One in four Americans skip kids and other life plans for fear of climate change: study

A quarter of Americans are delaying long-term plans, like starting a family, for fear that climate change will lead to more and more weather calamities, a survey reveals.

Research by Veolia, an environmental services company, shows that a growing number of people are alarmed by global warming: four-fifths call it a ‘real’ phenomenon and nearly two-thirds blame humanity.

It comes as storms and flooding have claimed at least 17 lives in California in recent days, and as rescuers searched for five-year-old Kyle Doan, who was washed away by raging waters on the Central Coast near San Miguel on Monday. .

The study indicates a change in attitude in a nation that has hitherto been skeptical of climate science, manifested in former President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a global climate deal, a move reversed by his successor Joe Biden.

Frederic Van Heems, the firm’s president of North America, said the survey of 1,002 people in the US indicated a “sense of urgency” about climate change and how “Americans feel it’s time to act.”

Maybe the the most compelling finding of the survey This is how fears of climate change have seeped into everyday life, increasingly influencing people in important decisions like starting a family and where to live.

Only 14 percent of those surveyed said that “there was nothing to worry about.” The majority, 58 percent, were alarmed by climate change but said it was not keeping them up at night or disrupting long-term plans.

Even so, a quarter of those surveyed described “not being at peace” because of global warming and said they were “giving up on long-term projects like having children,” according to a copy of the survey sent to DailyMail.com.

They described concerns about a variety of climate threats that form the basis of many science fiction movies, from harsher living conditions to mass migration to getting sick from inhaling dirty air.

Other studies show how Americans are increasingly considering floods, hurricanes and heat waves when deciding whether and where to buy homes, fueling new patterns of internal migration.

Still, many inadvertently end up relocating to areas devastated by wildfires, according to the University of Vermont’s 10-year study of migration patterns released last month.

The report comes as rescue teams were searching for five-year-old Kyle Doan, who was swept away by heavy flooding off California’s central coast near San Miguel on Monday.

A flooded home is seen partially underwater in Gilroy, California this week. Forecasters warned of flooding as a parade of storms that have killed at least 17 people battered the western United States.

In addition to searching for Dolan, rescue teams in California were working Wednesday to help some 50,000 people under evacuation orders, and more than 110,000 homes and businesses were without power due to heavy rain, lightning, hail and mudslides.

The state’s winter tragedy follows a year in which costly weather disasters continued to rain down on the United States, with 18 weather extremes causing at least $1 billion in damage each, totaling more than $165 billion, they say. federal climate scientists.

Although the heat of 2022 was nowhere near record levels for the US, it was the third wildest year costing $1 billion in total catastrophe weather damage, they said in a report Tuesday.

Hurricane Ian, the costliest drought in a decade and a winter storm before Christmas pushed last year’s damage to the highest level since 2017, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The disasters caused at least 474 deaths.

The 23-page Veolia study found that Americans are increasingly upset by climate change, which the UN says will cause temperatures to rise about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) compared with average levels. pre-industrial by 2100.

That is well above the safe limit agreed globally at a Paris meeting in 2015.

Two-thirds of those surveyed said the contamination was a “serious and immediate threat.”

More than half said people needed to switch to “living more frugally and implementing technological solutions to reduce climate disruption,” according to the report.

America’s Climate Migrants

Americans are leaving parts of the country hardest hit by hurricanes and heat waves, only to move toward dangerous wildfires, says a 10-year University of Vermont study of migration patterns.

Mahalia Clark, the report‘s lead author, called it “troubling” that between 2010 and 2020 Americans will move into areas prone to forests and wildfires that will only become more frequent as the planet warms.

“These findings are concerning, because people are moving into danger, into regions with wildfires and rising temperatures, which are expected to become more extreme due to climate change,” Clark said.

In the past decade, Americans have tended to migrate away from places in the Midwest, the Great Plains and along the Mississippi River, all areas frequently beset by hurricanes or heat waves, the researchers said.

In addition to escaping the storms and muggy summer humidity, they were also saying goodbye to other problems, such as higher-than-average unemployment rates and widening wealth disparities, they added.

People are migrating within the US, primarily from the Midwest, the Great Plains, and along the Mississippi River, to cities and suburbs in the Pacific Northwest, parts of the Southwest, Texas, Florida, and a swathe of the Southeast , this graph shows

Instead, they opted for cities and suburbs in the Pacific Northwest, parts of the Southwest including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, Texas, Florida, and a stretch of the Southeast from Nashville to Atlanta and Washington DC.

They were likely drawn for many reasons, including warmer winters, proximity to water and forests, moderate population density and an overall higher standard of living, the researchers said.

But their new homes also face significant wildfire risks and relatively warm temperatures.

Gillian Galford, a co-author of the report, which was published in Frontiers in Human Dynamics, said people were probably weighing the pros and cons of where to live, but not adequately considering the downsides of wildfires.

“For many Americans, the risks and dangers of living in hurricane zones may be beginning to outweigh the benefits of living in those areas,” Galford said.