Earlier this evening when I got home, I found that my daughter was playing outside. I realized that I hadn’t gotten any exercise or time in the sun (let alone time with my daughter), so I did what most parents would do – I put on shorts, a short-sleeve shirt, and went out to play with her.
See anything wrong with this picture? I’ll give you a hint: we’re in the middle of January.
I’ve been in Greenville for a while, but I’ve never experienced anything like this. We had a cold stretch of about two weeks, and otherwise, our weather since November has been, well, spring-like. And if we go back to the end of September, which is always fall weather, I went on a hike and found myself swimming in an extremely warm Lake Jocassee – something in the past I wouldn’t have even considered doing after July.
Now, before we get too far into the weeds of discussing climate science and global warming, it’s worth mentioning that this mild fall and winter could be a totally random fluctuation towards unexpected warmth. Climate scientists have warned us for years that we can’t put too much stock in a single season or a single region’s weather. This makes sense because climate science looks at meta-trends over the course of decades/centuries/millennia, and there are lots of fluctuations that can happen in any single year (or season). So we shouldn’t necessarily assume that this is the new norm for Upstate winters.
But at the same time, global warming on a meta-level is undeniable. Nobody respectable in the scientific or even political communities doubts that the earth is warming. Where the doubts come are on what causes the warming in the first place. Are we experiencing a cyclical warming that would happen no matter what we did or is it a human-caused warming that could be prevented if we actually cared about the environment? Those are really the main questions that scientists and politicians keep asking.
But I’m not here to answer (or debate) those questions since this blog is about Greenville and real estate. On the flip side, since we know that the earth is warming (at least for now), I’m more concerned about what global warming might mean for South Carolina. It’s a worthwhile question to ask, and it impacts a lot of things, particularly real estate.
And here is the conclusion I’ve come to – if the earth warms a few degrees over the next few decades (the most likely scenario if we are unable to stop the warming), it would make SC a very desirable place to live, potentially for several generations. (Note: I’m not saying that global warming is a good thing for the environment or for the world at large. I’m only speaking in terms of the relatively short-term, economic impacts on SC, which I flesh out below.)
What do I mean? Simple – let’s think about it this way. Did it bother me that when I came home, I had to put on shorts and a t-shirt to play with my daughter outside? “Did it bother me??” Heck no – it was awesome! I wish every January were like that!
But what if every January was like that. Now we have something interesting. Suddenly, people can visit or move to SC to get the same seasonal benefits that they have been getting in South Florida. And if South Florida is increasing in temperature as well (as the climate change model suggests it will), it’s not unreasonable to think it could get too hot for some, and SC could become a more desirable destination, both for value and for climate.
South Carolina is already the third most popular state for retirees. My parents are some of those retirees, and they will tell you that the weather played a big part of them relocating here from NJ. How do you think they feel about being able to walk on the beach without a jacket in January. Hint: they think it’s awesome. Just imagine if that were all year round. Now we’re not just talking about retirees; we’re also talking about vacationers and the party crowd. The impact on the SC economy could be huge.
I know this all likely sounds strange. It sounds like I’m celebrating something that is really bad, but that’s not at all what I’m trying to do. The reality is that if the climate scientists are correct, there would be more than enough bad to result from global warming to outweigh any short-term economic benefit we here in SC would receive from it. So I don’t selfishly cheer on climate change to get something out of it. But the truth of the matter is that climate change is poised to impact real estate, and from that standpoint alone, I see a silver lining for the state of SC, at least during my lifetime.