Planning to relocate between now and 2050 and want to avoid most of the possible impacts of climate change, then head to Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. More adventurous souls should head west to the Pacific States (including Alaska and Hawaii), which could see it all.
Every region could experience heat waves and droughts, according to a study by the US Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to heat waves and droughts, the potential impacts are degraded air quality, the urban-heat island effect, early snowmelt, wildfires, tropical storms, extreme rainfall with flooding, and sea level rise, the EPA report said.
The Pacific States could experience all of the potential impacts. In addition to heat waves and droughts, the aforementioned East South Central states could experience more intense tropical storms and sea level rise (presumably Mississippi and Alabama).
After the Pacific, the least favored regions are West South Central (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana); and South Atlantic (West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Washington DC). Other than early snowmelt, the two regions could be visited by all of the other possible climate-change related plagues.
But no matter where you live, climate change would pose a substantial risk to human health, the report said. Among the health-related concerns: increased heat-related morbidity and mortality; the spread of food and water-borne pathogens; and increases in smog concentrations - as a result of higher temperatures - which can contribute to or exacerbate cardiovascular and pulmonary illness. The expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and the inner cities, as always.
The effects of climate change on human settlements is likely to vary considerably according to location-specific vulnerabilities, "with the most vulnerable areas likely to include Alaska with increased permafrost melt, flood-risk coastal zones and river basins, and arid areas," the report said.
Because the US is a highly developed, wealthy country it should be able to better adapt to many of the impacts of the climate change, the report said.
The same can't be said for developing world countries which may experience the worst of climate change and have only an extremely limited capacity to cope.
Coincidentally, just last week EPA declined to propose regulations to control emissions of greenhouse gases, which the Bush administration acknowledges contribute to climate change.
The report was released today by the US Climate Change Science Program, which coordinates federal climate research activities. A number of previously released reports from a variety of sources have reached the same conclusions about the potential health and environmental impacts of climate change.
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