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Colleagues have been asking me how I see and think about the intensification of AI concerns, and the growing sense that we are now in a period of crisis. In light of recent revelations — that folks in the relevant industries believe they are triggering existential risks to humanity, releasing products that can cause enormous harm to many millions of people in their normal use, and wargaming out how, as companies, how to survive with maximum value intact in the event of an AI disaster — how does a working futurist make sense of the world we live in now? Here’s one hypothesis: The AI crisis is similar in nature to the climate crisis. Both crises — climate and AI — are so dangerous because they are so unprecedented. They both involve hidden rapid escalations of risk, political attempts to deny (and stall action to mitigate) those risks, and sudden recognition of deepening discontinuities. It might be going too far to call AI digital coal, but the parallels are strong. Where the parallel breaks is that at least some people working in and around AI seem to have commercial interests, even identity needs, that lead them to expound on worst-case AI future scenarios as an effort to magnify the value of their expertise or ownership. There the parallel breaks down: imagine Exxon in 1972 boasting that its oil was gonna melt the f**k out of the ice caps, and oil men were the masters of human destiny. But, to the extent that the AI-as-climate-chaos analogy holds, climate foresight and strategies offer some of the best windows into thinking about what this unasked-for exponential infiltration of machine intelligence into our lives might mean. And how we ruggedize for the fallout. This show is loosely part of my podcast series on thinking about personal strategies for meeting the climate crisis. (Missed the first show in the series? You can listen here.) This podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please subscribe, rate and review! PS: You can learn how to plan more sensibly and successfully for your family’s life in planetary discontinuity. The New York Times recently featured my Personal Climate Strategy Workshop. You can learn more about my other offerings at my climate courses site. The next Workshop will be offered in November 2026. You can also read a previous participant’s account of what it’s like to take the course in Alex Steffen’s Personal Climate Strategy Workshop: A Review. - Need expert guidance for your own climate planning or business strategy? Schedule a private Climate Strategy Consultation. - Let’s connect on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Facebook or Substack Notes. - This newsletter and podcast are completely independent and ad-free, made possible by support from our readers. Please consider subscribing. Thank you. - Finally, if you’re already a subscriber and would like to support this work, please consider giving a gift subscription to a family member, friend or colleague. 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

Move. Move yourself out of the path of destruction. Relocation is one of the foundational responses to the climate crisis. If you’re one of the many millions living in communities facing escalating physical risks and deepening economic brittleness, not being there when things get really bad may be the smartest strategy you can have. It’s also, in some ways, a strategy with a deadline. See, to move away from a place with a collapsing future, you have to have somewhere to move to, and unfortunately you’re not the only one who sees what’s happening. All around the world, there are more people who need to relocate than there are places for them to go. Demand increasingly exceeds supply. Prices are already beginning to rise. And the biggest wave of awareness is just beginning to swell. The result is a climate relocation bottleneck. This podcast — part seven in my series on how to think about planning for climate chaos in our own lives — explains what this climate squeeze is and why delaying a needed move for too long might cost you. (Did you miss the start of the series? You can listen here.) If you find this discussion valuable, please share. If you’d like more new thinking about crisis foresight, sustainability solutions, systems thinking and personal climate strategies, please subscribe. Finally, if you’re already a subscriber and would like to support this work, please consider giving a gift subscription to a family member, friend or colleague. Thanks so much! 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

Growing climate and ecological discontinuity is now colliding with inaction and inertia from governments and major institutions. It is clear that different places and communities will have widely varying outcomes as the crisis worsens. We are forced to become students of the systems we depend on, looking to assess not only the risks we face but also the extent to which those systems will respond or collapse where we live. For some, the prospects are reasonably bright: ruggedized systems and sustained prosperity. Others face the retreat of systems from zones of unofficial abandonment and a spiraling loss of options. No one strategy will work for everyone. Here I offer a basic rubric for trying to figure out what kind of strategic relationship to systems might work for you, based on your resources, your skills, your risk tolerance, your time horizon, and your trust in your local governance and systems. The ultimate goal is getting a sense of what “the right home, in the right place, in the right systems with the right timing” means for your family and friends. If you find this discussion valuable, please share. If you want to get more thinking about crisis foresight, sustainability solutions, systems thinking and personal climate strategies, please subscribe. Finally, if you’re already a subscriber and would like to support this work, please consider giving a gift subscription to a family member, friend or colleague. Thanks so much! See you next time, when we discuss the rapid evolution of the Climate Relocation Bottleneck. 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

