In this episode, Paul Krutko speaks with Abrahm Lustgarten, editor-at-large at ProPublica and author of On the Move: The Overheating of the Earth and the Uprooting of America. Following Lustgarten’s keynote at SPARK’s Annual Meeting, the conversation dives into the origins of his climate migration research, the historical and scientific foundations behind environmental-driven relocation, and how regions like Michigan may be poised for growth in a warming world. Lustgarten discusses the opportunities and challenges communities face as shifting climate zones reshape where people can live and thrive—and how proactive planning can help regions like Ann Arbor adapt and lead.
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Paul Krutko: Welcome to Ann Arbor SPARK’s CEO Podcast…Conversations on Economic Opportunity. My name is Paul Krutko, and I’m the President and CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK.
Joining me today is Abrahm Lustgarten. Abrahm is editor-at-large for ProPublica, an award-winning investigative reporter and author of the book On the Move, the Overheating of the Earth and the Uprooting of America. This May, Abrahm was very gracious and came here to Ann Arbor and was the keynote speaker at SPARK’s Annual Meeting. So as a follow-up to his speech, I asked Abrahm to join me for today’s podcast.
So good to see you again.
Abrahm Lustgarten: Great to see you. Nice to be here.
Paul: So I just have a few things that I wanted to maybe share with the audience that didn’t have the opportunity to come to the luncheon. So I know you shared when you were with us that you are a few years away from writing On the Move, but I’m curious about the genesis of your thinking and writing about this topic. What caused you to want to engage in this particular body of research and analysis?
Abrahm: Yeah, thanks. Great question. I mean, I cover climate change and I work on in-depth projects. And so we go back to around 2018 or so. I was looking for a new project working with The New York Times magazine, and really at that moment feeling like there wasn’t a lot of news coverage or thoughtful analysis of how climate change was affecting people from a humanitarian perspective — how it would change our lives. A lot of conversation about the science and the cost and the disasters and all of that. So that was really the genesis. And then it was like, well, if you’re going to take that approach, what does that mean? And a lot of quick research led very quickly to this topic of migration and immigration and just movement of people around the world. Basically this question of how will a changing environment change where people live, what kind of environment or climate or circumstances will people choose to live in, and how will people thrive in those environments? And those are just sort of a set of simple questions that then you could look at in a whole bunch of different ways. In Central America, it was a question of refugees and migrants. I think in the United States, it’s often a different question of how do you prepare for growth or where will populations be increasing? Where will costs be decreasing or increasing and things like that.
Paul: Yeah. And so one of the things I noted when I read the book the first time was there was a little bit of a, I would describe it a personal touch to it, in the sense that you live in Northern California and you shared some sort of, we just call them vignettes, I guess, of real people facing real decisions. Was that a key thing for you in thinking about this as well?
Abrahm: Yeah, I mean, my own experience was a key thing, and then I actually ended up going in search of other people who shared that perspective. It wasn’t hard to find, but that’s how I settled on some of those characters. And it was at a moment of real indecision in my own life and realizing that it was caused by living in California. So in my case, it was caused by wildfires. It was hugely disruptive, it was uncomfortable. I was worried about the health of my kids and the danger of getting out of where my home is and the property values of our neighborhood. And so it sort of was hitting on systemic levels. And then I realized that I’m not unique, that that’s a story that a lot of people were experiencing or had been for a long time if you live in Louisiana or in Texas, for example. Yeah. So human experience again was the driving question, but it’s also the way I like to try to tell stories. And in this case, it needed a little bit of flushing out from the human perspective.
Paul: So one of the things that you emphasized at the luncheon that I thought was really a good point and something to reinforce with people reading the book or people just thinking about climate change or encountering this podcast is that climate migration has been a constant through human history. Can you elaborate a bit on that? I think that’s an insight that people need to think about. They think about climate change now, but climate change has been a significant factor in human history for thousands of years.
Abrahm: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that conversation starts with just changing the terminology to say we’re talking about environmental circumstances. And so then it’s kind of logical to realize that from the beginning of evolution, almost all people have thrived in places where they felt most comfortable in their environment. And so what that means is early evolution, early hominids in Africa migrated northward out of a desire to find a more hospitable environment, a wetter environment in that case. And that has been a pattern for thousands of years in lots of different ways on lots of different continents.
But it culminates in recent research that begins to look at the same issue economically and finds that people thrive. Western civilization and OECD economies thrive in places in a certain band of temperature. So part of the conversation is about where people can’t live, and the darker side of the climate conversation is about places becoming unlivable because they’re too hot or because there’s disasters.
But the other side of the equation is that there are ideal circumstances for human thriving and that most of our economic activity across Europe, across the United States corresponds with a certain temperature range in a certain part of the world. And so what the climate change conversation is about, to me is a continuation of that normalcy, but just acknowledging that those zones are moving, that climate change is shifting what’s ideal and where it’s been. And then of course, we have many more people on the planet and the climate is changing much more rapidly than in the past. So it’s a more disruptive process, but the basic structure in the basic form of it is familiar.
