The disasters wreaked by Hurricanes Helene and Milton are an immense human tragedy. The years leading up to these powerful storms, as well as the responses in their aftermath, demonstrate that how we reckon and live with the environment is also rooted in politics.
Patterns of home-building in climate frontiers, and the resources provided to communities following natural disasters, are deeply rooted in the political power of land.
Americans have long settled in frontier areas that are exposed to natural disasters and climate risks. That has not diminished with the growing recognition of vulnerability to floods, fires, earthquakes and other disasters in risk-prone areas — to the contrary, such settlement has only grown.
The last decade has seen even more settlement in places like the wildfire-prone mountains outside of Los Angeles, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California and in flood-prone coastal areas of Florida. The number of Americans living in flood-prone areas now exceeds 40 million. One-quarter of Californians live in high-risk wildfire areas, a number that is anticipated to grow in the coming years.
There is much to like about these beautiful areas and their pleasant climates. But that’s not the only reason people are moving there. Settlement in these places has been facilitated, and even encouraged, by insurance markets and tax breaks.
Until recently,........