00:00:01:21 - 00:00:20:14
Patrick Marchman
How do you maintain the systems of a I've developed or some I developed or whatever country we in those situations. That's a real tough one. And I don't think we've really as a we really come to terms with that yet. People are thinking about it. But I think that's going to be unfortunately, something we're going to be dealing with in a lot of places.
00:00:20:14 - 00:00:31:12
Patrick Marchman
And it's almost a reverse. He'll be dealing with large scale movements of people to other places. And how do you actually accommodate down?
00:00:31:14 - 00:00:51:24
Kyle King
Welcome to another episode of the Crisis Lab podcast. I'm Kyle, your host, and today we're discussing the pressing issue of climate induced relocation. And to do so, we're glad to have Mr. Patrick Marchment, a leading figure in climate adaptation, resilience and hazard mitigation planning, as our guest today. Patrick, who currently serves as principal at CM sustainability, has an impressive career spanning nearly two decades.
00:00:51:24 - 00:01:12:05
Kyle King
He has worked extensively in both the public and private sectors, including the US government, and has been a leader in the emerging area of climate induced relocation. So in this episode, we will shed light on those realities of climate migration and managed retreat from community level to global perspectives. And we'll delve into the significant implications of climate induced relocation.
00:01:12:07 - 00:01:40:22
Kyle King
So we're going to discuss his complexity, unique responses at the various levels of our governments and communities. We'll also explore how climate change is not just an environmental issue, but a humanitarian one. Forcing people to relocate and triggering a cascade of security concerns and geopolitical tensions and the political repercussions of making these tough decisions. So with Patrick's wealth of on the ground experience and insights, we aim to deepen our understanding of these pressing issues and explore adaptation strategy.
00:01:40:22 - 00:01:45:09
Kyle King
So, Patrick, it's better to have you with us today. Thanks for coming and joining us on the podcast.
00:01:45:09 - 00:01:47:01
Patrick Marchman
Thank you for having me.
00:01:47:03 - 00:02:10:14
Kyle King
As we start this conversation and unpack this idea around this topic. One of the things that I wanted to reach out to you about and have a conversation around was really, can you describe the current global situation in terms in terms of climate induced relocation, and then whether the key trends and challenges that we're seeing today? I think that might be good to get us started in the conversation.
00:02:10:16 - 00:02:39:08
Patrick Marchman
Yeah. So short answer is it's hard to tell. There's a lot of different estimates and such. They range pretty widely from the International Organization of Migration to academic study so much. But one thing that can be said is that it is happening and it is it is accelerating in many areas. It ranges from movements within census tracks in the United States, which have been breaking out academically documented, to larger scale movements between countries for incontinence, even.
00:02:39:10 - 00:02:54:02
Patrick Marchman
And there's no real reason to expect that it's going to slow down any time soon. In fact, it's likely to continue to to become a factor, and starting intruding into lots of other aspects of politics and society.
00:02:54:04 - 00:03:07:13
Kyle King
Now, I obviously have seen and I think a lot of people have seen the migration issues in terms of international borders and boundaries and that perspective. But you mentioned census tracks. Can you explore that a little bit more about what you're seeing or what the sort of data is pointing to?
00:03:07:15 - 00:03:27:24
Patrick Marchman
Sure. There's a speaking with specifically within the United States. So climate induced relocation includes a lot of things from the scale of people, mass migrations between countries down to potentially someone who's had their house relocated from one side of the street to another. There's been a lot of debate, as I mentioned before, about how exactly to classify it and when is it starting.
00:03:27:24 - 00:03:46:11
Patrick Marchman
So it's made it difficult. But we are starting to see at the census tract level, which is a basic it's even smaller than, say, a zip code, the US postal system, it's a very small geographic space, about as fine grained as you can really get. With a lot of the voluminous census data out there. It can go almost to levels, neighborhoods in some places.
00:03:46:17 - 00:04:14:10
Patrick Marchman
So you're starting to see detectable movement away from census tracts that are directly on the shore in several cities, such as Miami and places like that. Now, that seems a little counterintuitive because you know that. So prices for condos are going up in certain places, but in a lot of places that that aren't a lot of, say, working class neighborhoods and such, or even not, you're starting to see a reduction in the increase of housing prices that is measurable compared to more inland areas.
00:04:14:16 - 00:04:34:02
Patrick Marchman
You're also seeing people. It's been debated as to how people are going to move. There's the general idea that someone is going to pick up and move maybe a thousand miles, but that's not really how migration tends to work in. In its early stages, migration tends to work within communities, within family networks, people wanting to stay the closer of familiarity as possible.
