Why I am Moving From California (and so Should You.)
I have yet to acclimate to the for sale sign in my yard. Over ten years ago, when Kate and I first bought this home, we told anyone who would listen that we would never move. And why would we? A midcentury home, set next to a lush, green nature preserve in the Berkeley hills, but just 5 minutes to Berkeley and 10 minutes to downtown Oakland. The home is perfect. But over the years the view of the lush green canyon changed. As rain in the Bay Area dropped from an average of 25 inches to something closer to 7–8 inches, the canyon browned as did the hills that surround our home and fires became a real and perpetual threat.
In this essay, I will argue that the view that changed outside of our front window more broadly reflects the drier changes in the California climate as a whole. That the last couple years lived in our home — dealing with power outages, water shortages, packing “go bags” and organizing neighborhood fire watches — are harbingers for all Californians. And finally, I will conclude by arguing that the fastmoving, destructive fires and perpetual water shortages we experience in Northern California foreshadow a more foreboding future for all of us and our children.
Jumping jacks. When I first walked into this house 10 years ago I took one look at the wall of windows, the post and beam architecture, and the sareen privacy the green canyon afforded and I started doing jumping jacks. “We are buying this house,” I breathlessly told Kate, arms and legs jumping in and out in unison. I had not even seen the downstairs. We moved in one month later.
But shortly after moving into the house, the climate began to shift. Starting in 2010 Northern California simply stopped receiving significant rain. 2011 was bad as well. 2012 was worse. Our reservoirs dried up, fires increased, and water conservation measures became commonplace and perpetual. By comparison, 2020 and 2021 make 2012 seem wet. The megadrought, as this period is now being called, dates back to the early 2000s and is the most severe hydrological event North America has seen in the last millennium. Indeed, many climatologists argue that California is not actually in a megadrought, but that, more simply, the drier conditions and perpetual fires are California’s new normal.
Whether a megadrought or the new normal, the climate in Northern California is flirting with the boundaries of uninhabitability. Point of fact, fire season now starts months earlier and ecnompasses a solid 5 months of the year. In 2020, California saw the worst fire year in the state’s history — but 2021 is already three times as devastating and fire season is yet to start. In 2019–2020 Northern California had more unhealthy or hazardous air quality days than any area in the United States — on some days our air quality was worse than Beijing.
More personally, our power routinely goes out and we now dread the dry, windy conditions which have become so much more prominent in recent years. In short, for a solid 5 months we live in a low to high state of anxiety about fire, our home, and our lives.
So we are moving. And we are not alone. The exodus of Northern Californians to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana has been well documented. Less documented, the movement of southerners in hurricane ravaged flood prone areas moving to the Southwest. And this domestic movement of climate refugees is dwarfed by the global migrations already underway. Indeed, in 2019 The Pentagon noted that climate change and the resultant forced migration and food shortages due to uninhabitability, will pose a much greater risk to our national security than any terrorist organization or rogue nation. All of us then, can no longer use the oft repeated refrain that “we won’t be around to see the effects of climate change,” because climate change is happening right now.
So what can we do as individuals? Kate and I have tried to lessen our impact on the environment by installing solar, buying electric cars, eating much less meat and dairy, and not having kids. But as a couple we are also utilizing the global predictive climate change data to select a more resilient place to live: The Northwest. In fact, the northwest, upper midwest, and northeast fare reasonably well in predictive climate change models. And many of these places are already planning for a large influx of climate refugees.
So if you live in California should you really make the drastic decision to move out of state? Yeah. You should. In 2007 Michael Burry was one of the few people in the world to see the impending mortgage crisis and rose to prominence when Michael Lewis featured him heavily in The Big Short. What’s lesser known about Micahel Burry is that he utilized the money he made from betting on mortgages to fail to start buying fresh water. By 2025, in just 4 short years, 70% of the global population, including California, will live in water-stressed areas.
Is it really so hard then to imagine the scenes that Octavia Butler predicted in her 1993 book Parable of the Sower? Wherein migrants in 2027 start fleeing the Southwest and West for the still rainier climates near Canada. Where water and food scarcity lead to a decline in democracy and a rise in authoritation, facsit governments seeking to make American great again (she really predicted this, even the slogan)? Where wars for water and food replace wars based on ideology or oil? I do not believe so. Indeed, the wars for water and air are already happening. In fact, I’m so confident in the future described above that I bet my house on it.
