#5 – (No)Where to Go?!

00:00:00: The language itself is a misnomer, but it's also... It's not fair because nowhere has a haven.

00:00:05: You can't escape climate looking at different places in the United States where people had been moving to so we could think about sending zones and receiving zones And receiving zones are not climate havens right?

00:00:16: What I try do with this book is dispel the mythology of Climate Havens.

00:00:21: What if migration isn't something that just happens But Something That Is Made?

00:00:27: Welcome To Production site, the podcast about the societal negotiation of migration.

00:00:34: We explore how migration is produced through policies institutions and categories And we ask

00:00:42: what

00:00:43: role does migration research itself play in this process?

00:00:48: Welcome to this episode of our podcast!

00:00:50: Today we look at how links between climate change and migration are produced through social processes.

00:00:57: My name is Aurora A. Sauter and I will be the host for today's episode.

00:01:03: It remains pretty unclear whether climate migration will ever emerge as a distinct migration category.

00:01:32: At the moment there is no national or global legal framework for climate migration, Or the possibility of applying for a climate specific asylum.

00:01:41: However at the same time We observe many processes that produce links between climate change and migration in movies, series, books newspaper articles.

00:01:52: But we can at the same time analyze and see processes that destabilize them.

00:01:57: Before we start this episode ,we need to talk about what actually mean when talking about Climate Driven Migration.

00:02:12: These are ways climate change affects living and maintaining living at a certain place through sudden events, like for example flood as well as slow processes like droughts.

00:02:24: Here we see that climate change impacts the floods.

00:02:29: I mentioned our drivers.

00:02:31: four migration decisions or other forms that we later will talk about.

00:02:36: very important is these experience of impact on climate change depend heavily on their specific social, political economic and historical contexts.

00:02:47: Vulnerability and the risk of harm from climate change vary greatly depending on living conditions, socio-political structures and available resources.

00:02:58: All these aspects are also tied to violent historical developments such as colonialism The capitalist economy processes of globalization and global power dynamics.

00:03:10: So we are in a really complex field.

00:03:13: Whether to stay or be forced to leave, the ability make voluntary decisions is co-produced by available resources and structure conditions.

00:03:22: This why research suggests using the term climate (Im)Mobilities instead of climate migration for example.

00:03:31: This other term encompasses the various ways people respond both voluntarily and involuntary, which includes to be trapped at a certain place because you have no resources to volunteer go or being displaced so your involuntary has to go by an extreme event.

00:03:48: How we think of a certain places?

00:03:50: Whether people migrate as refugees due to climate change or staying in some places is part the production of migration.

00:04:03: In this episode, we therefore aim to slightly shift the common perspective on the nexus of climate change and migration instead off focusing on these regions that are often framed as vulnerable and dependent on international support which turn.

00:04:17: a country widely perceived is powerful industrialized an economically strong yet also one of their largest contributors to global carbon emissions.

00:04:27: We take a look at the United States of America as key case for understanding relationship between climate change and mobility, We know the US as a major climate emitter because of its oil and gas, big cars.

00:04:45: But at same time it is also the country that experiences major hurricanes such as Katrina and New Orleans in two thousand five and Sandy & New York City in twenty eleven And both these hurricanes were public international events which are important for climate change policy In many other countries.

00:05:05: To discuss how climate change impact are addressed in this context and different forms of staying, moving or getting mobile as shaped under these socio-economic conditions I'm joined today by Jesse M. Keenan an expert on climate change adaptation and mitigation.

00:05:24: Jesse is an Associated Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at Tulane University in New Orleans.

00:05:31: He recently published the book North, The Future Of Post-Climate America which explores the intermingle of climate change adaptation migration and carbon mitigation.

00:05:42: After my conversation with Jesse My dear team colleague professor Thomas Scheffer also from the university of Frankfurt will join me for some reflections.

00:05:53: At the beginning of our conversation, I asked Jesse about New Orleans.

00:05:58: He has lived there for a while and still works there!