00:04:34:07 - 00:04:53:04
Patrick Marchman
What you would, you're starting to see is exactly what you would think you would see in that. Given that those conditions you're seeing, that certain census tracts are, that there's a detectable movement between census tracts away from those that are most vulnerable to, say, storm surges and such to places that are maybe slightly, slightly higher, slightly less vulnerable.
00:04:53:08 - 00:05:10:13
Patrick Marchman
Now, this is not where it's going to end. This isn't really the first step. You're starting to see a little be. But one of the important things about this is that is this has been documented and papers by researchers with the First Street Foundation. This is Kick the tires publishing papers as you can get. We're starting to see real evidence.
00:05:10:15 - 00:05:41:23
Patrick Marchman
Beyond that. You're seeing a little bit more. You're starting to see hints that there might be the beginnings of some broader trend, say, from Miami to Orlando as an example, Orlando being much more inland than, say, Miami. You're seeing. Also, one paper I saw recently has been some hints that in Colorado and Nevada, there have been hints that some companies are making decisions about which offices, whether to open or expand existing offices or to open new offices, partially based on heat projections and the differences potentially.
00:05:41:23 - 00:06:02:01
Patrick Marchman
Yet there they may be up slightly less likely to go in areas with more extreme heat and other areas. Again, this is this is new. This is very early on and there is a there's a galaxy of studies that can be done. But these studies are indicative that this is not really this is not really alarmism. There is something materially happening right now.
00:06:02:01 - 00:06:05:24
Patrick Marchman
And that you can by sort of academic standards can be measured.
00:06:06:01 - 00:06:28:19
Kyle King
That makes me think to a certain extent that and I be curious to see if you've seen any studies on this, but I can't recall. I think it was maybe just a last year or even as recent as this year, you know, discussions around the insurance industry pulling away for more disaster prone areas, leaving the state of California, for example, just because it's not economically viable to sustain their operations in high hazard sort of risk areas.
00:06:28:19 - 00:06:56:03
Kyle King
And so they're actually making an economic decision not to do business in certain states. I think in Florida was another one. Just because hurricanes and, you know, with like the climate security situation happening and the climate change situation happening, more frequent, more intense, more powerful storms, obviously, they're making a economic decision there. And these studies and the papers that you've read, are they overlaying or that initial findings of sort of relocation and overlaying the economic issues as well with that?
00:06:56:03 - 00:07:15:06
Kyle King
And because we're seeing it in where my head goes when we talk about this, as my head goes to the economic aspect of why people are relocating, but you're seeing an industry which I think is also surprising and exactly to your point about our offices or corporations making decisions based on the location. And like you said, heat mapping of a location and the climate that office might be in.
00:07:15:06 - 00:07:23:12
Kyle King
And then the additional costs that go with that. So I'm wondering how those sort of overlay or how those correlate to each other, if there's any sort of study on that as well?
00:07:23:14 - 00:07:47:08
Patrick Marchman
That's a great question. And the answer is I'm not sure those overlays really started happening yet. Again, these are like a lot of this is going to be it's still very discrete areas and such. I will say that people are thinking about it. I think about a lot. The economic development piece I think is clearly a new sort of a new frontier of climate adaptation, because one of the things we're talking about this is somewhat related to what you just mentioned.
00:07:47:10 - 00:08:09:14
Patrick Marchman
If you actually look in the United States, especially, but other places to some degree as well, property taxes are a major way that communities operate the. And so when you talk about, say, a managed retreat from a shoreline or a street or of a neighborhood, you're not just moving people or buildings or anything, you're actually reducing a tax base.
00:08:09:16 - 00:08:27:04
Patrick Marchman
And that makes a lot of communities very reluctant to engage in such. It adds a lot of difficulty. Now that can be did that is not quite as severe in places with different tax resumes, but the kind of issues are there and I want to go. So I haven't really seen that, but I'm sure that just coming, I do want to go back to what you mentioned about insurance, because this is not just the US phenomenon.
00:08:27:04 - 00:08:52:03
Patrick Marchman
This is a global phenomenon. I know for a fact that's happened in Australia. Some other places like that was in the news as a novelty. It's still going on. The news has moved on, but the insurance companies are still doing what they're doing, and they're starting to boost rates in places that you wouldn't think because again, the the increasing frequency of natural hazards and such, maybe it's not even by the shoreline, but in places without teams of modelers and such, and they're looking at the increasing frequency of some of those, they're going to have another reason to do this.
00:08:52:03 - 00:09:11:19
Patrick Marchman
And it's not really. Yeah. And I'll depart from some opinions on this. It's not really solely a matter of, say, corporate greed. It's a matter of the frankly, the bean counters are looking at their balance sheet. Insurers are not charities. The entire foundation of insurance is that people are going to pay in a little bit, and then they'll be able to pay out in case something happens.
