Hurricane Helene Proves There Are No Climate Havens

More than 110 people are now believed to have died as a result of Hurricane Helene, the storm that swept through the Southeast over the weekend and left some 500 miles of destruction in its wake. Hundreds are missing and millions still don’t have electricity. Cell phone service is spotty, while incapacitated roads and bridges are complicating an already strained recovery effort. Asheville—recently dubbed a “climate haven” for its historically mild climate and perch within the Blue Ridge Mountains—is among the areas worst hit; so far, 30 people have been reported dead there.

The idea of a “climate haven” is a seductive one: that some places will be relatively insulated from extreme heat, stronger hurricanes, and any number of other threats posed by rising temperatures. That’s all the more enticing if you’ve got the means to move to one of those places. Some cities have even started advertising themselves as “climate refuges” in order to attract warming-weary—and relatively well-off—new residents. There’s a kernel of truth in all this. It is, of course, more pleasant to be in Burlington, Vermont, than Phoenix, Arizona, in July. As western North Carolina can attest, though, the climate crisis isn’t especially good at respecting either municipalities’ marketing pitches or borders.

The nature of global warming is that it is, well, global: Nowhere will be spared. This reality makes a mockery of our geographical boundaries. But it shows how arbitrary other boundaries are, as well: specifically, the bounds of what counts as “climate policy.” Policymakers and media outlets, for example, typically treat fuel efficiency standards as climate policy. They’re less likely to view financial regulators’ intervention in insurance companies’ risky speculation that way. Yet those in the Southeast who’ll attempt to pick up the pieces over the coming weeks, months, and years will probably be less worried about miles per gallon than whether they can afford skyrocketing premiums.

In recent years, the definition of what counts as climate policy has gotten even stranger in the United States. On the campaign trail, Democrats haven’t talked about global warming all that much. To the extent that they do mention climate policy, it’s mainly discussed as a means to spur investment in low-carbon technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels. The Harris campaign’s website cites the Inflation Reduction Act’s “historic work” in “lowering household energy costs, creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality clean energy jobs, and building a thriving clean energy economy.” The site makes brief mention of increasing “resilience to climate disasters,” holding “polluters accountable,” and “continuing and building upon the United States’ international climate leadership.”

But next to images of entire downtown areas half-submerged in flood waters, or homes moving faster than a river tube, touting the administration’s successful boost of the construction of manufacturing facilities rings hollow. Framing climate action primarily as a good-news story in which the U.S. will come to dominate green export sectors overlooks the very real pocketbook struggles the climate crisis is already causing.

Climate change isn’t a discrete issue so much as the foundation on which all politics happens. All policy, in other words—from housing to trade and financial regulation—is climate policy. Rather than acting as if these “natural disasters” are one-off tragedies, Democrats could treat disasters like Hurricane Helene as a chance to hammer Republicans on any number of fronts: for having spent decades colluding with fossil fuel companies to block federal emissions-reduction efforts, for showering insurance companies with giveaways while their own constituents struggle to afford policies, for failing to fund essential disaster relief. The GOP has no plan to help Americans survive a hotter and wetter world other than to make it a meaner one, too. In response, Democrats should debut a vision for our climate-changed country that’s meaningfully different—something they’ve struggled with so far—and which makes communities safer in the long run, not just filled with more factories.