00:06:21: Yeah, that's a great question with probably not a terribly rational answer.

00:06:26: The first thing I think is useful for particularly European listeners to contextualize over the course of human civilization and thousands of years of human development people figured out overtime where high exposure or high risk places were in R And they adapt their settlements accordingly.

00:06:46: But, you know in the United States and New Orleans is a good example of this.

00:06:49: You know European settlement here Is less than five hundred years old often less then two hundred fifty years Old.

00:06:57: And so when people moved Here they didn't benefit from that accumulation Of indigenous knowledge about where risk and exposure In the machinations and environmental processes in The context or were They decided to build.

00:07:11: So in this sense New Orleans was a strategic defensive, was founded really in the Mississippi River and a swamp.

00:07:20: In place that no one should have ever built a city!

00:07:23: So... A lot of places in United States having an inordinate level environmental exposure because they just didn't benefit from this accumulation of knowledge.

00:07:30: but To answer your question just to go back, you know how does that shape my work and research?

00:07:35: I was looking to get out of Harvard because they hadn't tenured anybody in My department as a junior faculty this century And climate change is not really viewed as a popular Research theme.

00:07:49: That would yield You don't get me tenure there.

00:07:52: In different universities we looked at around the country Gulf Coast and around Hurricane Katrina.

00:08:04: I knew the full spectrum of environmental justice in terms of toxic exposure, Cancer Alley...I knew that geography reasonably welled ...and I knew it was sinking!

00:08:15: New Orleans has approximately annualized sea level rise mean relative sea-level rise of about fifteen to seventeen millimeters per year, which puts it on one the most high risk and high exposure low elevation coastal zones anywhere in the world.

00:08:33: I mean its up there with Bangladesh right?

00:08:36: But i wanted kinda be truly at that edge a risk but was little naive those terms because we had hurricane Ida hit, my wife and I are expecting our first child.

00:08:51: First and only child things change when you become a parent.

00:08:54: your tolerance for risk in risk Your perception of risks changes Of course And we're expecting her first child.

00:09:00: Then of course the hurricane comes and blows off part of our roof.

00:09:04: We basically have to.

00:09:04: You know...you need a roof To have a baby.

00:09:07: So..we end up moving to where we live now In Philadelphia Pennsylvania.

00:09:12: so i'm sort of keenly aware In many ways exposure, sort of lifted on some level.

00:09:21: I actually got the contract to The Book North as we were driving over the causeway or over the bridge to the mainland during our evacuation from the

00:09:29: hurricane.".

00:09:30: It's a weird set of circumstances but um...I'll say it probably hasn't changed my work and i don't think that has had big influence in my work.

00:09:41: if its have..i would just give me sense in terms of the stress, Of what it means to be on a move.

00:09:50: At least under conditions of displacement but also under conditions elective mobility.

00:09:56: that is when people are you know voluntary terms thinking about how and where we're gonna move What all the trade-offs That We make?

00:10:04: And what are the range of considerations.

00:10:06: climate's just one of many factors In Terms of Human Mobility.

00:10:11: How do we begin to psychologically connect with place.

00:10:18: What do we dream about?

00:10:20: you know, in terms of the affective reasoning and our emotional connection to where we're going and the fictions that we create.

00:10:27: And this is work that's happened at migration studies and sociology even an anthropology.

00:10:32: but I think i begin to appreciate that line of scholarship and those kind of modes of thinking that move beyond a rational economic orientation than one often has.

00:10:42: uh...to public policy.

00:10:45: A

00:10:48: hurricane makes climate change feel like a real threat to living.

00:10:52: I think this is important, you keep in mind.

00:10:54: for us as researchers dealing with Climate Change In many ways we ought not treat it too abstract.

00:11:01: It can hit us and might be the beginning of your book.

00:11:06: Confronted With The Question Of Where To Maintain Living And Times Of Climate Change Your Book Gives The Answer North adaptation and mitigation, but also the question of becoming mobile seeking refuge and seeking more climate-friendly spaces.