00:09:11:24 - 00:09:31:23
Patrick Marchman
But that frequency will not be enough to bankrupt the whole pot. And so the whole point of insurance is make sure you're going to have balance those things out. And a lot of insurers in this match, insurers themselves. But the big the reinsurers that ensure the insurers people like Munich Re Swiss Re places like this are looking at these calculations and it really does have in balance out.
00:09:31:23 - 00:10:03:12
Patrick Marchman
So for instance I just got finished reading the Rachel used which was the sprinkler history of Hurricane Katrina. It's really interesting and it really underlined a lot of the Trino behind them. But massive strain on the insurance industry just by its nature, if its projections are correct, was hurricanes getting more frequent every year? You roll the dice and if you roll the dice, say a hurricane that goes smack into a major city and maybe 1 or 2 canes in a row, that's going to put the entire global insurance industry under a lot of strain.
00:10:03:12 - 00:10:20:22
Patrick Marchman
It's increasingly globalized, and it's not really just an issue of the damage. Insurance is the invisible infrastructure that really makes the modern world work. Everything we do is based on that sort of thing. So again, this is where you get into money and the finance. My brain is never it's never been really attuned to this as much as it should be.
00:10:20:22 - 00:10:41:06
Patrick Marchman
But it's I try to really learn a lot more about this because this is the real indicator. We can look at our windows and see storms and rationalize statistics and such like that. But the insurers, I think, are probably going to be the first real contact than most ordinary people in the developed world at least have with climate change.
00:10:41:08 - 00:11:02:13
Kyle King
I'm glad you mentioned the tax base issue, because I actually had an event last week, and I was talking with some colleagues of mine from the EU, and we were talking about the conflict in Ukraine and the war in Ukraine, and how we were discussing exactly the same thing of what you mentioned, but within the context of relocation of populations and internally displaced persons out of communities that are closer towards the front line in Ukraine.
00:11:02:13 - 00:11:39:13
Kyle King
Because ultimately, how do you manage to keep the fire service, police service, corps systems alive? When you lose the tax base and you lose 26% of your population, and that's an extreme amount of tax base and tax revenue that you lose as a city. And how do you maintain municipal services with degrading tax base? And that's where I think even though that's a highly accelerated rate that's happening in Ukraine, you could draw somewhat of a parallel to the the relocation of a population and a city and the slowly just death by a thousand cuts of sort of a city budget.
00:11:39:15 - 00:11:46:23
Kyle King
And how you just slowly degrade services and then people end up leaving anyway because the environment is no longer fitting very much.
00:11:46:23 - 00:12:03:18
Patrick Marchman
That is precisely the scenario, I think, that just kept me up at night before. And that keeps it. I know a lot of people on the adaptation feel out, but increasingly because that that, sort of that, that slowly the disasters are of course noteworthy. We all have to prepare for them. We all mobilize as countries and as human beings.
00:12:03:18 - 00:12:21:04
Patrick Marchman
We mobilize for those. And it's easy to do that. The slow, that slow grind to a grinding down of systems that was much harder to mobilize against. And you've seen this in many other context. It's not really a hypothetical thing. It has happened due to other things. It has happened, as you just mentioned, in Ukraine, it is happening.
00:12:21:05 - 00:12:40:03
Patrick Marchman
How do you maintain the systems of a developed or some developed or whatever country we in those situations? That's a real tough one, and I don't think we've really I don't think we really come to terms with that yet. People are thinking about it. But I think that's going to be, unfortunately, something we're going to be dealing with in a lot of places.
00:12:40:03 - 00:12:57:12
Patrick Marchman
And so almost a reverse, you'll be dealing with large scale movements of people to other places. And how do you actually accommodate them? Because they that can be and again, a lot of places would love to have that problem in our state of Michigan. It would be a balance, a good thing. But again, you're going to have to do how do you build the infrastructure for them?
00:12:57:12 - 00:13:26:21
Patrick Marchman
How do you really integrate them socially and such? That, again, is something that if you don't have that, you can see Canada as a country right now is a great example. Canada has really turned on the immigration spigot. Everyone coming to Canada, let's do it right now. Housing prices are just skyrocketing everywhere. You hear a lot and you actually look in terms of popular opinion, it is getting very negative because yes, you brought the people in, but you didn't do the get the infrastructure for them and you haven't really built out the economy to be ready.
00:13:26:21 - 00:13:45:08
Patrick Marchman
So again, it's going to be a balancing act and it's something that it's going to require a lot of really deep thinking and planning to accommodate what's happening for not only this year, for next five years, ten years, 20 years, 30 years down the line, because this is only going to accelerate.
