Credit: Jason Corneveaux/Getty Images
In 1950, Phoenix, Arizona was a city of 100,000 souls. Today, its population stands at 1.5 million.
Air-conditioning is what enabled this astonishing rate of growth, along with the wider shift in the US population toward the South and Southwest.
But as Oliver Millman explains in the Guardian, there are limits to what air-con can achieve:
“Last summer, Phoenix was so hot that road signs and mailboxes melted. Planes couldn’t take off or land.”
Air-con provides a refuge, but as temperatures climb and summers lengthen, life in the Sun Belt can feel like a siege:
“It will get worse – Phoenix, the fastest-warming large city in the US, could spend close to half of its year in over 100F (37C) heat within 30 years.
“‘If you choose to live in the desert you have to learn how to live in the desert,’ [Amanda] Ormond [a local resident] said. ‘You worry about your car breaking down and so you have tons of food and water in it.
“‘But the heat used to break around September. Now, it’s October, sometimes November. We literally have six months of above 90F (32C). Mentally, you need a break. You can’t leave your house. It’s fatiguing.’”
Millman describes a new nationwide trend of “climate gentrification” – in which the well-to-do acquire property at higher elevations – either to escape the heat or, in vulnerable areas, the risk of flooding.
In Arizona, that’s resulted in growing demand for homes (including holiday homes) in communities like Flagstaff (population: 70,000 souls, elevation: 7,000 feet):
“On a recent July day this year, when Phoenix hit 116F (47C), Flagstaff, a two-hour drive and a world away, was 80F (27C).”
But what about those who can’t afford to buy ‘elevation privilege’? They’ll either have to stay behind and sweat it out – or move out of the region altogether.
Climate change is already happening and we have no choice but to adapt to the warming that’s locked-in. However, there is a choice to be made between preventing further climate change and adapting to a hotter planet.
There are those who claim that the latter approach is more cost-effective. The argument is that prevention is an immediate and ongoing cost, but that adaptation can wait until climate change properly kicks in – by which time the global economy will be much bigger and the necessary spending that much more affordable. Those who suffer the worst impacts of climate change could be compensated from the proceeds of all that unrestricted growth.
Well, that’s the theory and it’s full of holes: the dubious economic assumptions; the impossibility of managing the ‘tail risks‘ of unmitigated climate change; the other costs of not kicking our addiction to fossil fuels. However, the biggest problem with the adaptation-only argument is a moral one.
In Christian theology, the concept of ‘common grace’ refers to the blessings that God confers upon all of humanity, without condition. As it says in the Gospel of Matthew: “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Whether within a religious framework or not, this is how we should see the blessing of a stable climate – as a form of common grace. It is there for the benefit of all – whether rich or poor, powerful or powerless.
To choose to take it away from anyone is not only an act of theft (for which ‘economic efficiency’ is never a defence), it also renders the poor and powerless dependent on the pity of the rich and powerful – making them beggars in their own homes.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeI loved this article. Particularly the focus on class. So much of the narrative about minority disadvantage obscures class politics. Very refreshing.
Great article.
Yes, a population of Latino, Asians and other immigrants will not be guilt-tripped into discriminating in favour of those with a dark skin because of slavery in the way the white liberal have been. Nor will white Anglos tolerate discrimination in favour of Hispanics and Asians when they cease to be a relatively small minority.
It can’t escape notice that Latinos and Asians do not have race hustlers pretending to lead them to “the promised land”. They are too busy carving out businesses and educational opportunities to listen to so called “leaders” who are in their own business that is focused on their own power and economic gain.
For certain, there is no Latin or Asian Al Sharpton or Ben Crump that I am aware of.
They are trying to get Asians into the “race victim” mode though. Hasn’t worked yet, thankfully, but its pretty clear what your political views need to be if you are Asian and in professions such as media or education m
The truth is that the Asians are one of the most coverted modern day racists on earth.
They also have the advantage of sitting on the fence- in places where they are minority they are in solidarity of victimhood with the blacks but in their own turf they are one of the racist masters.
Great article. I suppose we have to relearn the wisdom of Coolidge’s statement that the business of the American people is business.
When you bring together a highly diverse group of people, some coming from nations that are traditionally enemies, they have to be united in a common desire to succeed in their new country, and to put animosities aside in the public forum. The politics of racial division leads in entirely the opposite direction.
