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From: Earth Policy News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <undisclosed-recipients:;>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 3:11 AM
Subject: [ENWL-eng] Earth Policy News: Katrina's Second Wave: Climate
Refugees
>
> Eco-Economy Update 2006-7
> For Immediate Release
> August 16, 2006
>
> GLOBAL WARMING FORCING U.S. COASTAL POPULATION TO MOVE INLAND
> An Estimated 250,000 Katrina Evacuees Are Now Climate Refugees
> http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update57.htm
>
> Lester R. Brown
>
> Those of us who track the effects of global warming had assumed that the
> first large flow of climate refugees would likely be in the South Pacific
> with the abandonment of Tuvalu or other low-lying islands. We were wrong.
> The first massive movement of climate refugees has been that of people
> away from the Gulf Coast of the United States.
>
> Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in late August 2005, forced a
> million people from New Orleans and the small towns on the Mississippi and
> Louisiana coasts to move inland either within state or to neighboring
> states, such as Texas and Arkansas. Although nearly all planned to return,
> many have not.
>
> Unlike in previous cases, when residents typically left areas threatened
> by hurricanes and returned when authorities declared it was safe to do so,
> many of these evacuees are finding new homes. In this respect, the U.S.
> hurricane season of 2005 was different. Record-high temperatures in the
> Gulf of Mexico surface waters helped make Hurricane Katrina the most
> financially destructive hurricane ever to make landfall anywhere.
>
> In some Mississippi Gulf Coast towns, Katrina's powerful 28-foot-high
> storm surge (8.5 meters) did not leave a single structure standing. There
> was nothing for evacuees to return to. The destruction of housing and
> infrastructure in St. Bernard Parish, a low-lying 40-mile-long peninsula
> (64 kilometers) extending southeast from New Orleans, rendered most of it
> uninhabitable. The Katrina storm surge that raised the water level in Lake
> Pontchartrain so high that it breached the levees and flooded New Orleans
> left much of the city unfit to live in. Even today, a year later, large
> parts of the city are without basic infrastructure services such as water,
> power, sewage disposal, garbage collection, and telecommunications.
> Interestingly, the country to suffer the most damage from a hurricane is
> also primarily responsible for global warming.
>
> Many evacuees were able to return in a matter of days, but many more were
> not. New Orleans' population before Katrina struck was 463,000. Claritas,
> a private demographic data-gathering and analysis firm, reported that
> after the hurricane New Orleans' population shrank to 93,000. By January
> 2006, it had recovered to 174,000. By July 2006, the city still had only
> 214,000 residents, less than half of its pre-Katrina population.
>
> Three Louisiana coastal parishes (counties) also registered substantial
> population declines. The population of St. Bernard Parish plummeted from
> 66,000 residents to 15,000 in July 2006. South of New Orleans, the
> population of Plaquemines Parish declined from 29,000 to 20,000. Densely
> populated Jefferson Parish, also bordering New Orleans on the south,
> dropped from 453,000 to 411,000, a loss of 42,000.
>
> Mississippi's three coastal counties each lost population. The July
> tabulation showed Hancock County had lost 8,000 residents. Harrison
> County, which includes the town of Gulfport, lost 12,000, and Jackson
> County 4,000. (See data at
> www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update57_data.htm.)
>
> As of July 2006, New Orleans, the three parishes, and the three counties
> in Mississippi had lost a total of 375,000 residents because of
> destruction from Katrina. Some evacuees are still returning, but the flow
> has slowed to a near trickle. We estimate that at least 250,000 of them
> have established homes elsewhere and will not return. They no longer want
> to face the personal trauma and financial risks associated with rising
> seas and more destructive storms. These evacuees are now climate refugees.
>
> While the July numbers tell us how many people have not returned home,
> they do not capture the personal trauma of exposure to a disaster that
> claimed 1,300 lives or the sense of loss from being abruptly uprooted from
> home and community, and separated from schools, jobs, and friends.
> Assessing Katrina's effects, the American Psychological Association notes
> that many of the storm's victims experience post-traumatic stress
> disorder. This manifestation of extreme stress is similar to that of
> troops returning from Iraq.
>
> Hanging over the future of the hurricane-prone coastal regions of the U.S.
> southeast is the difficulty in getting property insurance. In the wake of
> the last two hurricane seasons, including the 2004 season when four
> hurricanes crossed Florida, reconstruction is still ongoing, insurance
> costs are climbing, and private insurance companies are withdrawing from
> high-risk coastal areas.
>
> The movement of insurers out of high-risk regions started after Hurricane
> Andrew hit Florida in 1992, destroying 60,000 homes and bankrupting some
> 11 local insurance companies. In response, governments in hurricane-prone
> states, including Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana, each created a
> state-supported insurance company for homeowners unable to get private
> insurance. Florida's state insurer, Citizens Property Insurance
> Corporation, ran a deficit of $516 million in 2004. An analysis of risks
> and costs in late 2005 showed that premiums charged to property owners
> must be raised 80 percent to ensure Citizens' future viability.
>
> These deficits were repeated in Louisiana and at the national level with
> the National Flood Insurance Program, which ran a $23 billion deficit in
> 2005. The bottom line is that rates must rise as the risk rises. This
> applies not only to property insurance, but also for firms seeking to
> insure against business interruption losses.
>
> After a point as storm risks multiply and insurance rates rise, real
> estate prices start to decline. To cite an extreme example, how much is a
> building lot worth in St. Bernard Parish, now largely abandoned, or in the
> low-lying parts of New Orleans? Some of the businesses in these hard-hit
> areas that are not tied directly to local customers, such as consulting
> firms, software companies, or publishing houses, have moved to more secure
> locations. New Orleans entrepreneur, Ken Murray, who founded Parker,
> Murray and Associates, a sales and marketing company, is among those who
> have moved their firms to Dallas.
>
> Katrina took a heavy toll in the Louisiana and Mississippi coastal
> regions, but there are 35 million people living along the hurricane-prone
> coast that stretches from North Carolina to Texas. Half of these live in
> Florida: 10 million on the Atlantic coast and 7 million on the Gulf coast.
>
> As rising seas and more powerful hurricanes translate into higher
> insurance costs in these coastal communities, people are retreating
> inland. And just as companies migrate to regions with lower wages, they
> also migrate to regions with lower insurance costs.
>
> The experience with more destructive storms in recent years is only the
> beginning. Since 1970, the Earth's average temperature has risen by one
> degree Fahrenheit, but by 2100 it could rise by up to 10 degrees
> Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).
>
> More destructive storms are an early manifestation of global warming. The
> longer term risk is that rising temperatures will melt glaciers and polar
> ice caps, raising sea level and displacing coastal residents worldwide.
> The flow of climate refugees to date numbers in the thousands, but if we
> do not quickly reduce CO2 emissions, it could one day number in the
> millions.
>
> # # #
>
> Additional data and information sources at www.earthpolicy.org or contact
> jlarsen (at) earthpolicy.org
>
> For reprint permission contact rjk (at) earthpolicy.org
>
> For a plan to cut CO2 emissions see Chapter 10 in Plan B 2.0 at
> www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/PB2ch10_ss7.htm
>
>
>
>
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