When We Are with Alex Steffen

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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:

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:

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:

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.