How Soon Will Climate Change Force You to Move?

Across the country, far more people are in danger of becoming climate refugees than you might think

A for-rent sign is seen in a flooded street caused by the combination of the lunar orbit which caused seasonal high tides and what many believe is the rising sea levels due to climate change on September 30, 2015, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

By Adele Peters

Early in the morning of November 8 in Paradise, California, Mark Mesku got a call from his daughter. “She said, ‘Dad, you got to get out. The whole town’s on fire.’” Mesku looked outside, saw the sky filled with smoke, and shouted for his wife. After grabbing a few belongings, they got in their cars. “Three hours of pure darkness is what it took us to get out from our home,” he says. “The sky was pure black, except for the trees and cars that were burning up and exploding right next to us.” When they got to the main road–the only route out of Paradise–the other cars wouldn’t let them merge into traffic. Mesku had to force his truck onto the road, and let his wife merge in front. They later learned that cars behind them on the side road had burned.

They survived, and during the exodus Mesku even managed to rescue a woman whose car caught on fire. But their house was destroyed, and their neighbors were killed in the fire. Emotionally, Mesku says, he and his wife can’t go back to Paradise, where they had lived for 15 years. “I look at it as a graveyard,” he says. It also isn’t practical to go back now. The toxic aftermath of the fire…