Do you know how much climate chaos is costing you, now?This episode of When We Are is a quick exploration of how much loss is both a) already being incurred, and b) largely being ignored (or even being actively denied).We can’t avoid future loss completely, but turning our attention to the ways we now face riskier, more brittle and less prosperous futures can help us make better decisions as climate chaos worsens.If you’re interested in the topic, I’ve included some additional reading below.Thanks for listening,AlexI wrote about the active denial of present risk in this newsletter:I wrote about the ways climate chaos is already undermining our economic prosperity in this essay:I also wrote about the myriad ways in which the erosive effects of climate shifts — individually almost too slow or small to notice, but dire in aggregate — can wreak havoc on the systems we depend on for our prosperity:PS: As always, if you get some value from these discussions, please take a minute to rate the show. In Apple podcasts, go to the podcast’s main show page and scroll down to “Ratings & Reviews,” then click the star ratings. This really helps more people find the show. Thanks!PPS: If you find these newsletters helpful or interesting, please help spread the word: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

Find out more about my Personal Climate Strategy Workshop here.We live in a planetary crisis that is at its very core intergenerationally unjust. The vast majority of the benefits of predatory delay and extractive prosperity have gone to (and been consumed by) the oldest people in out society, while their unprecedented costs will land most heavily on the youngest.But what if being young and bold can actually become an advantage at this moment? The reaction to my podcast Crisis Advice for Young People was very positive, but folks wanted to hear more about what younger people might actually do to improve their odds.This podcast is my attempt to suggest one way younger people may be able to leverage the freedoms of being young into a better position in the rough times ahead: by moving faster than other can.As the man says, “Quick’s the word and sharp’s the action.”If you find it useful, please pass it along.AlexPS: The next Personal Climate Strategy: The Basics class is right around the corner, on Thursday, March 19th at 12pm PST // 8pm GMT! Get an introduction to a proven system for building a rugged decision-making framework, ready for times of increasing stress and disruption. Considering relocation? Planning for kids? Thinking about a new career? Mapping out the future of your business? This class can set you up to make better choices.Sign up by March 10th and save $100!PPS: As always, if you get some value from these discussions, please take a minute to rate the show. In Apple podcasts, go to the podcast’s main show page and scroll down to “Ratings & Reviews,” then click the star ratings. This really helps more people find the show. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

Reminder: The early-bird for the next live Personal Climate Strategy: The Basics ends on Tuesday, March 10! Sign up now for $97 (save $100). Class meets Thursday, March 19th at 12pm Pacific. I think of it as “The Myth of the Starting Gun and the Flat Track Fallacy.”There are two parts here:The Starting Gun: the idea that climate action and response will have a definable moment of acceleration, where delay drops away and rapid progress begins.andThe Flat Track: the notion that when that moment of acceleration comes, our task will be deploying the kinds of policies, technologies and culture changes that advocates have been demanding for decades — that future action looks more or less like what we’ve been working towards, just arriving a little later than we hoped.I think both parts are wrong. No moment of political transformation is coming, only the acceleration of capacities with unevenly distributed and partial successes. And as action does increase, we will increasingly find that our past plans simply no longer match the scale of discontinuity in front of us. No Orderly Transition is coming, and the broader climate debate is unprepared for what’s coming now.I explore this idea in this episode of When We Are.AlexPS: The ninth Personal Climate Strategy: The Basics class is coming up on Thursday, March 19th at 12pm PST // 8pm GMT! Get an introduction to a proven system for building a rugged decision-making framework, ready for times of increasing stress and disruption. Considering relocation? Planning for your kids or grandkids? Mapping out the future of your business? This might be for you.Sign up by March 10th and save $100!PPS: As always, if you get some value from these discussions, please take a minute to rate the show. In Apple podcasts, go to the podcast’s main show page and scroll down to “Ratings & Reviews,” then click the star ratings. This really helps more people find the show.PPPS: If you find these newsletters helpful, please spread the word:Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

