Are We Heading Toward a World Filled with Climate Abandonment Zones?

People are stubborn. We see it in nearly every disaster movie where the flood or fire or aliens are headed straight for a town and there are people who still refuse to leave. They stare down the impending doom and assume everything will still work out. Sometimes, in the movies and in real life, it does. When it doesn’t, this commonly held faith in our shared ability to survive tragedy takes a hit.

A growing body of research is showing that more people over the next few years may finally be giving up hope and choosing to leave. If it does happen, this may create a number of “climate abandonment areas” where the young, middle class and those otherwise able to leave will choose to do so … leaving mainly the elderly and poor to shelter in place which in turn may lead to what demographers refer to as a population death spiral where those areas never recover.

It’s a doomsday scenario that some data suggests may have already started. Online real estate platform Zillow even announced they will start showing climate risk data alongside home sale listings. Whether you believe the warnings or think this exodus will be far more gradual (or perhaps never happen), this is a force that can reshape global geopolitics, centers of control and the current balance of power between states, countries, communities and generations.