00:11:24: You see them potentially further north like The Great Lake Regions in the U.S.. This reflects a title from your recent book.

00:11:32: In this subtitle you introduce the terminology post-climate America... This surprised me actually!

00:11:38: How can we think BEYOND climates?

00:11:40: Can maybe explain to us what do mean by a post-Climate

00:11:43: America?!

00:11:44: So, post-climate America for me as I set it up is really there's sort of no need to over intellectualize that and probably my tendency.

00:11:53: But in its simplest form is a state where climate change is fully internalized into everything we do right?

00:12:03: Not just Challenge or as a risk, but actually indeed is an opportunity as well because there's tremendous opportunities that come with climate change to fix Many problems which happen to be carbon-intensive, which segregate our society.

00:12:22: Which create cost burdens that make us have tradeoffs between energy and health care or filling up the car with gas in education or medicine.

00:12:33: So there's all these trade offs And theres'all of these benefits we have through decarbonization and through broader societal adaptations.

00:12:42: And for me, a post-climate world is one from which climate is not a peripheral issue of policy to be debated as in what direction we go it's been internalized into the psyche of American society.

00:13:03: What do our more European listeners maybe have to know about the specific US conditions, especially at this nexus of climate change?

00:13:12: Adaptation and migration.

00:13:15: Yeah so in-in The Book North I really want to write the book as an accessible outline for adaptation science.

00:13:24: we really haven't had a definitive book on adaptation science in the English language.

00:13:30: And so what I wanted to do is to outline, uh...the science of adaptation but also the policy and institutions of adaptation that are-in fact unique to The United States One.

00:13:42: we have inordinate amounts of exposure In terms everything extreme heat extreme precipitation or the risk of extreme precipitation and flash flooding, sea level rise, subsidence landslides.

00:13:59: What we see in the United States is that areas that generally tend to be at most at-risk you have a highest concentration on exposure are generally in the area with fastest population growth than last two generations.

00:14:13: so much from the nineteen seventies, eighties, nineties and early two thousands moved basically to the north in the northeast of what we call the Sun Belt.

00:14:26: Basically going from the Carolinas all the way over just Southern California.

00:14:30: And so we've been concentrating our population on economic growth In increasingly high risk areas.

00:14:36: So Over time The institutions have largely focused on post disaster response.

00:14:44: in institution We have things like FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency We have U.S.

00:14:49: Department of Housing and Urban Development, we only in the past fifteen to twenty years begin think about pre-disaster mitigation or hazard mitigation.

00:14:59: And only in ten years has it become more serious about broader adaptation and thinking about multi sector adaptation across infrastructure across agriculture, financials you know across the full spectrum of sectors in the United States.

00:15:16: have we really begin to uh begun the process of thinking about adaptation and policy and planning accordingly.

00:15:23: So it's um...and in that sense just to give you-you know I went to school in Europe and studied and worked in Europe as well.

00:15:30: You know, I would say United States is a full ten to fifteen years behind at least Advancements that we've seen among particularly among EU member countries in adaptation policy and planning And of course were falling way behind now with the dissolution and destruction Of an enormous amount of federal infrastructure Mostly the firing personnel.

00:15:54: key continuity from one presidential administration and the other in developing, not just the policy but developing the expertise that it takes to reach full depth of these sectors.

00:16:09: And before we talk a bit more about the political conditions of The Current Times we live in, I have one more question because also your focus on real estate.

00:16:32: climate change impacts, adaptation and also maybe mobility forms are shaped in the

00:16:37: U.S.,

00:16:38: that there's a specificity with the American...

00:16:41: Yeah I mean so to understand The American Dream.

00:16:45: just for those who may not be familiar this is deep-rooted fiction That created the idea of an American consumer following the Great Depression of the nineteen twenties into the nineteen thirties.

00:16:59: uh... and certainly after the post war period in the nineteen forties was that we would be government with amortize long-term mortgage debt.

00:17:09: what happens to the united states is basically the government uh... amortizes long term in order to free up the income and expenditures of consumers so that they can go out, buy things in the economy.

