Avsnitt
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My intensive Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization begins next week.
Five, two-hour classes held via Zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays (March 11th, 13th, 18th, 20th and 25th). A 90 minute wrap-up Q&A discussion on Thursday, March 27th. Class Times: 11:00am Pacific Standard Time (PST)
Ready to sign up? Click the button below.
Or click this link https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule/21f79c52/?appointmentTypeIds[]=73970428
Friends,
If you feel your compass spinning these days, you are definitely not alone.
The sheer speed of planetary change and the chaos unfolding in our politics, economy and international affairs feels wildly disorienting, even before we add this surge of disinformation, climate denial, criminality and predatory delay.
If it was hard plotting a course through the major discontinuities of climate and ecological chaos before, it can now feel completely bewildering.
But it’s never been more urgent to have your own plan, and not wait for someone official to tell you what to do.
That’s because, as I’ve said,
Collective climate action is no longer a substitute for individual climate readiness.
The crisis is here, and no society is ready. No matter what we all do together to limit the crisis, we’re each personally going to have to prepare ourselves for life in a hotter, more chaotic world.
As climate adaptation researcher Jesse Keenan sums it up, “You’re on your own.”
No one is coming to save you and your family from the escalating dangers and disruptions around you.
Even in the most-fortunate, best-governed and wealthiest communities on Earth, your family’s security and prosperity still depend on you taking responsibility for your own future.
You need a strategy for ruggedizing your life.
The mayhem we’re seeing in Washington DC and around the world only makes embracing that responsibility yourself more urgent.
These are not easy decisions to make on your own.
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So many people are facing tough decisions on a tight timeline right now.
Does this sound familiar? You might be...
* Growing more alarmed about the climate and ecological dangers around you
* Relocating due to recent fires or flooding (or other climate-related impacts) and needing to quickly choose a new place to live.
* Weighing if you should sell your home, and how soon.
* Considering the ramifications of rebuilding in a climate-impacted location.
* Feeling unsure about how to assess the pros/cons of a potential property or getting lost in risk maps and climate ratings.
* Wishing you had a coherent, expert framework for assessing relative safety when considering a move, whether you're moving across town or to a different country.
* Helping others navigate these kinds of complex choices, as a real estate agent, investment advisor, consultant, therapist, teacher or coach, and wanting to better serve them.
* Wanting to learn in a group of thoughtful people who take these issues as seriously as you do.
In this crisis, speed is everything.
The planetary crisis is worsening fast, climate costs are rising, and competition for homes in relatively safe communities is increasing.
Well, my six-session A Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization works fast. It delivers concentrated insights, real-world examples, select readings, and discussions to give participants a strong foundation for making clear-headed choices in discontinuous times.
I don’t give simple answers to what are deeply complex problems, but I do equip you to make better decisions.
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The next Crash Course starts a week from today.
Five, two-hour classes held on Tuesdays and Thursdays (March 11th, 13th, 18th, 20th and 25th). A 90 minute wrap-up discussion on Thursday, March 27th. Class Times: 11:00am Pacific Standard Time (PST) (Classes will be recorded, and recordings will be sent following each class.
The deadline is midnight, this Sunday, March 9th. click this link to sign up:
https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule/21f79c52/?appointmentTypeIds[]=73970428
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In this crash course, we’ll cover five main topics:
MAKING SENSE OF A COMPLEX CRISISClimate chaos means the world no longer works the way it used to, and things are getting stranger by the day. How do we understand this crisis? How it is discontinuous with the expectations we were raised to have? How bad could it get? What are we preparing for?
SCOUTING FOR RELATIVE SAFETYPlace is the prime pivot point of all climate strategy. How do we judge regions and assess their risks? What are the major risks to look out for, and how do we measure them for any given region? What is relative safety, and where can we find it? Should we move across the world, or across town — or dig in where we are?
FINDING (OR BUILDING) COMMUNITIES THAT WORK IN TURBULENT TIMESIn any given area, some communities will respond in ways that help their citizens thrive, and some will fail. What is climate brittleness and why is it so dangerous to our prospects? How do we evaluate cities and local efforts? What are some of the indicators of places that are being built and governed to be more rugged in the face of climate chaos? How do we buffer against political upheaval?
