Climate change is causing extreme weather events. In addition, climate change is causing the sea level to rise.
In an article for Phys.org, anthropologist David Casagrande asks, “When people’s homes are damaged by flooding year after year and they are offered a buyout, why don’t they leave?”
“In some cases, houses on Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay have been in families for thirteen generations. They’re not going anywhere.”
Casagrande employs cognitive dissonance theory to identify the rationales that residents employ to “avoid having to make really difficult decisions”—such as leaving.
“On Smith Island, for example, many people blame the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not doing a better job of preventing erosion. There is an erosion problem, but that is not the only challenge.”