My climate change house hunt

We’re moving.

It’s true. Later this year.

My youngest daughter graduates high school in June and suddenly my wife (the Good and Patient Caroline - Official and Exclusive Spouse of The CD Dispatch) and I will be ‘empty-nesters’. We are ready for a change and have had many discussions about our options.

We’re fortunate, as both of us work remotely. Where we choose to live - perhaps for the first time - is free from considerations of school districts, job locations, commute times, etc.  It’s both liberating and daunting. We can go anywhere. As you can imagine, this has led to numerous debates and much time spent window-shopping on Zillow.

I’ll likely post more about our move throughout the year.  But today I want to focus on one specific factor in deciding where we live.  Climate change.

Yes, it’s a consideration and I hate that this is the case.  But given our impending move I don’t want to relocate to a place obviously vulnerable to climatic risks.  That means - to the best of our knowledge - avoiding places subject to extreme heat, storms, flooding, wildfires, etc.  We have other considerations to be sure – affordability, access to a good airport, the outdoors, walkability, safety, economic opportunity, proximity to our kids, political sanity, and more.  But looking at the impacts of climate change seems prudent.

After all, insurance companies are doing it.

So, there’s the question – where can we live that is relatively insulated from the effects of climate change?

A quick sidebar.  I want to acknowledge the massive privilege embedded in this question.  We’re mostly affluent with flexible careers and can generally just get up and go.  We have the option to move.  The vast majority of people across this world do not.  They are rooted in place and will suffer accordingly as the effects of climate change intensify.  It’s maddening and unfair.  It’s also why we still need to decarbonize our society ASAP and push our policymakers harder to fix this shit.

So how to research this?

In my job I have some experience on this topic – conducting climate risk assessments, preparing TCFD reports, analyzing real estate, etc. In recent years a number of climate analysis tools have emerged, foisting models and algorithms and forecasts onto the scene. Most of these are costly, proprietary services targeting financial service firms, investors, and the like. They have been gobbled up by brands you know - Moody’s, S&P Global, PWC, etc. There are also some that are more publicly accessible - like Risk Factor and ClimateCheck. All of them generally offer the same thing - type in an address and ‘BOOM’, get an assessment of that location’s future risk from climate change.

I recently encountered a new one, The U.S. Climate Vulnerability Index. It’s a mostly open sourced tool produced by the Environmental Defense Fund, Texas A&M University, and Darkhorse Analytics. Their approach focuses on the concept of ‘climate vulnerability’ - ranking which areas of the country and populations face the most risk and exposure due to climate change. It’s very much a climate equity/justice model, and worth digging around. The screenshot below gives you a sense of the information it provides:

The Index basically mashes up two types of information, health and sociological data on communities across the country, and geographically specific risk data on things like heat, wildfires, flooding, and more. Think of it as ranking vulnerable people and vulnerable places, together. In doing so, the Index breaks down information on 184 variables at the county and census tract level.

Cool! Let’s use this to help figure out where to move…

So, I downloaded the raw data behind the tool (Yes, they actually make the background data freely accessible) and started sorting things. The first question I wanted to examine is “Where are the worst places to live?” from a climate vulnerability perspective. I averaged up the census tract data to the county level, and generated the following list:

Interesting and not that surprising. The most vulnerable places are in the Southeast, areas exposed to heat, hurricanes, floods. Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi. Also areas with high poverty rates, health issues, and unreliable social safety nets. As the climate worsens, these areas will get hit the hardest.

But what about the other side of the coin? Where are the best locations to live, the least vulnerable?

Here are a couple of surprises. My home state of Oregon ranks well, as does Hawaii, Alaska, and others. But San Francisco? I would think that sea level rise alone would push San Francisco off the leaderboard.

But remember what this Index is doing - it is looking at a host of factors - societal and geographical. It looks at community health resources, infrastructure, weather, the social fabric, community involvement, and more. Digging into the data, you realize that while San Francisco gets dinged for some environmental factors like sea level rise and wildfires, its other attributes like overall health, infrastructure, and yes, “Public Library Locations” more than offset the negative factors.

Remember, this Index is combining 184 variables at the census tract level. Some of the variables may seem a little weird, like “Access to Healthy Foods”, “Cholesterol”, or “Agricultural Jobs.” Plus, I am averaging the scores across all census tracts to get a county level ranking. There can be significant diversity in scores when comparing one part of San Francisco county (say, the downtown waterfront) to another, like Miraloma.

What about some other locations? My hometown (Waco, TX) is dead in the middle around the 52% mark (with 1% being the least risky and 100% being the most). Interestingly, Austin, TX comes in much better at 7%. Boston, MA comes in at 18%, Seattle, WA at under 1%, Denver, CO at 7%. Mobile, AL is hurting at 99%, while San Diego, CA hits 4% and Miami, FL comes in at 19%.

Huh? Miami?

Ok, obviously this data set does not do a good job accounting for sea level rise and it seems to favor big cities over rural areas.

So what do I take away from this, regarding my potential move? Some great tourist destinations in the Top 10 list - Denali, Nantucket, even Grand Marais, MN (seriously, it’s an awesome place to visit in the Summer) - but likely not places to move. The price of housing rules out San Francisco, and we’re not that interested in the East Coast, even though Burlington, VT is probably lovely.

Some areas we are considering do well - Bellingham, WA and Bend, OR both under 2%. A couple of Colorado counties on our list range in the 4-6% zone. And interestingly Washington County, OR comes in at #3 out of 3,135 counties. That area was already on our list, and is only a couple of miles from our current home. Interesting…

Yet, as a practical tool I am unsatisfied with this first cut. The 184 variables seem both too specific and too broad somehow. When looking at the data with my particular question in mind, it’s too haphazard.

But remember what I noted above? The raw data is freely available! I can take that information and make my own scorecard, utilizing only what I feel is important and removing extraneous factors that probably just add noise.

So that’s where we will go for Part 2! Off to the spreadsheets…

Stay tuned, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next post.

Lyrical Truth Bomb

When musicians say what needs to be said:

Farewell photo

A little slice of life, until next time…

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Disclaimer:

All content and opinions are solely those of the author (Jack), and not representative of my employer, former employers, anyone in Congress, my family, former college roommates, Baptists, the good citizens of Oregon, or my dog Mabel.