00:17:22: And grow the economies.

00:17:24: two-thirds of our economy even today is just people buying stuff.

00:17:27: it's consumption right this one.

00:17:28: The reasons were so carbon intensive.

00:17:30: So we create a consumer.

00:17:32: and the American dream Is This idea That People Own Property They Own Land They Own Their Housing Uh...and They Have A Little White Picket Fence ride their bikes to school and they, everybody lives as a single family unit in the kind of Judeo-Christian sense of America.

00:17:52: It's husband or wife and two and half kids right?

00:17:54: So we've created this fiction, In many ways, has been much bigger than climate because the way that government plays in financing and paying for housing includes some but excludes a good number of people.

00:18:23: We've run out of infrastructure-supported land so we borrowed money from the municipal bond market to build housing.

00:18:29: But what's on bottom line is that housing cost burdens have gone up of course, in recent years being driven by climate change specifically as it relates to insurance.

00:18:43: This is the canary and the coal mine.

00:18:45: this is what people feel.

00:18:45: first is the insurance side of things And we've had significant insurance losses and that has had massive inflation in the price and cost of insurance for American homeowners.

00:18:58: So you know much of my career Has been to talk about climate change or research climate change but really communicate climate.

00:19:06: not as a moralization, because it's easy to moralize climate change.

00:19:11: And I'm sure I'm guilty of that sometimes myself but really just say hey this is a basic economic issue.

00:19:17: This is an issue that resonates with American households.

00:19:21: It impacts your monthly budget ,it impacts you life savings and in fact your accumulation wealth and quality of life.

00:19:28: We don't have the moralized right or wrong on climate changes.

00:19:30: what we need look at how shapes our lives and your daily life.

00:19:35: That's what I would say pioneered on some levels as a form of communication in the United States, my body research.

00:19:43: So The American Dream becomes vehicle to communicate climate change.

00:19:51: Regarding their housing aspect that we just talked about i think it is important to talk about the injustices American way of living with the American dream and house that injustices are, in some senses escalating because climate change impacts.

00:20:14: And maybe you can say a bit more about that?

00:20:18: Because I think climate changes injustice is on local level but also global levels very important aspect to changing world.

00:20:28: Yeah i'm not sure if would use language injustice because the system was designed, that is the capitalist system of what we have in United States.

00:20:44: Was designed to create inequalities right?

00:20:48: The system and the mode of regulation institution long policy doesn't provide provision for equal allocations of resources, what is largely focused in on his procedural due process and procedural justice.

00:21:05: In the sense that it has on its surface a kind of egalitarian ambition.

00:21:10: but of course it results in disproportionate burdens on certain types of populations.

00:21:19: so I think what i recognize in my book and try to document empirically bear certain types of burdens in terms by income, race class however you want to look at it.

00:21:34: And that disproportionate burdens particularly as it relates just income inequality and class disparity segregation and race segregation are going to be exacerbated by climate right?

00:21:47: You know my critique on the left in the normative side social justice Is not the same thing as the critique of that.

00:21:54: this is actually That in many ways, they're actually fundamentally right on a lot of these things which is that when we Correct off.

00:22:02: These fundamental climate problems or we address them and We adapt to things?

00:22:07: We have the opportunity to address A lot of allied social conditions To bring people up.

00:22:13: there are hundred percent correct about what I think They've lost how you communicate because they've kind of moralized it in a way and communicated that prioritizes some populations over others without communicating how or why that is.

00:22:34: And so, it becomes a binary identification that some populations bear burdened responsibility and should be blamed a kind of theological disposition to argue that some will be saved and some we'll be damned.

00:23:01: And I think there's a different way to communicate, that brings in much broader community diversity people into the mix who see it slightly differently the responsibilities and who bears the burdens, but I think as empirical social scientists or research scholars we have an obligation to say yeah there are people who bear enormous burdens here.

00:23:25: And that we as a society should have laws and policies that help people That helped bring up quality of life in their basic existence To level which is humane.