00:13:45:10 - 00:14:07:10
Kyle King
Hey there, it's Kyle again. And just a quick note and a pause in our show for just a second. Did you know that most of our guests on the Crisis Lab podcast have courses inside of Crisis Lab? Many of our guests are actually instructors on our own platform. So if you're finding value in these conversations or they pique your interest and you want to dive deeper into the topics that we're talking about, just head over to Crisis lab.io for more information.
00:14:07:12 - 00:14:29:00
Kyle King
Our courses, webinars, and resources are all designed to equip professionals just like you with the knowledge needed to navigate complex and changing environments. And we recognize that your time matters, so everything we do is accredited. So don't forget to subscribe to and join our community. Over 17,000 professionals who follow Crisis Lab and are committed to enhancing preparedness and their strategic thinking.
00:14:29:02 - 00:14:48:19
Kyle King
Because the Crisis Lab, we believe in empowering you with a cross-domain knowledge and learning blended with international perspectives, ultimately making you better every single day. Now let's get back to the show. Okay, so we tend to focus on not only just preparing and working through a crisis, but then also host a major national crisis and getting in the post-conflict space.
00:14:48:19 - 00:15:07:22
Kyle King
And then how do we stabilize societies and rebuild? And it does make me think, when I think about the answer, it's and then I want to touch on the points that you just raised, have discussions in terms of war time insurance and what that means for nations. If you're going to go fight a war and insurance companies like and the Black Sea will not insure vessels to carry food, that is much needed for Africa, for example.
00:15:07:24 - 00:15:33:06
Kyle King
Well, then you have to have a nationally sponsored insurance program. So the nation has to back the insurance that's required. And so then you if again, that's an extreme situation, but it's a wartime insurance program. And then if you look at a situation like California where commercial entities are making a decision not to do business in your state, there's and the people who are listening, you can Google, listen and see all the exact details.
00:15:33:06 - 00:15:57:01
Kyle King
But I think California was exploring the idea of state phone and insurance programs. But then you have to think, okay, you know, we take one extreme situation of wartime insurance, which is ideally more temporary in nature, right, with possibly some international support. And then you get into a static, sustained state sponsored insurance program, which will just be hit by multiple disasters recurring over and over again.
00:15:57:01 - 00:16:16:19
Kyle King
To me, doesn't really sound very sustainable, especially across this landscape of a decreasing tax base right. And so that's going to be something that I think is just on the surface appears to be a solution. But as you're saying, as as you use the example of Canada, on the surface this appears to be the direction, the solution that we're going with.
00:16:16:19 - 00:16:36:18
Kyle King
But I don't think all that sort of infrastructure and the discussions about the adaptation that's needed or the staging environment has really taken place, like it was these ideas where we'll we'll just put it in the solution and we'll states most of the insurance, but I don't think you'll have 3 or 4, ten fires and some other sort of climate related disasters.
00:16:36:18 - 00:16:40:12
Kyle King
And then it's going to be it's gonna be bankrupt at the end of the day.
00:16:40:14 - 00:16:59:03
Patrick Marchman
Yeah. I think you're right. I think I you're touched on something really important. Sorry. State sponsored insurance. So it's not just California. Florida has a lot of these states have these programs and they're not necessarily bad things. What is bad is when they're like they create the program and they still run it as it's been run before, as a big version of what is not what.
00:16:59:03 - 00:17:21:04
Patrick Marchman
Well, the board. So it's basically kicking the can down the road. So you could and potentially you might, maybe should have a state sponsored insurance program. But it has to be really conceptual ized quite differently than we've been doing it with. The great example that comes into my mind is the American Nfip, the National Flood Insurance Program, and that over decades has even though a large it's a really small percentage of work, doesn't have insurance.
00:17:21:06 - 00:17:40:06
Patrick Marchman
What insurance? It hasn't really created moral hazard in lots of places. It's really encouraged the building of homes in places where they can be built and so you have to really think about that. And again, with things, when you're talking about migration and such migration, all these things can be very good things. If done well, it can be absolutely the cure that everyone thinks it is.
00:17:40:07 - 00:18:01:09
Patrick Marchman
But you have to be willing to deal with it in a holistic manner, in a creative manner. Otherwise, just doing something politically expedient is gonna lead to it's gonna generally the bad outcomes. It's just that it doesn't really it doesn't really do the job. And you unfortunately, you mentioned that decreasing tax base. You're also the one who have the curves of a decreasing tax base, increasing disasters.
00:18:01:11 - 00:18:09:17
Patrick Marchman
He put those together. You're gonna you're gonna get a crunch. The crunch will be felt and it will be expressed eventually politically.