The gap between what we need to do to ruggedize for the climate chaos now unfolding and what we are doing is so large that whole regions, whole communities and many families will find themselves falling into brittleness. Over the next couple of weeks, we’re giving a short tour of the key questions in personal climate ruggedization. What are the major risks and how do we understand them? What does it mean to live in a time with no new normal? What are the fundamental steps we can take to survive, thrive and prosper in the midst of a planetary crisis? Today, I answer the question, “Why do I need my own climate strategy?” (Did you miss the start of the series? You can listen here.) This newsletter and podcast are completely independent and ad-free, made possible by support from our readers. Please consider subscribing. Thank you. PPS: - You can learn how to plan more sensibly and successfully for your family’s life in planetary discontinuity. The New York Times recently featured my Personal Climate Strategy Workshop. You can learn more about my other offerings at my climate courses site. The next Workshop will be offered in November 2026. You can also read more about what’s it’s like to take the course from a previous participant, in Alex Steffen’s Personal Climate Strategy Workshop: A Review. - My podcast, When We Are, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please subscribe, rate and review! - Need expert guidance for your own climate planning or business strategy? Schedule a private Climate Strategy Consultation. - Let’s connect on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Facebook or Substack Notes 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

Today we explore discontinuity risk. Not only do we face climate chaos from within brittle systems, but the sheer scale and scope of changes around us make it harder to know if we’re making valid decisions. Formally sound choices are transformed into new liabilities. Over the next couple of weeks, I’m leading a short tour of the key questions in personal climate ruggedization. What are the major risks and how do we understand them? What does it mean to live in a time with no new normal? What are the fundamental steps we can take to survive, thrive and prosper in the midst of a planetary crisis? Today, I explore the question, “How do I make good decisions when everything’s changing so fast?” (Did you miss the start of the series? You can listen here.) Want to learn more? My Personal Climate Strategy Workshop will arm you with a framework for making better decisions in a future defined by discontinuity. In this eight-class workshop, you’ll learn the patterns underneath changing systems, practical steps for improving your access to relevant information, and prepare your own strategic approach to guide you successfully through ongoing uncertainty. You’ll get the tools you need to anchor the life you’ve built — your career, your family, your goals — on ground that will stay solid during the storms ahead. The next Workshop begins next Monday, September 21, 2026! Registration closes this coming Friday, September 18, or when enrollment reaches 25 participants. (There are seven specially priced Access Rate seats left — save $700!) Learn more and save your seat. 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

Climate chaos is here. What’s the plan? Over the next couple weeks, we’re giving a short tour of the key questions in personal climate ruggedization. What are the major risks and how do we understand them? What does it mean to live in a time with no new normal? What are the fundamental steps we can take to survive, thrive and prosper in the midst of a planetary crisis? Today, I explore the question, “Will my community be able to bounce back as climate impacts worsen?” (Did you miss the start of the series? You can listen here.) Are you ready to take action? My Personal Climate Strategy Workshop will show you how. In this eight-class workshop, you’ll learn a framework for making smart, practical decisions in a time of worsening crisis and deep uncertainty. The next Workshop begins next Monday, September 21, 2026! Registration closes this coming Friday, September 18, or when enrollment reaches 25 participants. (There are eight specially priced Access Rate seats left.) Learn more and save your seat: When We Are is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please subscribe, rate and review! This series is public and free, not paywalled. Please share it with others. 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

How do we ready ourselves for climate chaos? Over the next couple weeks, we’re giving you a short tour in climate preparation: Climate foresight. Discontinuity. What it means to live during unprecedented changes. How to understand the new risks we now face. Why the economic brittleness brought on by climate chaos is the greatest danger most of us face. Avoiding getting trapped in places with shrinking futures. Relocation, repositioning and ruggedization. The intensifying competition for relatively safe places and stable situations. Why some opportunities will actually increase in the coming decades. How to stay healthy and resilient when working to ready yourself for unprecedented times. Today, I answer one of the questions people often ask me: “What should I be worried about?” (Missed the first show in the series? You can listen here.) When We Are is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please subscribe, rate and review! This series is public and free, not paywalled. Please share it with others. Ready to stop worrying and start strategizing? My Personal Climate Strategy Workshop is for you. In three weeks, you’ll learn the tools you need to survive, thrive and create a good life in the midst of climate chaos. The next Workshop begins Monday, September 21, 2026. Registration is open; space is limited to 25 participants. Learn more and save your seat: 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 friends, This is the first episode in a new series we’re doing on the fundamentals of designing a personal climate strategy. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll discuss the basics: Climate foresight. Discontinuity. What it means to live during unprecedented changes. How to understand the new risks we now face. Why the economic brittleness brought on by climate chaos is the greatest danger most of us face. Avoiding getting trapped in places with shrinking futures. Relocation, repositioning and ruggedization. The intensifying competition for relatively safe places and stable situations. Why some opportunities will actually increase in the coming decades. How to stay healthy and resilient when working to ready yourself for unprecedented times. Today, I answer one of the questions people ask me the most: “Do I need my own strategy for living in climate chaos?” When We Are is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please subscribe, rate and review! This series is free and public. Please share it with anyone you know who’s trying to get ready for the climate crisis. Ready to turn theory into action? My Personal Climate Strategy Workshop is unlike anything else out there. In three weeks, you’ll learn the tools you need to survive, thrive and create a good life in the midst of climate chaos. The next Workshop begins Monday, September 21, 2026. Registration is open; space is limited to 25 participants. Learn more and save your seat: 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

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, Alex I 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. Alex PS: 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. and The 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. Alex PS: 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. —Alex PS: 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… Alex If 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-class Want 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