00:23:39: And that is the challenge.

00:23:43: So I think a lot of this not people are factually inaccurate, it's how we choose to communicate and build coalitions choosing some people over other people and excluding others, I think the whole idea is to include people not to exclude people.

00:24:11: And by the way that means including rich people in a conversation right?

00:24:15: Which just like- By the way because the rich people are the ones who often control the capital...I'm not saying i am necessarily right or wrong but this where climate communications Really needs to go build a bigger tent.

00:24:31: Yeah, and it can't just be about social justice.

00:24:34: as I see It's too small of an issue narrow issue politically.

00:24:38: yeah i think for climate communication the wording And also the choice of terminology are really crucial aspects?

00:24:57: widespread media intention, Climate Haven.

00:25:01: In two thousand eighteen journalist Oliver Millman used the term Safe Haven in his article.

00:25:07: Where Should You Move to Save Yourself from Climate Change?

00:25:11: The term was Safe Haven picked up by the Media and fabricated into a media construct now coined as Climate Havens Since this article is often associated with you or your work On the one hand because Millman interview and cited you in this article.

00:25:28: And on the other, You also engage with this term but also if it's development at its problems in your book For our listeners maybe to frame what actually climate haven means.

00:25:40: It is supposed be a climate-safe space.

00:25:43: In The US Even real estate firm compiled list of nineteen cities including for example Portland Maine and Buffalo New York And we can say for Buffalo, they're even using the frame Climate Haven and their city marketing to attract new people.

00:26:02: This list was pretty shaken up in two thousand twenty four one of the cities off-the-list as well.

00:26:08: In September twenty twenty four were severely hit and destroyed by hurricanes Helene's extreme rainfalls and flooding.

00:26:16: Afterwards newspapers proclaimed there is no such thing as a climate haven.

00:26:21: The example of Asheville shows how powerful terms can be, but also how they are challenged by reality either matching or mismatching.

00:26:30: Jesse, How do you deal with this ambivalence and challenge?

00:26:33: Tell us a bit more about your work in terms of research.

00:26:37: I did not coin the term safe havens or climate havens... ...I have propagated advanced ideas like climate education, like blue lining And i think My goal was that I saw something new and different.

00:26:57: That it needed to stand out, people need to recognize this as something doesn't follow the conventional patterns of how we understand social behavior or economics or whatever.

00:27:08: And then you use a language that people could relate too.

00:27:13: So gentrification is kind of a language where people intuitively understand.

00:27:19: In this sense, climate gentrification is something that people just can grasp onto.

00:27:24: So I'm taking the idea of the familiar and by the way blue lining.

00:27:28: it's very similar to redlining.

00:27:30: It's something everybody kind of not everybody a lot of people understand its historical legacy And by the ways there are connections between blue lining in red line as i talked about but But these are things that people have a familiarity too.

00:27:43: so what i am doing I'm trying to say, listen there's these processes and things that shape our world.

00:27:49: And now they're just slightly different.

00:27:51: climate alters those understandings in a pretty fundamental way.

00:27:55: So i think how we construct the language is really important.

00:27:58: Now let me talk about Asheville for a second.

00:28:01: my myself and colleagues have been doing over the years is looking at different places in the United States where people had been moving to.

00:28:08: So we can think about sending zones, receiving zones and receiving zones are not climate havens right?

00:28:14: And what I try to do with a book is dispel the mythology of climate Haven's because language itself as a misnomer but it also... It s not fair cause you can't know where there was a haven or you cannot escape climate Right?

00:28:27: Ashville has really good example.

00:28:29: this There's this, you know many people had been moving there because of climate was a major influence.

00:28:36: You know climate is very rarely the singular influence but it has most certainly been a Major influence.

00:28:41: and for those who are listeners Who may not appreciate this Asheville up in the mountains of North Carolina?

00:28:47: It's cooler Up there, it's once you go down closer to the coast.