Millions of us are disoriented.In this podcast, I explore what foresight tells us about disorientation.We’ve all been raised, educated and trained to understand the world around us. Much of that understanding, though, is tethered to notions about the shape and behavior of systems. Many of those notions, in turn, we absorb in a variety of informal ways that are lived, social or cultural — what we often think of as common sense.In times of essential continuity, common sense plus a decent education is a powerful mix.In discontinuous moments, though, they break down. I’ve written before about how hard we have to work these days to update our education and training to maintain a sort of evergreen expertise:Recently, though, I’ve had the chance to think a bit more about the emotional impacts of losing our sense of future direction.We orient ourselves amidst change by looking for familiar landmarks, comfortable analogies between the new and the known, parallels that allow us to apply common sense to uncommon situations.When we face a moderate tempo of change, this reference to the ordinary works — and comforts us.But when we face rapid upheavals, it breaks down.We find ourselves facing personal discontinuity, since if the world is suddenly different than we thought it was, our lives are different than the ones we thought we were living. We experience horizon collapse, as our experience and common sense no longer offer us a way of anticipating what comes next. We may even confront despair, as the world around us becomes so unfamiliar it just feels wrong.That’s when it really helps to remember that we should feel this way, at least initially.The planetary discontinuity we’re in is unprecedented. We’re not supposed to instantly adapt to that. We have to undertake a process of becoming at home in the present.—AlexPS: The ninth Personal Climate Strategy: The Basics class is coming up on Thursday, March 19th at 12pm PST // 8pm GMT! Get an introduction to a proven system for building a rugged decision-making framework, ready for times of increasing stress and disruption. Considering relocation? Planning for your kids or grandkids? Mapping out the future of your business? This might be for you.Sign up by March 10th and save $100!PPS: If you find these newsletters and podcasts helpful, please let others know: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of When We Are, I talk about those insisting that you can’t possibly choose a safer place to weather the climate crisis, because every place is endangered.I discuss why this claim is obviously wrong (some places are, in fact, relatively safe), and also who benefits from making it.Like every part of the climate crisis, our understanding of risk and ruggedization are undermined by predatory delay and denialism. Paradoxically, the repeated message that nowhere is safe makes it easier to convince us to ignore the dangers around us. Why pay attention to risk if there’s nothing we can do about it, right?I hope you’ll give this short episode a listen.You might also want to check out these recent letters:Why are those with risk-exposed assets fighting so hard to avoid a reckoning with climate risk? Because the Brittleness Bubble is deflating, fast.- Interested in creating your a climate strategy for your own life? My next live, eight-class Personal Climate Strategy Workshop begins on February 12th! Get early access to the Early-Bird discount when you enter your email at the bottom of this page (we'll send you the details ASAP).- Need expert guidance around your own climate planning, or want to discuss a business idea? Schedule a private Climate Strategy Consultation with me.- Let’s connect on Bluesky, LinkedIn or Facebook- Check out my books: Worldchanging (which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary) and Carbon Zero- View my TED Global talks on sustainability and cities.- This podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please subscribe, rate and review! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

You’re probably less doomed than you think.If you spend much time trying to figure out how to ready yourself for this accelerating climate crisis, you will likely encounter the idea that there’s nothing you can do. Game over, man.You don’t have to look very far to find people ringing in the apocalypse and inviting you to lie back and greet the collapse. Writing and teaching about climate foresight, solutions-based thinking and personal climate strategies over the years, I’ve had hundreds of people (almost all dudes) go out of their way to tell me how there’s no hope, nothing to be done, our ruin is upon us and I’m an idiot to suggest otherwise.I, alas, tend to base my foresight on facts, and here’s the fact: this is not the end of everything. We have already likely avoided the worst-case scenarios, even if we have locked in a magnitude of crisis many of us worked hard to prevent. It is not too late to limit global heating and ecological collapse, and even the harsh future we’re tumbling towards is still a future full of choices.A lot of people face grim options in battered and brittle communities, sure, but almost everyone still has options. Most listeners to podcasts like mine — educated, informed, and better-resourced than many — have an array of opportunities to make workable plans, seek relatively safety, ruggedize our lives and work with others to ready our communities for what’s coming. Most of us are far from powerless. A lot of us may in fact find that meeting the planetary crisis liberates us to live lives of greater purpose, connection and secure prosperity than the lives we live today.We may not yet personally know how to start building those lives, but that’s a different problem.Give it a listen…AlexIf you want to learn more about your own options for the future, my Personal Climate Strategy: The Basics class is a great place to start. The last class of 2025 will be held tomorrow Tuesday, December 16th, from 12pm - 2pm PST via Zoom (yes, it will be recorded!). Registration closes tomorrow, December 16th, at 11:00am PST.This is your chance to learn the foundational components and frameworks for understanding planetary discontinuity: How it impacts your choices and key decision timelines, and how to make better informed choices about your present and future. Almost 500 people have taken this short intensive (from all around the planet), and we have a great group forming for this class.Registrants also get special discounts and early access to my in-depth Personal Climate Strategy Workshop (next one coming in late-January)Step into 2026 feeling more ready and confident. Get all the class details and sign up here: https://alexsteffen.thinkific.com/products/courses/personal-climate-strategy-classWant to know what others think? For a review of my basics class, check out “How to Prepare Yourself For an Uncertain Future - The Review.” For a review of my workshop, read “Alex Steffen’s Personal Climate Strategy Workshop: A Review.“ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

