Similarly, in Denver, Colorado, a landlocked city that might seem appealing because of its mile-high protection from rising seawaters, scientists warn that climate change could exacerbate droughts and harm water quality. “Water quality is sensitive both to increased water temperatures and changes in patterns of precipitation,” according to a Colorado Water Conservation Board report. “For example, changes in the timing and hydrograph may affect sediment load and pollution, impacting human health.” Scientists believe heat waves and wildfires in the state will also become more severe and more frequent, according to a Climate Change Vulnerability Study published earlier this year.

Staying away from scorching heat, hurricanes, floods, and wildfire will be difficult in a country that feels dramatically different in coming decades. “The best place really is Alaska,” said Camilo Mora, a geologist at the University of Hawaii, in an interview with The New York Times last year. Mora is the author of a 2013 paper published in Nature that predicts startlingly high temperatures by today’s standards—the hottest on record for any given place—will be normal by 2047. Monthly temperature averages will be hotter than anything on the books, according to Mora’s research. “Alaska is going to be the next Florida by the end of the century,” he said.

When considering climate-related vulnerabilities, economic stability may be as important as environmental factors.

“So, it may be too glib an answer, but the safest place to be for climate change just may be a place where a strong, diversified economy and responsive institutions give the ability and the will to deal with challenges as they arise,” said Richard Alley, a climate science professor at Pennsylvania State University. For example, California has remained fairly resilient despite experiencing brutal drought and devastating wildfires. “California’s economy continues to roll ahead,” he said.

“The scholarship is very strong that the optimal path for dealing with climate change involves both slowing human causes of climate change and adapting to the changes that will occur on the way, while avoiding both panic and stasis,” Alley told me.

The key to safety, then, isn’t to escape—relocation to another world isn’t exactly an option—but to deal with and prepare for the reality of what’s happening. It isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s arguably “apocalyptic,” Hansen wrote in The New York Times in 2012, imploring political leadership for urgent action on climate change.

“Global warming isn’t a prediction,” he said. “It is happening.”

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