Opinion Today: How climate change could leave the aging behind

Storms like Helene will transform the region.

View in browser|nytimes.com October 5, 2024 Zack Wittman for The New York Times By Abrahm Lustgarten Mr. Lustgarten is an environmental reporter for ProPublica and the author of "On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America." It has been agonizing to watch the full picture of Hurricane Helene's devastation emerge this week — even from my perspective of having dwelled far more than most on the dark details of our climate emergency. It's not only the physical destruction so many are enduring. It's also that the country continues to sleepwalk into a future where what we've seen this week could become the norm, forcing millions of Americans to relocate as their communities become increasingly uninhabitable. I first began thinking about climate migration in 2018 — after nearly 20 years of reporting on climate change — because I believed too little consideration was being given to how people were living through the upheavals now unfolding. I soon found myself uncomfortably close to the same climate-driven perils I was writing about: Between 2017 and 2020, deadly California wildfires decimated whole neighborhoods and my own family was often on high alert to evacuate. It made certain questions of climate migration personal: How does a person abandon so much of what roots them to community and home? What would it take to make me move? I've tried to answer these questions through a series of articles in The New York Times, and with my book, "On The Move." But as I write in my guest essay for Times Opinion this week (co-published with ProPublica), Helene points to what comes next: hard work to steer the country through this transformation. And here, sadly, my reporting has only shown me how desperately far behind the United States is on climate policy. Yes, we're late to cutting emissions to prevent future warming, and we've barely invested in adapting to the warming that is already underway. But we haven't even started to grapple with the reality that climate change will dramatically alter the demographics of this country, and the communities left behind will be older and less physically capable. This shift raises whole new questions that policy, broadly speaking, has scarcely touched. READ THE FULL ESSAY HERE Guest Essay The People Fleeing Climate Disasters Are Going to Transform the American South The exodus of the young means high-risk towns could enter a population death spiral. By Abrahm Lustgarten THE WEEK IN BIG IDEAS Eleanor Davis Jessica Grose The Misogyny of Gen Z Men Has Been Overstated The majority of them support equality, even if they don't call themselves feminists. By Jessica Grose Illustration by The New York Times Guest Essay Nicole Kidman Knows Exactly What She's Doing She's everywhere, and she's giving a lot of work to female talent. Is that such a bad thing? By Jennifer Weiner Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times Guest Essay Why a Racist Professor Doesn't Scare Me Having grown up in an increasingly diverse America, I find Amy Wax's resentments more pathetic than threatening. By Zaid Jilani Guest Essay Want People to Embrace Public Health? Make It More Like Weather Forecasting. Public health experts too often fail to sound the alarm. By Caitlin Rivers We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Games Here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle and Spelling Bee. If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com. If you have questions about your Times account, delivery problems or other issues, visit our Help Page or contact The Times. Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Opinion Today newsletter from The New York Times. To stop receiving Opinion Today, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018