Soft denialism is climate denialism that denies not the reality of climate change, but rather its importance.In this podcast, I touch on the TrumpII-era resurgence of soft denialism, Bill Gates’ misguided climate memo, and the Atlantic’s claim that “climate adaptation is indistinguishable from efforts to improve human welfare.”Along the way, I explain why failing to understand the climate crisis as a discontinuity in human affairs means failing to understand it at all.The recently-published 2025 State of the Climate Report: a planet on the brink can be found here. A news item that came across my desk after I recorded this, but that reinforces my point: Iceland deems possible Atlantic current collapse a security risk.“Iceland has designated the potential collapse of a major Atlantic Ocean current system a national security concern and an existential threat, enabling its government to strategize for worst-case scenarios, the country’s climate minister told Reuters.The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, current brings warm water from the tropics northward toward the Arctic, and the flow of warm water helps keep Europe’s winters mild.But as warming temperatures speed the thaw of Arctic ice and cause meltwater from Greenland’s ice sheet to pour into the ocean, scientists warn the cold freshwater could disrupt the current’s flow. … Other climate ministries and meteorological offices across Northern Europe told Reuters they are funding more research while weighing possible risks in their climate adaptation plans. Ireland’s weather service said its scientists briefed the country’s prime minister last year and a parliamentary committee last month. Norway’s environment ministry said it was “seeking to deepen our understanding of the issue through new research” before determining whether to classify AMOC as a security risk.”Remember, we are only at the beginning.This podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. If you like what you’re hearing, please take a minute to rate the show. In Apple podcasts, go to the podcast’s main show page and scroll down to “Ratings & Reviews,” then click the star ratings. This really helps more people find the show. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

In my last podcast, I laid out why our horizons of concern are so important.In particular, I talked about how having kids (or grandkids or nieces and nephews, or chosen family, or whatever) makes us care about events that many still consider far off in the future… but that will be within their lifetimes.Having a longer decision horizon means planning for a wildly different world, and doing our best to set these young people up for success.But what if you are the young person? What if you’re just getting a start in life? How can you find a path that will lead you into a better life, even in this harder future?I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer, unfortunately. There’s no formula that spits out the optimal personal climate plan.What this podcast does offer is a short list of insights that might help you answer these questions for yourself.If you want to delve more deeply into the ideas I discuss, you might find these links helpful:No one wants it to be true.Discontinuity is the Job.Old thinking will break your brain.The biggest error of my working life (so far).Letting Go of Everything We ExpectedPlease feel free to share this one with anyone in your life who you think might benefit.Alex- The Guardian covered my work recently, in a piece titled, “‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday.”- Find me on Bluesky.- I’ve spoken with the media hundreds of times. I was featured in a NY Times Magazine piece, "This Isn't the California I Married." My writing was the jumping-off point for an episode of This American Life titled Unprepared for What Has Already Happened, as well as the podcasts Without; The Big Story; Everybody In the Pool and 99% Invisible’s Not Built for This series.This podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. If you like what you’re hearing, please take a minute to rate the show. In Apple podcasts, go to the podcast’s main show page and scroll down to “Ratings & Reviews,” then click the star ratings. This really helps more people find the show. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

