Stealth form of Climate Migration

In 1995 I was in Antarctica working as science support. It was there I met scientists evaluating climate change and global warming. Our conversations convinced me to move to a region that would do the best in the next few decades as the globe warmed.

I moved to Seattle, for the mitigating effect of the cold ocean, and simply being farther north. In the 21 years I've lived in the region its worth noting it went from having a brief thunderstorm every few years to having several thunderstorms per year. It also went above 100 degrees for the first time since records have been kept.

2018. I've become a rent refugee. I'm now relocated in Las Vegas and trying to start over. I'm now in a region that is already a climate disaster, with summers so hot the sidewalks are 180 degrees.

Beginning some years ago a building boom began. Many years have had over 80 high rise building projects, most being condos and apartments. Besides those skyscrapers, the city has built up and steady stream of 10 story apartment complexes totally dominating main neighborhood streets.

The spike in amount of supply has not lend to lower prices. One bedroom apartments now average just under $2000, and two bedrooms average over $2500 per month.

The primary source for the investment dollars funding these building projects are Chinese hedge funds.

(I am not even remotely anti-Chinese, nor against global economic investment. I've always seen the west coast's binding with Japan/Korea/China as a mark of superiority over the rest of the USA.)

I am also not prone to conspiracy theories of malevolent or pathological intents by powerful entities. Yet what I am about to assert sounds like a conspiracy and like a warning of ill intent by foreigners.

I think the Chinese, being less religious and more purely aligned with science, have more wholly embraced the idea of global warming. I think that as a result their wealthiest are making plans for that future. I don't think they are investing first in Vancouver BC Canada, then Seattle because those places look like a good return-on-investment, they are investing in a place for their grandchildren to live in 2050.

When I moved to Seattle in 1996 I thought I was embedding myself in the place forever. I naively did not concentrate on buying land or a residence in the region. I mistakenly had a local-centric view that I was here, foreigners were far away, and this place was mine to exist in while the rest of the world burned and stormed.

I didn't think through the idea of massive concentrations of wealth by a population scientifically smart enough to use that wealth to push aggressively into the most hospitable regions of Earth.

So now here I am, in burning unsustainable Las Vegas.

Well played Chinese, well played.