00:28:51: It's much more hot and humid but up in the mountains They tend get a little bit more rain tends to be cooler.

00:28:59: just nicer weather I would say in general is not so hot And So people had been moving their.

00:29:05: of course they have a big flood and The Big Flood Knocks out power and infrastructure for a few months and it knocks out some places that historically Had pretty consistently flooded in the past.

00:29:18: But if there's one thing we know about Asheville, the only things that American post-disaster redevelopment is that Asheville will only continue to grow as a receiving zone.

00:29:28: People will move.

00:29:30: they're in fact what gonna happen and whats already happening?

00:29:33: They'll just go into tear down what was flooded at Asheville And they will regrade lots fill with dirt rock soil elevate things design buildings engineering resilience techniques and materials.

00:29:49: So, for instance the first floor will be designed to be flooded.

00:29:52: that'll just be a garage so you're not really damaging much of their home um...and they would develop at higher densities in it high price points uh... and to accommodate greater population load on these areas.

00:30:04: And we use engineering resilience as form of amenity to rationalize intensity and redevelopment.

00:30:12: And by the way, they will sell these homes at price points that were many times higher than what was flooded in the first place.

00:30:18: So that's already happening but Asheville will only continue to grow as a receiving zone.

00:30:23: so I think it is important to recognize there are no climate havens.

00:30:29: you know one of things i talk about on this book why does climate haven appear?

00:30:33: Where has come from?

00:30:33: well turns out comes journalists or people writing, and they sort of misunderstand the scholarship.

00:30:43: And then misunderstand what people have been talking about.

00:30:46: They intentionally use a very inflammatory rhetorical vehicle in The Language Of A Haven as kind of joke anyway.

00:30:54: but when you end up taking it seriously... People are desperate for optimism!

00:30:59: They're desperate to have some agency over their capacity to make decisions in an otherwise totally chaotic world.

00:31:06: And they're looking for something and that feels very utopian, In a sense.

00:31:10: but it also I think needs to be recognized is A powerful vehicle For social change.

00:31:16: yeah That people still retain the sense of optimism.

00:31:20: They might get The language wrong But they Still want To live in a World where?

00:31:28: footprint and a sustainable way of life.

00:31:30: And so for as much I look down on that language, i think it's something we also have to understand why and how that language perpetuates.

00:31:38: Yeah, thank you for clarifying this.

00:31:40: I think this is especially what i wanted to talk about.

00:31:44: first to see How a term can be twist around?

00:31:47: And then picked up by Public or media public and it can be created in a certain maybe we call it an imaginary In the sense which has been also powerful influence on.

00:32:01: Maybe investors are decision-making processes And I think it's also a good example, what i like to end with you in the end that we tend maybe look at context.

00:32:25: can be rebuilt and can be adept, and can make places for a future living.

00:32:30: If we look from the global scale... We have more imaginaries than what the climate in Mobility's research field has shown us that there is an imaginary of people who migrate but they will be relocations not so much talking about adaptation.

00:32:47: I wonder how you look at this discourse, and maybe you can touch upon the differences also in the discourse from this global perspective on what we may be called Global North or Global South Differences?

00:32:59: Yeah.

00:33:00: And I'm not sure that I am fully in tune with a global scholarship on these.

00:33:09: globally is coming from migration studies.

00:33:13: And so there's a very narrow cohort that people tend to study and evaluate, and that's a cohort of the dispossessed in the displaced.

00:33:22: but I think what is sort of unique in The Global North Europe and United States Is That There'S A Broader Cohort Here?

00:33:32: Uh...and i talk about this In The Book you know it on some old.

00:33:35: yes there are People That Are Being um forced out and they're being pushed up, right?

00:33:39: They lose a home or way of life for whatever it means.

00:33:42: But on the other end to continue we have people who are electively mobile.

00:33:46: We had people with the wealth the skills The labor capacity And the choice in the opportunity To be mobile.

00:33:53: this is certainly true all throughout Europe With the freedom movement in your.