In this podcast, I talk about our horizons of concern. I discuss what it means to love kids who will experience the full blast of the climate crisis, decades from now.When facing threats that are fast-moving and increasingly chaotic, it’s natural to want a simple answer. The more threat and confusion we feel, the simpler the answer we’re likely to seek. Someone is always prepared to provide those simple answers, for profit or political advantage. We see this in the field of climate foresight, where a wide range of ratings and scores and lists and trainings and survival products are newly available for purchase. Looking for a way to calm your climate anxiety with a soothing bath salt, bug out to a supposed climate haven or build a bunker to save yourself from societal breakdown? Two minutes of Googling and a valid credit card will find you someone willing to tell you what you want to hear.But in real life, here in the planetary crisis, there are no simple, one-size-fits-all answers. Which is okay, because we don’t need simple answers. What we need is an increased capacity for making good decisions in unprecedented situations.The discontinuities unfolding around us will not be “solved” in our lifetimes—or for generations to come. We won’t be returning to past stabilities, and there is no new stability we can now hope for if we just cut carbon fast enough.Instead we need to understand personal climate strategies as evolving tools. We should make critical decisions before we lose the option to make them, but also be aware that there are no permanent solutions in an era of ongoing large-scale transformations. We’re planning with imperfect information, and each person or family has different needs and constraints.One way in which our needs differ profoundly is our timelines.If you’re retired and single, without kids, accepting the short-term odds on increasingly probable catastrophes might be a valid choice. Short planning horizons let us discount future risks.Taking those same chances becomes reckless, though, when we consider the prospects for our kids or the young people we care about in general. Our horizon of concern dictates that we ready ourselves for a world beset by chaos and calamity, in part so we can help our kids be ready in turn.Our popular debate still treats 2050 as far ahead, and 2100 as another world. Yet babies born today in wealthy countries are statistically likely to live to see the year 2100.And 2100 will be a tough time.Paradoxically, the farther ahead we’re thinking, the more important making today’s big decisions in foresighted ways becomes.Adaptability is key, but so is getting to relative safety while it’s still affordable. So is updating our worldviews and skillsets. So is investing attentively. So is strengthening our ability to be see this new era for what it is. And so, as well, is growing purpose-driven conversations about the future we face with people we care for.How far ahead does your horizon of concern stretch?AlexPS: Articles I cite in the podcast:Global emergence of unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes“Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 52% of people born in 2020 will experience unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves. If global warming reaches 3.5 °C by 2100, this fraction rises to 92% for heatwaves, 29% for crop failures and 14% for river floods.”[Unprecedented: "extremes above the 99.99th percentile of exposure expected in a pre-industrial climate."] 1-in-10,000 year occurrences.Warming of +1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets“[C]urrent rates of SLR could increase rapidly with only small changes in temperature. Identifying temperature thresholds for each ice sheet is, therefore, critically important, with recent work suggesting best estimates for the GrIS and WAIS at +1.5 °C“[D]espite recent advances, few ice sheet models accurately reproduce the rapid mass loss from ice sheets over the last few decades, suggesting uncertainties may be larger than assumed, even for low emissions scenarios. Indeed, while models are effective in exploring parametric uncertainty, they are less well suited for capturing epistemic uncertainties. This point is highlighted by an analysis of expert judgement94, which found much higher uncertainties associated with ice sheet contributions to sea level, e.g. a GMSL rise >2 m by 2100 fell within the 90th percentile credible range for a high emissions scenario…”The Guardian covered my work recently, in a piece titled, “‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday.”- Find me on Bluesky.- Check out my books: Worldchanging and Carbon Zero- View my TED Global talks on sustainability and cities.- I’ve spoken with the media hundreds of times. I was featured in a NY Times Magazine piece, "This Isn't the California I Married." My writing was the jumping-off point for an episode of This American Life titled Unprepared for What Has Already Happened, as well as the podcasts Without; The Big Story; Everybody In the Pool and 99% Invisible’s Not Built for This series.This podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please rate, review, follow and share these episodes (it helps more people find the show). Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

Hey folks,This is a bit of a longer podcast, where I unpack some of the uncomfortable realities of this present moment in the planetary crisis — and why we need a new approach to solutions thinking and chosen optimism.Some of the ideas discussed: * How I’ve been reluctant to engage the more conflict-generating parts of climate foresight in public, but am done being circumspect.* The violent reaction to knowledge, expertise and authority being recontextualized by discontinuity.* Moving from a time of climate action as solution to climate action as harm reduction.* The staggering scale of needed climate responses, and their steepening nature.* The impossibility of saving many communities from grim futures, even if we mount a currently-implausible set of national and international ruggedization and mass-relocation efforts.* The necessity of responding as effectively as we can, despite the certainty that much will be lost, in unfair ways, and millions face some pretty tough futures.* The need to envision and articulate futures of relative safety, partial stability and limited inequity — and to embrace building rapidly and at scale to secure those futures.* The default future of brittle places: brittleness traps, unofficial abandonment, transapocalyptic local collapses.* How anti-climate right being far more aggressive and focused on destroying our capacities to respond than largely liberal climate advocates have been in trying to build them up.* Trump’s attacks on climate diplomacy, environmental law, climate planning, clean energy, disaster preparedness and response, risk management, even basic science itself.* The billionaire predators and their allies who foresee luxury survival compounds for themselves — and walls, debt and profitable exploitation for everyone else. People who look at the breaking of the future as their chance to try to cement their hold on dynastic wealth and unchallengeable power.* The need for building rugged sustainability into the fabric of communities in relatively safe places, both for its own sake and as a counter-balance to reactionary disaster exploitation. Successful climate response demands a giant building boom.* The less we build, the tighter the climate-relocation bottleneck will get.* Why personal climate strategies are no longer luxuries, and time is short.As always, thank you for tuning in.AlexThe Guardian covered my work recently, in a piece titled, “‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday.”- Find me on Bluesky.- Check out my books: Worldchanging and Carbon Zero- View my TED Global talks on sustainability and cities.- I’ve spoken with the media hundreds of times. I was featured in a NY Times Magazine piece, "This Isn't the California I Married." My writing was the jumping-off point for an episode of This American Life titled Unprepared for What Has Already Happened, as well as the podcasts Without; The Big Story; Everybody In the Pool and 99% Invisible’s Not Built for This series.This podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please rate, review, follow and share these episodes (it helps more people find the show). Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe