Holding Ground: Climate Change, System Collapse, and Home in New Orleans

This essay examines the meaning of home in New Orleans amid converging pressures of climate change, federal retreat from science, insurance crisis, and deepening social dislocation. Moving between personal narrative and policy analysis, it argues that the story of New Orleans is not adequately captured by the language of climate migration. Instead, the central question is one of power: who retains the ability to choose how and whether to remain, and who is forced out. Drawing on federal funding cuts to scientific institutions, the destabilization of disaster preparedness infrastructure, and escalating insurance costs following reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program, the essay traces how the erosion of public institutions and financial protections transforms staying into an increasingly precarious act. Ultimately, the essay contends that choosing to remain amid systemic unraveling is a form of devotion and resistance.