00:18:09:19 - 00:18:21:06
Kyle King
Yeah. Absolutely. So let's draw on that discussion and let's take a look at the concept of managed retreat. So can you explain a little bit about the managed retreat and how that fits into this broader narrative of climate migration that we're talking about?
00:18:21:06 - 00:18:40:20
Patrick Marchman
Certainly a manager treats generally, but maybe the smaller scale end of it, which is basically retreat from and it's usually used in terms of sea level rise, but it can also be from wildfire, the one urban interface and such like that, basically retreat from areas that are becoming recently vulnerable due to the impacts of climate change. So manager treat as a concept you're seeing all over the world.
00:18:40:20 - 00:19:01:23
Patrick Marchman
I would say there's a lot of depending on the property regimes of certain nations, it's easier to deal do than in other places. But even even the easiest places, legally, there's still a lot of social ramifications. You're seeing at a retreat. So there's national prominence and New Zealand as a national plan that explicitly mentions this. You're seeing a lot of states in the United States are starting to do this.
00:19:01:23 - 00:19:26:01
Patrick Marchman
New York state is just I think, closed an RFP to help develop like an official retreat program. But you're seeing this in lots of places. People do it in many different ways, but it's really I would say it's generally at the community or at the highest regional level. The real kind of reconfiguring what community cities regions look like visibly about their natural environment.
00:19:26:03 - 00:19:53:00
Kyle King
So if you are reconsidering what our cities look like, and we are thinking again about how we design even just as urban wildland interface and everything that goes along with it, what are some of the unique challenges then, if we are going into this thought process and looking at how we can move of populations or more communities, and especially if they get into a game, when I hear you talking about, I just immediately think of where there's going to be like the city hall meeting and people that are trying to convey an idea of how we need to move.
00:19:53:00 - 00:20:17:05
Kyle King
And it just did. The other sort of shock and horror of that conversation. But what happens? There's two sides of that. So how do we how do our communities, I guess I should say, how our community is looking at this from a negotiation point of view, public education, slower development lane versus those that are forced to relocate due to the changing climate.
00:20:17:07 - 00:20:41:16
Patrick Marchman
That's an excellent question. The answer is it's a mess. It's honestly honest it away. Everything does this. Everyone is thinking about this differently. So I say again, in the United States, there is no national managed retreat program. The closest things I might come to, we might see some state level ideas are starting to be there, but you might see regional local buyouts from through BMR or through some other your agency.
00:20:41:16 - 00:21:04:08
Patrick Marchman
But again, they very rarely talk to each other. They're very rarely coordinated in any kind of context. Some of the major challenges I would say, as we've mentioned this before, but how do you how do you conduct a retreat that does not adversely impact not just the tax base, but say, the economically economic capacity or in the social structure of an area?
00:21:04:08 - 00:21:26:12
Patrick Marchman
A lot of times we've had one of the major problems with more individualistic societies. And this actually one thing actually, I just had an interesting thought about this has been we have like neighborhoods a lot of like my work, disadvantaged populations that have lived in neighborhoods in a while. You have the social fabric. And so when you come along and give a check for $250,000, that's a thing you can do that you can actually get.
00:21:26:14 - 00:21:45:23
Patrick Marchman
That's fair compensation. Here are the issues. Number one, how much is that going to mean in a community in a metropolitan area? Most of the homes are 500,000. So I'm going to be very much where are they going to go with that? The other thing is people generally will scatter because you don't really purchase homes en masse, so it's almost a guaranteed way to scatter communities.
00:21:46:04 - 00:22:10:23
Patrick Marchman
There's a great example, and this idea, as an example, I'm thinking of in terms of in the province of Newfoundland, there was the outpost relocate. There are a lot of villages that were not served by roads and such or services. And so from the 1950s onwards, there's a process of sort of relocation of these Californians. They were call and a lot of times the government would pay and pretty much move entire villages or even buildings, put them on a boat and send them somewhere.
00:22:11:02 - 00:22:27:21
Patrick Marchman
Now, some of the outcomes were there's a lot of stories about it and local songs and such about it. But one of the interesting things that is up until maybe the 80s or 90s, there was generally almost a more of a social kind of quote unquote, big government program where people were paid and you get a bunch of people in needs to come into place.
00:22:27:23 - 00:22:53:07
Patrick Marchman
After around the 1990s, 2000, be it became measurably more, more individualistic. And so some of the maybe the earlier outcomes we had, like communities, in some ways, keeping the social fabric a little bit started really going away. And so you saw something worse outcomes with the more kind of the choice based architecture. Now that's something inherent when you talk about choice in general.