00:33:56: I think that's what unique A little bit in United States In Europe Uh...and particularly in United states Is That where-we see a lot more different types of people on the move now.

00:34:07: It's not just that old-fashioned way of thinking, but a kind more narrow perspective where people are lesser means and have been forced by some exploitive global capitalist system being dispossessed.

00:34:22: in this place.

00:34:23: Those peoples certainly exist for hundreds or millions But there is also other populations out here who has some choice Or making choices by virtue of their disproportionate position, of being privileged with living in these countries of wealth who are also on the move.

00:34:41: And that is a very valuable thing to understand and learn because it gives us sense at scale And the movement of not just people, but the movement capital and how for better or worse right to prepare in many ways as I argue For this movement so that next time we don't just perpetuate carbon-intensive suburban Segregating sprawl.

00:35:05: We actually think about how we can do This.

00:35:08: The Right Way To take advantage um to de risk and decarbonize our society into advance those of lesser means to bring everyone up in the advance of a quality-of life and our stewardship of the environment.

00:35:21: This is what's at

00:35:22: stake.".

00:35:24: Yeah, we see many existential problems overlapping in times that we do research on.

00:35:30: at the moment some call it probably crisis which also pushes post climate era where climate change isn't problem but more part of structure or everything as you explained.

00:35:46: It's pushing at us for more into the future and hopefully is still in a way we can imagine it realizable, In this sense.

00:35:57: Yeah We have all of tools that are needed in terms of technology and policy.

00:36:01: What you're used to imagining is spot on what needs to inspire people.

00:36:07: That there is a way out And better life ahead.

00:36:12: That's all people want.

00:36:13: It is just genetically encoded in our ambition for the perpetuation of our species

00:36:20: and find ways, an inclusive way to not produce fictions again.

00:36:26: that too exclude certain

00:36:28: People.

00:36:29: we could only survive as a species groups.

00:36:31: anthropologists at Wong taught us this.

00:36:34: so We have to work together there.

00:36:37: There's no alternative.

00:36:39: Forget institutions and organizations for a second.

00:36:42: Like at really basic level, we are genetically encoded to operate in the collective And that's only way out of this.

00:36:50: Yeah Thank you There was wonderful.

00:36:53: last word I would say That brings us or gives some...I think You called it vision earlier Some vision.

00:37:00: how can move forward To post climate as America as you coined it.

00:37:06: Thank-you so much for joining this episode today!

00:37:13: After speaking with Jesse M. Keenan about his research in the US on adaptation and different forms of mobilities, I am very happy to welcome now Professor Thomas Scheffer.

00:37:24: Thomas is professor for sociology within emphasis on interpretative social research And Thomas and I work together at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, as well.

00:37:36: As is so-called C5 project here at the CRC 1604 in Osnabrück.

00:37:43: We are interested to know how climate induced migration has been produced or negotiated?

00:37:50: What key insights do you take away from our interview for your own research?

00:38:01: Hello Aurora, thank you for having me.

00:38:05: What I really liked is that in the interview climate change... ...is everywhere and it dictates a pace of us trying to adapt into our everyday affairs.

00:38:22: A second point what i learned was to think about climate induced migration not as an either or question but that this kind of climate induced migration has a before and after it is growing into time, I think for our own research really interesting.

00:38:57: either or perspective.

00:38:58: But with this more process-perspective that you just formulated, we also have in our research is there are certain stages of development that can be observed.

00:39:11: so it's kind everywhere and all readjusting towards a climate change future as well present With the US.

00:39:21: I think thats something to take away from an interview.

00:39:25: The American dream and also the housing or insurance for the housing has a specific importance to the US case.

00:39:33: We can learn from that in different contexts, certain aspects where climate change enters the field could be a vehicle of communicating climate change and produce a certain narrative about climate changes.

00:39:45: Yes definitely what we learned is it matters a lot when you observe those changes.

00:39:55: So the capacity of society to help out or step in, serve as a kind of buffer is really important and that's definitely something on global scale not equally allocated.