MAKING A HOME THAT CAN WEATHER THE STORMHow do we pick a specific place to build our future? What should we look for in a home, a neighborhood and a community? What are the costs and benefits of urban, suburban and exurban lives? How do we move quickly enough to outpace the coming climate-driven housing bottleneck? What are the opportunities and perils of relocation in politically turbulent times? Why might the best-sited and best-run places see boom times in the coming decades?
CLIMATE-PROOFING OUR LIVES AND FAMILIESHow do we start building a rugged life, in all parts of life? What’s most important to us as people as we build our personal climate strategy? How do we align our family and household, career and investments, citizenship and ethics to new realities? How might we talk with our family, friends, neighbors and colleagues to include them in our planning? How do we make this crisis into an opportunity for deeper connection and purpose?
By the end of March, it is our goal to help you feel more confident in:
* Making clear decisions in the face of unprecedented planetary discontinuities;
* Assessing climate risks and trends (present and future);
* Planning your family's climate strategy (where to live, how to ruggedize your life, and how to bring climate foresight into the wide range of decisions this crisis is influencing);
* Feeling more grounded, more at home in the present and ready for the future.
It’s getting pretty damn real out there, folks, but 2025 can be the year you make yourself ready for what’s on its way.
In the last five years, I’ve taught more than a dozen courses, with more than 400 participants, and had hundreds of other one-on-one conversations with folks about their plans for responding to climate discontinuity in their own lives. I’ve built a course that reflects everything I’ve learned in the process.
Questions? Here are some of the ones we get asked the most:
1) Is this course designed for people outside of the U.S., too?
Yes! While most of the examples and maps are from a U.S. context, I have traveled extensively for years, and can toggle contexts easily. The most important insights are universal.
2) What if I'm most interested in ruggedizing my business? Will this course help?
To make smarter personal choices in the face of the climate crisis, we learn to see (and anticipate changes in) the interconnected systems around us. Those same insights can also help us make better decisions in business and investing.
3) I can't make all the classes, are they recorded?
Every call is recorded and shared with the participants. Live attendance is not mandatory (though it is encouraged).
4) Will this course detail specific places that are safer to live?
Much of this class is about choosing safer places to relocate to. I don't recommend specific places (in part because each person has their own needs), but I provide a straight-forward framework for choosing a place to go and discuss the pros and cons of certain areas. A number of past participants have found this criteria clear enough to pick safer homes and relocate (including two participants who relocated out of the path of the LA fires before those wildfire struck).
5) How much interaction is there? How much access will I have to Alex?
We do 30 minutes or so of group discussion at the end of every class, and there is a 90 minute group Q&A wrap up call at the end. I am available to answer questions (and for deep-discount coaching calls) during and after the course. If you want more guidance, we can arrange one-on-one calls to follow up.
6) Do I have to be a climate expert or work in a climate job for this to make sense?
Though many participants work in climate-related fields and businesses, the course starts from the basics and builds systemic understanding from there. No special knowledge is needed to benefit, and a list of resources for further learning is provided.
7) What if I decide this course isn’t right for me?
We want you to have a great experience. We also value your investment of time and resources. If, after the first live call, you truly believe that the course is not right for you, you have until Thursday, March 13 at 10:00am PST to request a 90% refund.
Ready to sign up? Click the button below.
Or click this link https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule/21f79c52/?appointmentTypeIds[]=73970428
Testimonials:
“For anyone interested in personally preparing yourself and your family for climate change impacts, boy do I have a great recommendation for you… one of the most impactful learning experiences I’ve had on any topic in the last decade.
All you have to believe is that the future is likely to be more risky and uncertain, whether from climate change or just natural disasters, political instability, social unrest, armed conflict, economic or supply chain disruption, etc.
Heck, you could completely disbelieve climate change is happening at all, and this course would still be transformational because its focus is on preparing you and your family and community for a wide range of potential scenarios, whatever those might be. [Alex] completely dismantles typical “prepper” advice, showing how fundamentally misguided it is for almost any future scenario (the actual best way to prepare is completely counter-intuitive).
Most of all, the students and community that are part of Steffen’s courses are simply phenomenal. Thoughtful, wise, accomplished but also empathetic people, many of whom are playing active roles in shaping policy, economics, planning, and business.
Alex addresses a remarkable range of holistic topics, from the all-important choice of where to locate yourself, to the psychological mindset shifts needed, to basic provisioning and preparing for utility interruption, to adapting your career, finances, and business for likely future changes.
I ‘10 out of 10’ recommend it.”
Tiago Forte, Forte Labs, participant
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“The best way to get smart about how to live through the cascading climate chaos of our time is to always read Alex Steffen.”