00:22:53:07 - 00:23:15:09
Patrick Marchman
Again, in the United States, at least, you can't unless an entity basically invokes eminent domain, they can't really come and just force you out. They use a lot of incentives, but they can't really do that. So that's a really tough way. Now you can make the choices harder. And so at some point, for instance, people are starting to think about what happens when that one home refused to leave.
00:23:15:09 - 00:23:37:22
Patrick Marchman
Cindy, there's a picture famous picture in China. I like this song. They literally is on a giant, like a piece on a tiny piece of land and a dog all the way around it because the homeowner will refuse. You've seen this play in other places. There was a movie up, a Disney movie started out like that. And it's they'll make the choice harder by are to have you continued services teaching utilities to just holdouts and such.
00:23:38:01 - 00:23:59:03
Patrick Marchman
And then there's again the political backlash. You mentioned some of those city hall meetings. I can tell you I've, I've heard a lot of backlash in my time just from the idea of anything hinting around on state of California up and down the whole coastline. You have people. That's one way, at least in that a few years ago was an easy way to get yourself from not vote, not reelected as a mayor to mention this.
00:23:59:05 - 00:24:20:11
Patrick Marchman
And so it's again, it's incredibly tricky. It's incredibly hard, I will say success stories. I've seen one I think about it is in Australia, and I actually know the gentleman who did it. I think he's a great guy and he helped. There was a series of floods and a really small town in Queensland, and basically they almost threw out the rulebook in some ways and said, okay, we got to do something.
00:24:20:11 - 00:24:36:20
Patrick Marchman
He got carte blanche to come up with a new area. They bought a plot of land. They almost came up like almost a lottery system, to make sure everyone felt they were being fairly treated and compensated. People didn't have to move if they wanted to, but again, they made it in such an inclusive sort of way and not like inclusive.
00:24:36:20 - 00:24:51:12
Patrick Marchman
Maybe the way we think about it now, but it's again, it's a way of everyone participate such that most everybody did. They and they made it happen really fast. And a lot of that gaze and demand like all over Australia, New Zealand for that. That's one model. Again, you have to there has to be a sense of fairness.
00:24:51:18 - 00:25:17:07
Patrick Marchman
There has to be a sense of buying. It has to be a sense of you're not. Yeah. It's not just me being asked to sacrifice and that again, that gay keep going back to politics because it's almost a universal thing no matter what. Even in authoritarian countries there is political opinion. And when people feel like there's a fair shake, they generally respond better when they don't feel like they're getting treated fairly, that they don't.
00:25:17:07 - 00:25:25:14
Patrick Marchman
And this can be even like running tough decisions. I think people are more mature than you give them credit. We give them credit for. Sometimes they get it, but they also get when they're being screwed.
00:25:25:16 - 00:25:47:20
Kyle King
Yeah, it's very true. And so when we are looking at this and we're looking at this topic, and you said that at state level, there's some at least inklings of there, there's some discussions happening. But nationally really no sort of managed retreat type of policies relating development. What about the international level? Are we seeing anything being published internationally from the various international organizations that are focused on this as well, or is it still fairly new?
00:25:47:22 - 00:26:06:12
Patrick Marchman
Still fairly new? I know that, there's a network in in Europe, the Hugo Observatory, which has several universities and such. They do a lot of research. I mean, the International Organization for migration is doing a lot of like climate migration. They're thinking about this a lot in the UN level. UN is it's really fulfilling. Its function. There's like the world's largest NGO.
00:26:06:12 - 00:26:23:13
Patrick Marchman
It's doing very well on that. There's a lot of flight promotion. There's a lot of discussion now in terms of coordination. That's tricky. I know there's been some there have been some initiatives on such trying to like certain treaties, have any hints about it, but there's nothing of a scale. What's going on with compliance? Nothing. I think that's going to be the next frontier.
00:26:23:15 - 00:26:41:03
Patrick Marchman
About how exactly is there a way to really think on a maybe a, an international level, the EU, who might have a bit of an advantage, but the EU itself is a quasi national entity. So it's but I doubt but beyond the bounds of it. Like how do you work directly with these countries. Because again, we'll go back to the US because we're most familiar with the why.
00:26:41:03 - 00:26:58:13
Patrick Marchman
Now, a lot of the dynamics with the migration into the US has been not from Mexico. It's from Central America, and it's been almost like a or from like a place like Venezuela or in places there's been the way the US has handled this has been almost like a large slate trying to put some pressure on Mexico itself.
00:26:58:13 - 00:27:25:00
Patrick Marchman
And so I'm guessing that'll be our first line of defense. And there's not a lot of there's not a lot of discussion. Say how to get people from having to leave the Guatemalan highlands, which they haven't really because of climate change. Such a how do you make maybe it's going to be opportunities in Guatemala, Honduras, to give them different ways of life, help them ease them into something that is not quite climate sensitive, or if they get to Mexico, how do you figure out there's maybe some ways to integrate them a little bit more in the that's the more they finally do get to the US.
