Climate Change Is Bankrupting America’s Small Towns

A scrapbook photo left in an abandoned store in downtown Fair Bluff, N.C., five years since flooding from Hurricane Matthew devastated the small town, on June 18, 2021. Climate shocks have pushed already-struggling small rural communities like Fair Bluff to the brink of insolvency. Rather than bouncing back, many are simply unraveling. (Mike Belleme/The New York Times)