00:40:12: if you are lucky and very prosperous state climate induced migration further away from your lived reality.

00:40:22: Yeah, I think you're touching upon a very important topic and i think it's the big question about global inequalities.

00:40:28: How do we deal with them?

00:40:30: And also how do we describe them as social

00:40:32: researchers?".

00:40:34: What you just said was that the buffer is in an important aspect because it signals how important specific or different resources can distance climate change every day problem.

00:40:50: One thing I would like to talk about with you is the production of narratives that comes up in The Interview.

00:41:10: that this is a very specific way of addressing climate change as basic economic problem.

00:41:26: I have to say, i like his take on it very much.

00:41:29: It's important to choose at the level of telling story because its about continuation.

00:41:38: despite all ruptures we need to translate even biggest issues in our everyday affairs.

00:41:46: Paying for the insurance, making the experience that a bill is getting higher and higher?

00:41:52: That's one of those many translations – how it becomes real at the same time!

00:42:00: When I would now take the perspective on climate justice.

00:42:04: this will be different perspectives.

00:42:05: How do you see these in relation to economic argument?

00:42:10: In a way social justice and climate justice are the same And they are different at the same time.

00:42:16: In political debates, especially on the left it is often... ...the confusion that one would say you're interested in climate change but not in social question.

00:42:26: The thing with climate change was radicalizing this social question.

00:42:31: They become one because all three goods we forgot about air and water the stable climates.

00:42:39: as such They are put into question.

00:42:41: and who suffers most?

00:42:43: Are those people, who cannot replace the free goods by commodities.

00:42:49: On the other hand I think we need to get used too The fact that they climate justice And social justice work differently Because different stuff is involved.

00:43:01: That's probably a story more complicated.

00:43:06: We rely on our wealth being protected and being available as well in the future.

00:43:13: Whereas climate change put into question, there are very institutions that safeguard those.

00:43:20: this wealth.

00:43:21: at this capital The state itself is a national bank to financial system that social institutions as well.

00:43:29: it's not natural given your money you have on your bank account to cure your future living.

00:43:36: It's not so much about different narratives that we can either choose economic narrative on climate change or a social justice narrative, but it is more important also for our production perspective.

00:43:49: That these aspects come together and they have maybe different angles.

00:43:55: however there are interconnected interlinked... And this may be something when talking the question of communicating about climate change communication strategies is that our role as social researchers, Is to stand for this complexity and break it down.

00:44:11: And explain in the sense how these complexities work.

00:44:14: what easily happens when we talk about climate change?

00:44:18: That we escape into narratives that are linked with our stable past.

00:44:25: We try to translate it into stories where money or houses cars provide for stability, while we have to learn on the other hand that through climate change there are no longer these safe havens.

00:44:42: There is then a rising sense arising atmosphere of insecurity.

00:44:47: That's difficult task as social researcher.

00:44:50: What can say this perspective with stability in

00:44:55: our

00:44:55: context also?

00:44:57: vice versa the perspective of certain regions have been unstable all that time, what we often call the global south is more vulnerable.

00:45:07: And I think these categories either are stable or instable as also something Justices or inequalities.

00:45:20: in terms of the buffers we talked about, I think this is really a takeaway from this interview also and our work.

00:45:26: And now at the end i would like to ask you if there's one take away that you take away form the interview for further work on the production climate induced migration?

00:45:37: The take-away for me is probably need to be more radical in thinking our concept that we were brought up with as sociologists, all the resources we have.

00:45:54: We need to be able somehow question them in light of fundamental changes we live

00:46:00: through.".

00:46:02: Thank you so much Thomas for your inspiring insights!

00:46:17: subscribe and spread the word.

00:46:19: You can find all credits, sources & further links in the show notes and at producingmigration.org.

00:46:26: Production site is produced by the Collaborative Research Centre production of migration At Osnabrück University funded by The German Research Foundation In collaboration with Podcastfabrik Bielefeld.

00:46:40: New episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts Until next time And until then What's being produced right now?