Paul: And the reality is in much of human history, there weren’t artificial boundaries in that people with weapons prevented you from making that move. What you engaged with really, in reading the book, some of the most knowledgeable, unbiased researchers on the subject of climate change and migration, what are some of your key takeaways from those conversations?
Abrahm: That the change is enormous, that it’s driven by data and it’s driven by scientific measurement. And you can exclude, I think, a lot of the subjective interpretation of what is most important in terms of how that’s changing civilization or society, the cultural conversation, the political conversation. And you can drill right down to the fact that our physical environment is changing. And as a reporter, there’s the experts I talked to, and I’ll loop back to them, but just to say quickly as a reporter, I sought to speak with people in all parts of the country regardless of political persuasion. And what I found is that everybody’s experiencing this dramatic environmental change, and everybody’s interested in that environmental change, and they just frame it differently. But there’s no sort of denial that change is occurring, whether I’m in Texas or in Alabama or in California. And so back to those experts, from a data perspective, from a science perspective, we have recordings of temperature of normal precipitation, and we have models for how those are changing in the future based on what’s already changed in the past.
And those models are in line with mainstream climate science, but they’re also tested and they project just a dramatic transformation. And so when you look at what those temperature ranges that economics thrives in, for example, well, parts of the United States are not going to be in that thriving economic range, for example. And so the message that I hear is that there’s a lot of questions and a lot is unresolved, and we don’t have all the answers, but what we can be pretty sure of is that we’re kind of entering an era of unpredictability and some degree of disruption, and we should be ready for a bit of a wild ride.
Paul: So as we speak today, this conversation is the third week of June here in Ann Arbor. We’re in the midst of a heatwave today. I just looked at the thermometer outside my house, 92 [degrees] and a 106 [degree] heat index, which is extraordinary for June in, well, I get just a couple more. So sort of tying the concept of human migration through history and that research, you just talked about it a little bit. There’s an optimal zone on Earth for humans. Given what we know from that research, what does it mean for the United States, and particularly what does it mean for Michigan?
Abrahm: Yeah, so there’s this idea of the climate niche, and there’s a couple really significant peer reviewed studies that basically find that for 6,000 years or so, which is how long they had records for the study that people around the world have thrived in a certain range of temperature and precipitation, and it’s most of the planet’s population, it’s generally the equatorial zones of the planet. And that research finds that those zones are shifting towards the poles. And because there’s more landmass in the north, that generally means that the ideal human habitat is shifting northward towards the poles. And so the United States is, this is the way that I really, this is the lens that I looked through to understand what’s happening in the United States. And it’s not as dramatic in the United States as it is, for example, in North Africa or in Brazil because of our location on the globe, but it still means substantial change.
And so what those studies modeled suggests that the southernmost parts of the United States will be shifting towards the edge of what is that human niche, not necessarily outside of it, not necessarily unlivable, but becoming more extreme. And that niche is moving northwards and where traditionally it has that ideal zone really cut right across the middle of the United States. So the southeastern United States, Kentucky, Tennessee, that kind of verdant band, that ideal habitat is moving northward. And depending on the rate of climate change, it could move towards the Great Lakes and to you and Michigan, or it could move further northward into Canada. But that is the general trend is that that band that we’ve considered ideal is headed towards the northernmost parts of the United States.
Paul: Okay. Just my last one is I found, and I think the audience did, because that’s the feedback I got, was that the book is sobering. Your presentation is sobering, but that audience is an audience that wants to know and is willing to hear about what is coming. Your final chapter was titled Opportunity, and one that you point out is that Great Lakes cities have substantive, unused infrastructure is one of the things you pointed out. So maybe please comment on that, and any other things that you encountered that you thought represented opportunities.
Abrahm: And I’ll start with that apology for not being a trafficker in good news. I think that it’s the nature of the business.
Paul: No, so my goal in bringing you here was this is a community that is very concerned about climate change. The city has policies, direction, things that it’s doing. But for me, there was this notion of, well, what does it mean if, and we saw some of it with the pandemic of people moving, moving. So that’s a different issue if you’re the place that is in the niche or different than if you’re in a place that is really adversely affected. So that was why I wanted you to come. I didn’t look for you to be a trafficker of good news.
Abrahm: Well, I appreciate that. And that’s part of the issue. And I think that that’s part of the opportunity, although more people coming is not always opportunity. But this idea at the time that I was researching the book, and I think that the issues evolved a little bit in the past couple of years, but it was a little bit simplistic to say that the Great Lakes region, the Rust Belt of the United States is a place where cities across that region peaked their populations in the late 1970s and have been in decline. And there’s been, depending on where you are, if you’re in Detroit or Buffalo, then there at least for a long time, was an economic decline that went along with that population decline. And so from an infrastructure perspective, from a footprint of the city planning perspective, a lot of people that I speak to point to the capacity that those places have.
