The Great Displacement: Climate Migration in America

Even as climate change dominates the headlines, many still think about it in the future tense—we imagine that decades from now, rising seas and failed harvests will send people fleeing from their homes and home countries. But in fact climate change is already driving migration today, even in prosperous countries like the United States.

From half-drowned Louisiana to fire-scorched California, from the dried-up cotton fields of Arizona to the soaked watersheds of North Carolina, Americans are moving. And around the world, climate-related migration is occurring in the absence of any legally recognized status for “climate refugees”. It’s a problem that is only growing more serious.

Join the Carnegie Endowment online for a conversation between Jake Bittle, a staff writer at Grist and the author of The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration, and Noah J. Gordon, acting co-director of Carnegie’s Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program. The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A.