Of the 10 lowest risk counties in the United States to live as the climate warms, seven are in Vermont. One is the Upper Valley’s Orange County. However, nowhere will escape climate change unscathed.
Here’s the blurb from the Quartz Daily Brief of September 7, 2021.
One in three Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer, and things aren’t getting less extreme from here. So where is a future climate migrant to go?
A recent study assessed six factors—heat, wet bulb temperatures, sea level rise, crop yield, fires, and economic damage—to identify the least risky place to live in the US as the climate warms. Of the 10 lowest risk counties, seven were located in Vermont:
• Lamoille County, Vermont
• Franklin County, Vermont
• Orange County, Vermont
• Essex County, Vermont
• Piscataquis County, Maine
• Summit County, Colorado
• Grand County, Colorado
• Orleans County, Vermont
• Hamilton County, New York
• Franklin County, Maine
Vermont’s geography, long cold winters, and mild summers mean it faces some of the lowest risks from dangerous temperatures, humidity, wildfire, and declining crop yields. Also: State and local leaders are taking action now to ensure Vermont can withstand climate change.
The Quartz story by Camille Squires is What part of the US is safest from climate change?. The ProPublica report from 2020, based on data from the Rhodium Group, is New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States.
At the end of the ProPublica story is a chart listing the most at-risk counties. It can be sorted by State and calamity. Grafton, Sullivan and Windsor counties in the Upper Valley join top-10 Orange county with lower risks.