00:27:25:00 - 00:27:50:05
Patrick Marchman
What exactly do you how do you go about this rather than the how you get? It's an incredibly sense of political football. But there's I know there's people I know for a fact people discuss this and think about it. But in terms of the political, well, it's just incredibly sensitive. Think about it. If you're the government of Guatemala, Honduras, and you're having to looking at just how bad things are and likely going to get bank of your whatever a government level, it's incredibly tough and sensitive.
00:27:50:05 - 00:27:58:10
Patrick Marchman
So long answer. That's a long answer and a short question, which is not a whole lot. But again, they better start thinking about it.
00:27:58:12 - 00:28:05:12
Kyle King
Yeah, that's very interesting interview because some of these nations that are highly impacted can be relatively small populations.
00:28:05:18 - 00:28:06:14
Patrick Marchman
Yes.
00:28:06:16 - 00:28:22:20
Kyle King
And I say that from the US perspective, how many millions of people do you have in New York City or that 11 million or something like that, but. And how many millions of people in sort of San Francisco, L.A. area, these are smaller size countries, right? These are and sometimes small to medium sized countries in many different ways.
00:28:22:20 - 00:28:41:12
Kyle King
A lot of countries that we work with and around the world are are not are tens of millions, not hundreds of millions like the United States. And so when you start having a sort of a mass migration, and in that way, I can only imagine you're sitting there thinking, especially coming from smaller cities, we just turned into a ghost town, right?
00:28:41:15 - 00:28:48:15
Kyle King
And that your entire population leaves. Then what are you supposed to do? And then you're essentially looking at, worst case scenario, turning into a failed state at some point.
00:28:48:15 - 00:29:21:23
Patrick Marchman
Yeah, that's a really good point. So I another area are familiar with the Pacific. So a lot Pacific islands you just mentioned the population say New York, San Francisco, the population of the Marshall Islands, from what I understand is between 70,000 and 200,000 people at most. And I heard from a reputable source last summer that the majority of Marshallese population at this point is probably in the United States, because there's a certain relationship that allows Marshallese and Micronesians and people from Palau to live and work really in the United States.
00:29:22:00 - 00:30:00:09
Patrick Marchman
That's a sort of an example. These this is a microscopic drop in the bucket. Just to give you a perspective. I live outside of our metropolitan area in Ohio that has 600,000 people in it, and that the Marshallese population, its highest estimate is one sixth of that. So it's like there's a lot of really small areas. And the Marshall Islands specifically has been very forward thinking because they had to be they've had they put out a climate adaptation plan, which is forward thinking to the point, whether it's contemplation of what happens if there is no country, because North Islands is largely on low atolls or lighting to rock islands in the whole country, and I
00:30:00:09 - 00:30:18:00
Patrick Marchman
will not support a country. And so at some point you're going to have to start looking legally, talking about a failed state. You almost have to wonder. I think two other countries have contemplated this is the Pacific, but it happens. If you just roll up a country, how do you legally do that? It's a very it's a very almost like a it's a serious question.
00:30:18:00 - 00:30:34:15
Patrick Marchman
And then you look at what does it mean to have countries without how much of that territory, what can they do? Again, these are this gets really speculative, but it also is a it's a concern and it's going a little less speculative when you're looking at not only the combined birth rates all around the world, birth rates are declining anyway.
00:30:34:21 - 00:30:57:07
Patrick Marchman
And so if you're looking at this sort of thing, simply that people think there's a lot of countries certainly having issues because of the models, again, we've been using for 100 years are really based on steady growth. And so you add that plus the climate issue, plus people may potentially leaving. Yeah I getting failed stay is not an exaggeration that I think some places will be looking at.
00:30:57:07 - 00:31:15:10
Patrick Marchman
And that in itself will give rise to more instability. So that becomes a a security issue. Again, it's it's a tricky thing. It's like you're looking at the future and you're asking policymakers. So there's a whole other set of dice you have to roll by and try to here's a whole other massive thing that's only going to that's a roll the dice almost every year over and over to see what's going to happen.
00:31:15:10 - 00:31:18:00
Patrick Marchman
But that is a situation around.
00:31:18:02 - 00:31:44:06
Kyle King
Yeah. And it sounds dire. Isn't that exactly the most sort of positive thing that we're talking about later? If we let's take a sort of last question I have for you. So if we look into the future and we envision that this evolution of climate induced relocation and what are the sort of scenarios or trends that we should be aware of, at least on the short to medium term, so that if you are a city manager, if you are working at a state level or a federal level, what are some of the things that you should have on your radar?