Jeff Goodell, Author of The Heat Will Kill You First
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“When all the others are just talking about what systems-collapse or planetary crisis look like, Alex's work already gives you a framework on how to navigate it with confidence and with the clear possibility of creating a thriving and hardened future for you, your loved ones, and the communities you serve.”
Justin D'Atri, Group Sustainability Transformation Lead, Zurich Insurance Group, Participant
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“I've worried for a long time about what I can do about the climate crisis, and how to prepare. Several years ago, I began reading Alex Steffen's work and for the first time felt some understanding about what is going on in the political sphere around climate change and the predatory delay of business people and politicians. I also became inspired by Alex's aspirational imaginings about how we might transform life in our cities to be more beautiful, sustainable, and enjoyable.
I was intrigued when I saw Alex's Crash Course offering for personal ruggedization. At first my partner and I weren't sure if the cost of time and money would be worth it for our family. But then Alex sent an email headlined, “The Crisis Doesn't Care,” and that was it. We had experienced that truth, through the pandemic and our housing situations. We knew keenly how it felt to be left behind. The crises hadn't cared, and neither had elected officials, or the business people profiting from our hardships. We needed to be informed and prepared for navigating this unfolding era of climate change, and Alex's Crash Course was an incredible foundation.
Through Alex's course, my partner and I gained invaluable insight about what's going on and how to evaluate which factors are most important for our family as we navigate these difficult changes. We also felt excited and empowered to take action. Alex shared illustrative examples of places around the world where people are taking the climate crisis as an opportunity to greatly improve quality of life.
Thanks to Alex's course, our family took decisive action and moved to a new city. We love our new home. We've jumped right in to work alongside our neighbors who are already ruggedizing the city. There's much to do. We are so grateful that Alex helped us quickly identify the important factors to consider and set us on a path for being better prepared to care for ourselves, our neighbors and all in our city and wider region. Alex Steffen's Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization was life-changing for us, and absolutely worth our investment of money and time.”
Maia, participant
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“Alex has been thinking about the impacts of climate change longer than most people. Through the Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization, Alex provides insight to the more likely future scenarios and helps attendees position themselves, physically and mentally, to avoid the worst impacts and take advantage of the opportunities that are created. It is a very thought-provoking course and also provides the opportunity to network with like minded people around the globe. Highly recommended.”
Jeff Roulston, participant
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 react to the recent New York Times piece How Can I Lower My Climate Risk When Buying a House?
The piece begins by noting the rising concern people have with the growing risks they take on when buying a home:
“A question we get from readers more and more is some version of this: How should the growing risks from climate change affect my decision to buy a house? Or, if I buy a house, where should I buy, and what should I keep in mind?
“It seems especially urgent now, as insurance costs in some parts of the country have far outstripped the rate of inflation. Here’s some advice from experts.”
It’s a good advice, as far as it goes.
I explore what’s missing from the discussion, and why intelligent climate relocation is not a simple matter of, say, comparing climate risk ratings on a FEMA map.
I briefly explain my “triangle of brittleness” framework, and why smart relocation takes looking more deeply into the strengths and weaknesses of different locations — and why the best answer will be different for each of us, based on our lives, resources and priorities.
I also explain why discontinuity and loss only seem to be problems of the future, and how quickly recognition of risk could lead to big economic shifts. Urgency is appropriate when figuring out your strategy for life in a worsening planetary crisis.
Reminder: the Spring class of my acclaimed intensive Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization begins in less than two weeks, on Tuesday, March 11th.
In this course, I walk you through the process of understanding the discontinuities around us, measuring exposure, judging local momentum and making smart personal choices about where and how to live. If you're asking yourself how to think about climate and ecological risks when moving, retiring, buying a house or planning for your kids’ futures, this course will help you make decisions with greater clarity and confidence.
Read this newsletter to learn more:
Or, if you already know this class is for you, click here to sign up and claim your spot. Registration closes on March 9th!
We’d love to have you join us.
Alex
Other news:
- This new podcast, When We Are, is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world, should that be your preferred way of listening. Please subscribe, rate and review.
- My work was mentioned in two news stories in the last weeks, one in The Atlantic about the breakdown of sense-making in social media and one in The Guardian about the California fires. Also, a reader asked where they might find this interview I did back in 2022: How to ruggedize your life and prepare for... whatever comes next.
- I have a recent piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It.