As the author points out, by mid-century Latinos and Asians will together account for over 40% of the American population. My question is what will the country look like in 2050? Will it still be a world leader after it has (presumably) gone through modern progressivism and racialism, or will it be just another third world country?
Yes, as usual Joel hits the proverbial nail squarely on the head. It’s economics: always was, always will be. As has been pointed out ad nauseam elsewhere, people fight for their interests far more energetically than for their rights or any other such abstraction.
As for the future, who knows? Any predictions would of course be hostages to fortune. That said, it seems to me that people of all ethnicities would do better to group together under aligned collections of interests rather than unhelpful racial tropes or fossilised party diktats.
This is so basically true that it is amazing it isn’t clearly the policy of the progressives. The progressives are completely captured by the Malthusian climate crowd. Did you read Kagan’s dissent on WV vs. the EPA? She basically says the law doesn’t matter, that climate change is going to destroy the country. She has lost her mind and gone insane. The Malthusians are now running most of our institutions. This isn’t about growth anymore. This is about ridding our institutions of the Malthusians who not only don’t care about growth, but are actively seeking to destroy our Energy and Food production to “save the planet.” Read Michael Shellenbergers recent article. He lays out the fact that the entire Western world is now completely captured by the Malthusians. The whole green movement is about to hit the wall on energy and food production and they will double down on their failure. Unless we stop these Malthusians we are in for a major crisis.
Democrats have a sick, perverted obsession with race, sex, and killing babies. These are all they seem to talk about.
While republicans sold neoliberalism and use the rhetorics of liberty to take you back to feudalist- capitalism.
Your ignorance of the term feudalism defines you. Be gone knave….
Brilliant article. Rings very true for Britain in terms of the underlying problem albeit we’re not yet subject to the same demographics.
Just need a leader with the drive and vision to press for change. Not holding my breath.
For all of his faults, Trump was such a leader. Blacks and Hispanics did so much better in Trumps economy, the same way it did in Reagan’s. The rising tide lifts all boats, and always has, but the left hates that fact. That’s why they must continue to sow the seeds of discontent, regardless of the economic conditions.
I have been saying this for 10 years. Hispanics should band with Asians and screw this black/white issue. It is tiring.
Shifting the focus to class struggles seems like a big No-No to the current Americal Left, masquerading as Liberals.
The crux of the problem that Left has abandoned idea of a class struggle for at almost 40 years, as something that does not work well in the US, where every impoverished citizen sees himself (and even herself) as a temporarily frustrated aristocrat. Racialism on other hand, creates many political opportunities for otherwise useless agitators, mass produced by the current Academia. To put it bluntly, it sells. To whom? To the members of the talking class, always standing behind the career politicians. If class problems are by large, intractable and usually overwhelming, racial problems are fairly small-scale seems easily fixable by income redistribution, citizenry relocation and sectarian reeducation.
Biden is not the first president to weaponize race in his quest for votes. His role model was Obama, who missed a golden opportunity to have genuinely helped “his people”. Instead, he turned a few local law enforcement issues into national headlines: black Harvard professor mistakenly thought to be seen breaking into his own house, Michael “hands-up” Brown in Ferguson, MO, and Travon Martin in Florida.
All that Obama would have needed to do was address the black community about finishing school, getting a job and keeping it, getting married before having babies. Instead, he preached victimology and how to remain an underclass based on skin color.
Now we see Biden echoing Obama. And only a few conservative blacks have the courage to speak up to suggest that American blacks can succeed if they ignore the do-gooder admonishments to remain victims and continue in a life of dependency on government handouts.
America is like a freight train or a steam locomotive trundling down the tracks: does it need to apply the brakes, or allow itself to throw more coal into the boiler/furnace? Is it on a slight incline at the moment? What with inflation and the uncertainty of the geo-political situation. Is it headed upwards or downwards on that incline? The train must be struggling uphill at the moment. But the coal keeps coming, and the driver blows the whistle to signal that America is on its way.
I have always looked at America; 10 years of prosperity and 20 years of survival. Then keep repeating. That document is what keeps us fairly honest.
Nicely done Joel. I particularly liked the beer angle. Makes the point well.
Can’t reconcile your income figures with this: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/10/03/black-household-income-is-rising-across-the-united-states/
Help!