Foresight is No Longer a Luxury
Welcome, new readers! Start here to navigate an era of discontinuity.
Welcome! We’re seeing a lot of new visitors, and I want to take a moment to outline what my work is about and how you might find some of my thinking useful.
Who Am I, and What Do I Do?
I’m Alex Steffen. I’m a writer, public speaker, and climate futurist.
For the last 30 years, I’ve been on the forefront of the planetary crisis—as an environmental journalist, the editor of Worldchanging, and an advisor to scores of institutions. Along the way, I’ve had thousands of conversations with smart people wanting to make sensible plans for unprecedented times.
A lot of what used to feel stable no longer does. Almost everything about our lives, communities, and economies was built to work well in another world, back when the climate was stable. Risks are shifting faster than our institutions can track. Now, we are experiencing a discontinuity with that past.
Past experience is now a poor guide to future decisions. And most of us are making life decisions using outdated assumptions, for futures we only partially understand.
Foresight is no longer a luxury, but a life skill. This newsletter exists to help you.
Where to Start With These Ideas.
Where should you start? If you want to understand how to turn profound uncertainty into an actionable life strategy, here are five foundational pieces:
Hurricane Helene’s Message for Us About Our Future (The big picture.)
Climate Chaos is Already Making Us Poorer. We’re Just Pretending It’s Not. (The problems are urgent, and already impacting your life.)
Relative Safety in the Planetary Crisis (How to avoid disaster.)
The Relocation Bottleneck and You (Why time is short.)
“It Will Change the Way You Think About Planning for Your Future.” (How a climate strategy prepares you for success.)
You don’t need to read everything. Just check out what looks useful. If something here resonates, stick around.
What Are the Next Steps?
Subscribe to this Newsletter: If you haven’t already, make sure you are subscribed. Free subscribers get letters about navigating discontinuity and access to the When We Are podcast.
Build Your Strategy: If you want to make clear, practical plans, I teach workshops and intensive courses on precisely this. You can find them over at my course hub. The next Personal Climate Strategy Workshop runs April 14th - May 14th, 2026. If you’re ready to start building a robust, holistic approach to living the life you want in a time of accelerating upheaval, this is for you. (Early-bird pricing available through March 31st!)
Media? Speaking requests?
For these inquiries, please email alison@alexsteffen.com