Floods, fires, scorching heat: Some retirees who’ve moved to popular retirement destinations like Florida, Texas, California and Arizona are questioning their choices.
Since Rose Pierro and her husband bought a retirement home in Oro Valley north of Tucson, Arizona, three years ago, the state has only gotten hotter and drier. A record-shattering heat wave hit Arizona this year, marking the hottest summer on record.
For older Americans, especially, climate change can take a significant toll on health. Carbon-dioxide emissions, a major contributor to climate change, can directly aggravate heart disease, lung conditions and diabetes, for example, while climate change itself increases ground-level ozone, dust from droughts and smoke from wildfires, all of which contribute to breathing problems.
Still, says Miner, the problem of growing natural disasters isn’t isolated to retirement states — it’s happening everywhere. “We’re all going to feel the impacts of climate change,” she says, “and the only way really to mitigate it is for us to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere. It’s not where, but when and how. The question is, which extreme events will you experience in your area?”
Retirees also should consider how they might be required to adapt to the local environment if they move to a popular retirement state. Someone moving to Arizona, for example, should prepare to forgo replicating the beautiful garden full of water-hungry plants they had back East. Instead, they can plan a garden filled with native plants that need less water — cactuses, succulents and the like.Lawn: gone. Fancy a fairy duster? Pierro, who also has a home in Colorado, has done just that.
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