Look out, Oregon, for a global warming land rush [View All]

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Hurricanes -- including four in one year -- blew Rebecca Niday, a Realtor from Florida, to Rhododendron for Oregon's more moderate weather. Experts speculate that such migration could become more common if climate change causes other areas to dry up, brown out or get increasingly hammered by storms.
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The prediction caused a collective grimace among the mayors, city councilors, engineers and planners in the audience. By 2060, a Metro economist said, the seven-county Portland area could grow to 3.85 million people -- nearly double the number here now.

Then Lorna Stickel, a planner with the Portland Water Bureau, stood to ask a question. Does the population projection, she asked, account for the possibility of climate change refugees?

Brains have been spinning ever since. Because what if?

What if the American Southwest dries up, browns out, and those people now misting their patios in Arizona head to the still-green Pacific Northwest? What if Californians hit the road north in numbers far surpassing the 20,000 who now move to Oregon each year? What if the polar ice melts, oceans rise and millions living along coastal areas -- or ravaged by Katrina-like storms -- have to move?

What happens, Stickel later asks, "as we become more attractive and other places become less attractive?"

Back in her office at the Water Bureau, Stickel digs out graphs showing U.S. migration patterns and a projection of areas that might be affected by climate change.

"If this and this combine to this," Stickel says, gesturing back and forth, "that's the nut."

Stickel is no alarmist. The "nut" she cites is a kind of gridlock -- that moment in greater Portland when people could arrive in such numbers they outstrip the infrastructure necessary to support them. Water. Electricity. Roads. Housing. Schools. Garbage and sewage disposal. Parks and clean air.

Stickel knows all the players and is particularly intense about the region's drinking water supply. Like the others gathered to hear Metro's population conference last spring, it's her job to accommodate that projected growth.

"We think it's going to be X number of people," she said. "What if it's more?"

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/10/look_out_oregon_for_a_global_w.html