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 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" and My writing was the jumping-off point for the This American Life episode 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. I also spoke recently with PBS News Hour about why there are no climate havens.
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 -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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Hey folks,
How much will our refusal to acknowledge the climate crisis cost us?
One way to start answering that question is to talk about brittleness.
Brittleness is the quality of being subject to sudden, difficult-to-reverse failures.
Climate brittleness describes brittleness created by the gap between the conditions for which our systems were built, and the different, more-chaotic circumstances of the planetary crisis around us.
Places and systems which are brittle to climate impacts are vulnerable to loss. That vulnerability, in turn, makes them less valuable than they were previously. We are surrounded by lost value, a situation I call the brittleness bubble.
First Street Foundation has taken a new stab at estimating how much lost value we face here in the United States, in their new report, The 12th National Risk Assessment: Property Prices in Peril. (This article summarizes some of their findings.)
Their numbers are staggering: $1.47 trillion dollars of lost real estate value over the next 30 years, impacting 84% of U.S. communities, but concentrated in 21,750 “climate abandonment neighborhoods.”
This loss stems from the combination of worsening uninsurability (leading to escalating home insurance rates) and diminishing economic vitality (leading to out-migration — they predict 55 million Americans moving away from climate risks by 2055).
In this podcast, I explore the report’s findings, give my take on the situation, and explain some of what I think is still missing from our wider debate on the brittleness bubble, crisis migration and climate foresight in general.
Thanks for listening!
Alex
PS: Tomorrow is the last day of the Early Bird discount for my Crash Course in Personal Ruggedization. If you know you want to take this Spring’s course, and want to save 25% on the tuition, use the code CCPRSPRING25 at checkout by midnight (Pacific) tomorrow, Friday the 21st. Click the green button below to sign up:
- This new podcast, When We Are, is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world, should that be your preferred way of listening. Please subscribe, rate and review.
- My work was mentioned in two news stories in the last weeks, one in The Atlantic about the breakdown of sense-making in social media and one in The Guardian about the California fires. Also, a reader asked where they might find this interview I did back in 2022: How to ruggedize your life and prepare for... whatever comes next.
- I have a recent piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It.
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 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" and 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. I also spoke recently with PBS News Hour about why there are no climate havens.
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—
If you feel, right now, like you are waking up to a magnitude of upheaval you didn’t expect — if you feel really unsure about what it means and what you should do to manage the resulting chaos in your own life — you are not alone.
Working through this sudden collision with planetary reality is work we will all be forced to take up in the next few years.
In this podcast, I unpack discontinuity, and the ways in which it demands new thinking. That need for new thinking can leave us with feelings of personal discontinuity and alienation from our surroundings... and of a sense of disconnection from the futures we once imagined for ourselves and our children.
This presents an opportunity, though. Discontinuity is not devastation; disaster springs from our unwillingness to acknowledge it. We can reimagine the lives we’re building to thrive in discontinuity — just as we can rebuild our communities to increase their durability and capacity for change. The loss of continuity is not the end of the story, it’s the beginning.
In a strange way, letting go of the world we expected to have can give us back a future we want.
Alex
PS: My next crash course in personal ruggedization will begin at the end of the month. Details in my next newsletter.
- This new podcast, When We Are, is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world, should that be your preferred way of listening. Please subscribe, rate and review.
- My work was mentioned in two news stories last week, one in The Atlantic about the breakdown of sense-making in social media and one in The Guardian about the California fires. Also, though this piece didn’t reference my work, regular readers will notice a lot of my regular themes: That Giant Sucking Sound? It’s Climate Change Devouring Your Home’s Value. Finally, a reader asked where they might find this interview I did back in 2022: How to ruggedize your life and prepare for... whatever comes next.
- I have a recent piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It.
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 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" and 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. I also spoke recently with PBS News Hour about why there are no climate havens.
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—
How do I remain an optimist about the human future, even as the planetary crisis worsens?
A few thoughts.
Alex
PS: A little more to chew on:
* More here on the mythological universal conversion event, and how we might think more clearly about the future.
* Why real optimism springs from grasping what fights are now winnable and why outspoken optimism is actually critical to winning those fights.
* The long-running debate about whether “optimistic” or “resolute” is the right description of this stance, and whether “steely-eyed optimism” splits the difference.
* I’ve written many times about how predatory delay is not only a strategy for playing out the end of the unsustainable, but is itself as a waning industry, for example here.
