Columbia is essentially at sea level all the way to the Bonneville dam. During flood periods (like a couple weeks ago), the water level rises to about 16′-17′ at Portland/Vancouver and the current speeds up considerably. But during droughts, the water level here is barely above sea level and in fact, we get tidal surges when the water is that low.

    That said, if climate change adds 2-3′ to the oceans, the only effect on us would be adding 2-3′ during our flood periods. Most of the time that’s not a problem, but during major floods (like the ’96 flood), we would need to beef up our dikes and the seawall downtown.

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