How Will Climate Change Effect The Rust Belt?
New research suggests the region will withstand coming changes in better shape than most.
“Climate is redefining every aspect of society, already — and we’re only at the beginning.” So said the climate futurist Alex Steffen recently in a lengthy thread on his twitter account. “The question is no longer whether we’re going to act, but when? And to who’s advantage?”
There is new research that suggests the Rust Belt is one of the places that may actually benefit from climate change action in the United States. No one really wins with climate change, of course, but the region could be poised to withstand it better than others.
Coastal cities and the Sun Belt could suffer
A large-scale data analysis and forecasting undertaken by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology at the University of Pennsylvania has produced a series of maps depicting the potential consequences of climate change across the United States over the coming years and decades. Called The 2100 Project: An Atlas for a Green New Deal, the project is meant to catalyze action before mitigation of climate change effects becomes too little, too late.
