Climate change is expected to remake where Americans choose to live in the United States. Many will settle close to their old homes. But a few β the pioneers β are looking to climate havens such as Duluth, Minn. Onlookers watch as a lake freighter passes beneath the Aerial Lift Bridge, a landmark in Duluth, Minn.
Duluth, MINN. It was followed by the Mendocino Complex Fire, which scorched , acres north and east of Sonoma. Then, finally, came the Kincade Fire, which burned 78, acres and came within a few miles of her workplace. Which is why in December β just weeks after the Kincade Fire β Welch put Sonoma County in the rearview mirror and began a seven-state, 2,mile journey to Duluth, Minn. In doing so, Welch became a climate pioneer of sorts β a traveler with the means and motivation to flee the worst impacts of global warming.
Her move to faraway northern Minnesota on the cusp of winter may seem unusual, even extreme, in Coastal Floridians will go to Orlando. Lowcountry Carolinians will go to Raleigh-Durham. Gulf of Mexico-rooted Texans are headed to Austin and Nashville.
To places such as Duluth, a former Rust Belt city platted across 80 square miles of lakefront that once belonged to the Indigenous Anishinaabe people.
While no place is immune to climate change, some cities are simply better suited for a warmer planet. Duluth is mild in summer, cold in winter. It has access to a near-infinite supply of fresh water in Lake Superior.