As in you could absorb a couple hundred thousand people but not have to figure out where to put them because there’s already space for it. And you might have to rebuild the systems that support them living there. But that’s the general idea of capacity. I think, and this is a really good thing that the conversation around migration and climate change has evolved a good bit since the book came out. And so that conversation’s getting a bit more sophisticated around what is good planning and how do you grab onto that growth opportunity? How do you not become overwhelmed by that growth if that is something that I hear in rural communities in particular, afraid of too many people coming in. And so you can look at that issue of capacity, I think in a little bit more sophisticated way than simply how many lanes of highway are underutilized in Detroit. But that’s the basic idea is it’s not a crowded part of the country compared to California where I live, where it sometimes feels like there’s not room for one more person.
Paul: Right. Understood. Understood. Well, is there any other last thoughts you have about your time in Ann Arbor or things that you’ve learned since the book that you’d want to share?
Abrahm: Just that it’s been a really fantastic experience engaging in this issue during my recent visit to Ann Arbor, but also when I came to report on the book and when I was there recently, I had an opportunity to check in with a couple of those experts that informed the book writing itself. And it’s been really wonderful to see that this part of the country is really on the forefront of this issue. I do travel around, and I talk about this in a lot of places, and some places are in denial. Some places are uninterested. And when I’ve been in Michigan in particular, communities, not just yours, including yours, are extremely engaged and really thoughtful about the future. And I think that’s what it’s going to take. I mean, if change of one kind or another is underway, you can either be on your heels or your toes for it. And I’ve been impressed by that how engaged people are.
Paul: I think my comment on that is having been my experience in my career that many times the creative solutions come locally, regionally, or from a state perspective. I think we’re at that stage now. We’re in a stage now where those kinds of decisions and ideas bubbling up are going to be what’s going to take us forward as opposed to sort of a top down federal government sort of approach. So it’s interesting to live in a community that is so, so focused on this, and there are the conflicting, as you described, we’re experiencing growth. Folks want to have a sustainable community. What does that mean in terms of your land use plan, how do you proceed? And all of that. But being fully informed and thoughtful is really important I think, at this point in our history. So anyway, I want to thank you for the time that you spent here. Thank you for your research and work.
Abrahm: My pleasure.
Paul: We’ll certainly follow you and see what you bring to our attention next. And good luck.
Abrahm: Sounds great. Thank you so much for supporting this topic and my book, and it’s a real pleasure to connect with you.
Paul: Great. And I want to thank our audience for listening and learning more from experts and leaders and organizations working hard to create the future of our economy here in Ann Arbor. These conversations are brought to you by Ann Arbor SPARK. For more information about Ann Arbor SPARK, you can find us on the web and annarborusa.org and also on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and you can find On the Move on Amazon, it’s easy to find. So if you haven’t gotten a copy or read it, I would encourage you to do so.
Abrahm Lustgarten’s Bio
Abrahm Lustgarten is an award-winning Investigative reporter, author, filmmaker and public speaker specializing in human adaptation to climate change, and an educator training journalists in cross-disciplinary communication about the climate crisis.
He is a senior reporter at ProPublica, where his recent work focuses on global migration, conflict and demographic change in response to a warming climate, and he frequently works with the New York Times, as well as The Atlantic and PBS Frontline.
Lustgarten’s work delves into wide-ranging and nuanced subject matter, building on his scientific expertise and deep reporting, and seeking to provoke change on the issues he targets. His 2022 investigation into the International Monetary Fund and a pattern of global finance institutions keeping Barbados and other climate-vulnerable nations paralyzed by high levels of debt led in part to the introduction of the Bridgetown Initiative, a global effort to reform climate finance for developing nations crafted by Barbados’ prime minister Mia Mottley.
In 2020 Lustgarten published a three-part cover series in the New York Times Magazine on climate-driven migration, a project which influenced President Biden’s establishment of a climate migration study group in advance of the COP26 conference in Glasgow, and which later became the subject of his book, On The Move. Lustgarten’s other investigations include an examination of the global palm oil trade, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the consistent mismanagement of and conflict over the waters of the Colorado River. His 2015 series about water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize and received the top journalism honor from the National Academies of Sciences. It was also the basis of the 2016 Discovery Channel film “Killing the Colorado,” which Lustgarten co-produced.
His early investigation into “fracking,” starting in 2008, revealed one of the oil industry’s most dangerous environmental legacies and an ongoing threat to America’s drinking water. The work received the George Polk award for environmental reporting, a National Press Foundation award for energy writing, a Sigma Delta Chi award and was a finalist for Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize.
Before ProPublica, Lustgarten was a writer at Fortune. He earned a master’s in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Cornell. He was a 2022 Emerson Fellow at New America, and is the author of two previous books; “Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster,” and “China’s Great Train: Beijing’s Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet.”
He spends his free time backcountry skiing and mountain biking across the American West, and nurturing the relics of his past career as a documentary photographer. You can have a look at that work here.