Reminder: My next live Ruggedize Your Life: the Basics class (a concentrated introductory course for planning a personal climate strategy) will be held a week from today, on Thursday, January 30th, from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Pacific Time. (Yes, class will be recorded.)
Click the button below to save your spot:
- If you like this new podcast, When We Are, please rate, review, follow and share these episodes. Thank you!
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky
- I have a new piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It.
- 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. Recently, 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 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—
We’ve moved from the era when avoiding the planetary crisis was the most pressing mission on Earth, to one where avoiding further catastrophe is now a subset of the challenge of responding to a climate and biosphere now in crisis.
Could there be a better time to have unchecked corruption, reinvigorated predatory delay and a general collapse of competance in Washington, D.C.?
In this impromptu podcast, I talk Trump, the lost Orderly Transition, and why reactive, forced climate response is so costly, unfair, and zero sum. Luckily, reactive, forced climate response seems to be mostly what we’ll get for at least the next half decade.
Here’s the Bill McKibben quote I bumbled:
"The most important news of last week, though you would have had to search hard to find it, was that the carbon dioxide monitoring station at Mauna Loa recorded the biggest single-year growth in co2 in its 66-year-history, rising 3.58 ppm."
Apologies as well for the work-from-home moment at the end. (My family happily and unexpectedly tumbled in the door to announce the end of my work day.)
To brighter days and better news…
Alex
PS: I’m teaching another Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics class on Thursday, January 30th. Details here.
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 -
“We know we need to move, but how soon do we need to do it?” is a question I get a lot.
There are no simple answers: every personal climate strategy is a unique set of solutions for a particular set of problems. But some of the key questions we need to ask ourselves are:
* What are we gaining by staying put? Are there future events (e.g., a child’s graduation, retirement, a job promotion) we’re looking to see through before we go?
* What are the costs of climate relocation, and will we be more or less able to meet them later?
* How close to a moment of loss in value and capacity (or even catastrophic direct climate impacts) is the place we are now? How late will be too late?
In this delightful brief tour of the tempo of discontinuity, I try to answer those questions by suggesting three basic indicators.
Which ‘indicator light’ is flashing where you live?
- Alex
A bunch of you have asked when my next personal ruggedization classes will be. I’ll be more formally announcing this in my next letter, but my next live Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics class (a concentrated 101 in planning a personal climate strategy) will be held on Thursday, January 30th, from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Pacific Time.
If you know you want to take the class, click the link below to save your spot:
Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics
Thursday, January 30th, from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Pacific Time.
Class will be recorded and the recording sent to all registered participants the following week.
More soon.
Alex
- My next Crash Course on Personal Ruggedization will be in February, details to come. (You can read a description of the last course here.)
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky
- I have a new piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It. (I don’t write the headlines…)
- 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. Recently, 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.
- I have a new podcast, When We Are, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and other podcast platforms around the world. Please check it out, rate, review, follow and share these episodes. 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 brand new When We Are podcast, I discuss why our concept of “natural disaster” — a sudden and unexpected calamitous natural event bringing great loss from which we then recover and return to normal life — is less and less useful for understanding the world we now live in.
I also briefly discuss the movie Jaws.
Please note that When We Are is now available on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and other platforms, if that’s how you prefer to do your listening.
Please also help me spread the word by sharing, or rating and reviewing the show wherever you listen.
Want to tell someone about this newsletter? Please share.
Thanks,
Alex
- I have a new piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It. (I don’t write the headlines…)
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 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. Recently, 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.
- Visit my Bookshop shop to get John Vaillant’s Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World and discover some of my other top reads.
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 episode zero of my new casual podcast for subscribers.
Give it a listen to find out more (it’s about 10 minutes long).
Here’s the show description: “The climate crisis is no longer something happening to other people, somewhere else. It's changing all our lives, right now. Few of us are ready. Join renowned climate futurist Alex Steffen and guests as we show the patterns behind the chaos, learn how to build smart climate strategies, and laugh at the absurdity of daily life in discontinuous times.”
If you like it, you’ll also be able to add it to your podcast feeds on many platforms.
I hope you enjoy When We Are!
—Alex
- I have a brand new piece in Mother Jones, Trump Won’t Confront the Climate Crisis. He’ll Feast Off It. (I don’t write the headlines…)
- Stay connected on social: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 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. Recently, 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.
- Visit my Bookshop shop to get China Miéville’s The City & The City and discover some of my other top reads.
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
