The Oregonian ran a story this week on a new factor in Oregon’s population growth calculations. This factor was called “climate change migration.”
At first, I was totally baffled by this notion of climate change migration. But reading through the article, the issue Portland’s hard-working planners might be facing in the not-so-distant future revolves around one fundamental assumption: As the environment gets more unstable, everywhere else – everywhere that is not here – will begin to suck more.
While climate change models predict more annual precipitation and a longer, darker rainy season (Ah, just what we need! More rain!) in this area, other parts of the country may face harsher blizzards, devastating hurricanes or parching droughts. Some of these consequences may be so severe as to make their respective regions virtually uninhabitable, and may make the possibility of a 21st-century Oregon Trail almost a certainty.
The Oregonian even goes so far as to profile some of the 21st-century Oregon Trail newcomers, including one woman who moved here to escape Floridian hurricanes, abandoning a neighborhood where the draining of wetlands, and lack of stormwater management, resulted in regular and inevitable home flooding. Furthermore, three of her Floridian friends are following her north, too.
I guess what’s most irritating about this prospect is that the liberal, weed-smoking environmentalist cities of the Pacific Northwest (Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, in a culturally rough regional definition), have spent years planning for and trying to mitigate their impacts on the environment. And while most of these efforts are realistically failures, or perhaps simply meaningless, they must be placed in stark contrast to the urban growth practices of cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix, which have grown exponentially without significant density increases, and have done so in a geographic location basically devoid of viable drinking water.
Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco have all pursued some kind of aggressive strategy to curtail urban sprawl and increase their densities. All of the cities also have invested millions in extensive mass-transit systems to reduce carbon emissions. Vancouver, Portland and San Francisco all have operating electric light-rail systems, and Seattle, which is furthest behind in this effort, will be opening its system for service in less than a few months.
But all of the efforts to control urban growth and expand the infrastructure for clean transportation and city services will be significantly taxed if there’s a huge influx of climate change refugees from abandoned, sprawling desert suburbs.
At almost every meeting about new development projects, there’s always one ambitious – and often, but not always, Californian – developer who eagerly points out to the assembled environmentalists: “You know, people want to come and live in Portland. We can’t just build a wall around here and say ‘No more growth!’” When I’m there and hear this, I usually find myself exchanging glances in solidarity with a gypsy-skirted friend, realizing we’re both contemplating what half the room is thinking: “Wait a second -why can’t we?”
I’m not sure the wall is the best idea. But when did we decide this “given” about the wall’s infeasibility? We could very well build a wall around the whole forested region suffering the onslaught of constant rain: Washington, Oregon and Northern California (hey, we surely need Arcata and Berkeley, at least). After all, as Arizona has sought a wall as the solution to its unwanted immigration, Arizonians shouldn’t complain too much if we do the same.
We’ll collect all of our unwanted petroleum-based plastics and mold them into a barrier to wall off a hippie commune larger than some nations, extending from British Columbia to just south of Santa Cruz. We’ll have Boeing and Nike design carbon-neutral solar and wind-powered laser weapons to defend ourselves against the advancing hordes of characters from the OC and Arizona’s suburbanite McCain voters.
The point I make here, ultimately, is that the only sustainable growth is no growth. No matter the level of good planning we practice, we will not be able to accommodate and manage growth indefinitely. It’s time to start thinking about what the limit needs to be. While the wall could be somewhat insane (only somewhat), the achievement of zero growth is, unfortunately, an eventual necessity.
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