It’s cold. It’s gray. It has a lot of potholes. But, could it be paradise? It could be, at least for climate migrants: those fleeing rising tides and temperatures in other parts of the country. This is Duluth, Minn., a small city on the western tip of Lake Superior. “Hi, Jesse? Hi, I’m Kendra. Nice to meet you.” “Hey, Kendra, how’s everything?” Jesse Keenan is a climate adaptation expert at Harvard University. Keenan believes climate change could cause displacement across the U.S., and cities like Duluth could benefit by welcoming climate migrants. “Is it unrealistic to think that 10 or 20,000 people could move here in the future, let’s say in the next 50 years? I don’t think that’s unrealistic at all.” He somewhat jokingly refers to Duluth as the most climate-proof city in America. When people at the University of Minnesota-Duluth got wind of Keenan’s ideas, they hired him to do analysis and demographic forecasting. “Beautiful colored brick.” Keenan acknowledges there’s no escaping climate change, but there could be relief from those scorching Phoenix summers and rising Miami seas that will only get worse as the planet warms. So Keenan believes there’s no better place for climate migrants to land than Duluth. “They call it the air-conditioned city for a reason, and they have for 80 years. It’s pretty cool here in the summertime. Therefore, when they do have extreme heat, it won’t be as bad.” Another selling point? The city’s forward-looking economic approach. “They’re not so much stuck in the nostalgia of the past that we’re going to bring back manufacturing and coal and all of these things. They’re actually diversifying their economy.” And the city’s existing infrastructure could make it attractive to newcomers. “There’s wonderful architecture. There’s landscape, there’s parks, there’s all kinds of amenities that are residual parts of this Rust Belt that are actually a great platform for a future city.” But what it’s really all about is this: Lake Superior. “I’m just happy I made the executive decision not to wear ballet flats.” “This is all fresh water. And as the world heats up, and it starts absorbing more and more water into the atmosphere, fresh water is going to become more and more scarce and more and more valuable. And there’s plenty of fresh water here to go around.” Think of this lake as a giant water fountain of the future. Life in Duluth already revolves around it, from sledding to beer making. And as fresh water becomes scarce under a warming climate, it will be even more important. Keenan says it’s something Duluth can capitalize on now. “Climate adaptation is not just managing risk. It’s also thinking about the opportunities that arise with climate change. I think it’s healthy for those in, let’s say, economic development, planning to think about how do we take advantage of climate change? What’s the good stuff? How do we create value? And then maybe we extract that value and help people of lesser means or help promote the environment or to offset the costs of adaptation itself.” Although there is no data to show that people are already moving to Duluth to escape climate change, Keenan projects that, on average, over 200 people a year could potentially move to the city over 50 years. “That’s a lot of people for Duluth. That would actually increase their municipal budget by about 1.5 percent every single year.” So how to get people from California and Florida to move here? Keenan has created a marketing campaign, and he’s already running test ads with new slogans for the city on Facebook. “Duluth: Not as cold as you think. Particularly in Florida, people are worried about how cold it is, but it’s beautiful. People go to the beach here. There’s actually a very vibrant surfing scene.” We wanted to know what the people of Duluth thought of Keenan’s plan. So we headed to something that’s pretty easy to find in Duluth: a brewery. Turns out all that fresh water also makes for great beer. “Duluth: It’s not as cold as you think.” [Laughing] “Metaphorically?” “Duluth: It’s not as cold as you think.” [Laughter] “It’s not true.” “It’s way colder than you think!” “We’re not going to turn people away for trying to run away from climate change.” “More people here means more people to play board games with, more people to come hang out at the cool bars, for sure.” “I don’t think that making your small world bigger with new people is a bad thing. So, I’m fine with it.” It was something we heard often from people: Why not? As for the mayor of the city? Emily Larson says she’s considering Keenan’s proposal. “This is a topic, an area that our residents care deeply about. We have this national researcher who has identified Duluth as a place where has kind of a secret sauce when it comes to this being a place for refuge and sustainability and resiliency. That is something you want to be a part of.” Next up, Keenan presented his plan to an audience at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. “This is where it really gets fun. Texas, don’t get left behind. Move to Duluth. The most climate-proof city in America. You’ve done it, Duluth, this is your identity. You have that opportunity to provide that kind of leadership.” [Laughter] [Applause] But there are some challenges ahead. An influx of people could put new stress on the city’s population, as a member of a local Native American tribe pointed out. “My first impression is, with all due respect to other people moving around for climate migration, we will never, ever get to move our homelands. And so that’s a bit of a concern, right? Additional stressors, our way of life is so tied to the natural environment — a healthy natural environment. More people, more strain, more pollution, more need for economic growth. When, from my perspective, we haven’t even figured out how to interact in a positive way with our Indigenous people here.” So not everyone was won over by Keenan’s plan. “Why should Duluthians listen to you?” “Maybe they shouldn’t. I know nothing about Duluth other than what I’ve externally understood and maps and plans and ideas and history and photographs and archives and economic data. This is actually a really nice place and people are really nice and there’s good restaurants, and I get a sense of what it means to be on the lake, and I can understand why people would live here. I don’t know if I could ever live here. But maybe so.