00:31:44:08 - 00:32:06:21
Patrick Marchman
Number one is going to be insurance and finance. So it's not just insurance. We just mess out a lot. Finance terms of the municipal bond markets. That's going to be trickier in certain places. But I have knowledge in some cities he was the questions are starting to be asked several years ago, like cities that are very low level CS in the US starting to look at sort of those, those sort of flows, the money that really keeps things going.
00:32:07:01 - 00:32:26:21
Patrick Marchman
I think being ready for cities that may be in more of temperate climes or more like away from a lot of these hazards, growth might become a common issue. Be ready for for growth, be ready for sustainable growth. That's actually the real positive for a lot of these communities. Again, it's tough. You really have to estimate this, but get ready.
00:32:26:21 - 00:32:54:12
Patrick Marchman
Actually, I mean schools, utility systems, housing and such. I can also give people economic opportunities. One example I always like to think about is we all know about the stories of people after the fall of the Soviet Union, they migrate to the US. And you have physicists who are driving cabs and such, and that that was and the city of Chicago did a really interesting program a while back, which was I kind of accelerated program to get migrants to the city of Chicago to get their credentials recognized in the US.
00:32:54:16 - 00:33:15:03
Patrick Marchman
So say an an engineer, make sure they can get their PE. And I'm much quicker on passion than rather than and and that's one stroke. You know we're due to wasted potential. Yet people like producing much more economically than they would have things like that be looking ways to really how well would you integrate migrants in a way that, you know, is going to be largely be a positive thing?
00:33:15:03 - 00:33:40:02
Patrick Marchman
I think that's one of the, you know, when you convince people that people are going to be able to pull their weight, then that kind of helps mitigate started feature resentments against newcomers. I think the last thing again, I'll say, I just I'm saying this as posits this all be really positive. The one thing is, though, I could say, and I know this is tough for city managers, a lot of the work I do these days actually has been on a municipal level working, but I see what they can do.
00:33:40:04 - 00:34:02:04
Patrick Marchman
But they really do need to keep their eyes, their eyes, not just focus on what's immediate in front of them. Keep your eyes on a national level. Keep it on an international level. Keep an eye on the weather, on the climate, because things are moving. They're moving fast, and we are already at the impacts of climate change we're experiencing right now are what was originally projected 20 years ago to happen may be in 2040.
00:34:02:04 - 00:34:20:10
Patrick Marchman
So we're like 15, 20 years ahead of schedule, even with lower emissions than people at the thought. So that is a sobering idea. So again, we're all networks with each other. Reach out to other cities, keep your eye on what's going on in and the world outside and be ready to respond to the crisis and be able to grab the opportunity.
00:34:20:10 - 00:34:32:02
Patrick Marchman
Because frankly, there will be a lot of both. And being observant and being prepared will allow you to maximize the opportunity and maybe minimize the negative impacts.
00:34:32:04 - 00:34:43:21
Kyle King
I think all that was a great it's a great time to we'll close on that note. And great point to end the show is that Patrick, thanks a lot for rejoining us today on The Great Slide podcast. Really appreciate and the discussion, the insights are sharing with the rest of us.
00:34:43:23 - 00:34:45:19
Patrick Marchman
No problem. I'm glad to be here.
00:34:45:21 - 00:35:06:18
Kyle King
So that's all the time we have for today. Again, a huge thanks to our guest, Mr. Patrick Marchment, for sharing his knowledge and experience as we discuss the emerging subject of climate induced relocation. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to the podcast. We hope that today's episode has provided you with new insights and perspectives to better navigate the challenges of your field and in the future.
00:35:06:20 - 00:35:33:11
Kyle King
Remember, each episode is a step towards mastering the complexities of crisis management, and we're here to share the knowledge and support you along the way. Again, if you're not subscribed, go ahead and head over to your preferred platform. We prefer LinkedIn ourselves. Hit subscribe and keep up to date with our latest episodes for more resources and become to become part of the 17,000 professionals following Crisis Lab, head over to Crisis lab.io and make sure you follow us on social media such as LinkedIn and YouTube.
00:35:33:13 - 00:35:52:03
Kyle King
And lastly, if you heard about our Alexis Pass, it's the opportunity to lock in your pricing for 2024. You'll get 20 accredited courses released during this year, along with at least ten use and a native certificate. If you attending Native Crisis Management and Disaster Response course. So lock in your costs now because they're going to go up every single year.
00:35:52:05 - 00:35:56:15
Kyle King
Until next time, stay prepared, stay resilient and let's continue to make a difference together. Thanks for listening.
