Climate change is usually framed as a story of collapse; much of it will be. Yet every large disruption also creates a frontier. A place where new opportunities are exploited. Heat, extreme weather, and instability will impact much the world. Yet some places will also become more habitable, fertile, and connected. These new economic realities will surface at the margins as small, local, and perhaps contrarian shifts. Then, they’ll blindside everyone stuck looking the other way.

That is the question this article explores. With the world changing this fast, where will the opportunists cluster?

Who will position themselves to benefit? The biggest rewards will not be immediate. They will accrue slowly, through land acquisition, infrastructure, migration, and local growth. While this generation will see the first to act and exploit, it will be felt even most powerfully by the next.

The answers may lie much further north than you think. We’ll trace retreating ice and opening sea routes to regions once considered permanently marginal.

But before we go any further, let’s clear the biggest road block to this conversation…

…What if We Actually Fix It In Time?

It’s not impossible. We could redirect the world’s $7 Trillion in annual fossil fuel subsidies exclusively to combatting climate change. That alone could be enough to prevent an outright disaster. The largest estimates put the price tag at $12 Trillion annually; that’s less than 9% of global GDP. We could also have a “collective awakening”, a sudden worldwide rebellion against over-consumption.

We could go cold turkey, break our centuries-long addiction to technology, to money, to power. We could put down all our deadly weapons, and shelve decades of bitter resentment. We could turn fierce cross-border competition and backstabbing into cooperation tomorrow.

We could. But we won’t. We’ve run down the clock. Betting on a last-minute collective rescue goes way beyond “optimism”. It ignores human systems and, ultimately, is out of touch with reality. It flies in the face of data, incentives, history, and perhaps even our own evolutionary wiring.

“Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.”

— Charlie Munger

I’ve previously explored just how unlikely scenarios like this are when we run the numbers. Our track record with the other “civilization killers” in the room is not great. The Montreal Protocol (though sounding like the next great spy thriller) is our one, shining, poster child to the contrary. It’s the global collective action that banned the chemicals destroying the Ozone Layer. (For the curious, fellow The New Climate writer Ricky Lanusse has an excellent deep dive on it. In short, it’s why the UV index wasn’t 30 today; why you can still go out in the daytime, without radiation burns.)

Naturally, those opposed to climate mitigation have scrutinized, interrogated, and fully dissected it. We can see this in action with the protocol’s successor: The Paris Climate Accords. In the nearly 40 years since the protocol, the accords are the only treaty universally ratified by the UN. Since their inception, the accords have been systematically ground to a near halt. The US withdrew, the UN admitted the treaty is insufficient, and the COP summits continue blowing past targets.

All the while, the world has not stopped building nukes, curbed plastic production or even agreed on safeguards for AI.

Collectively addressing something as complex as climate change, then, has proven beyond us.

Magical thinking, is an addiction in and of itself. A dream gives a sense of hope and comfort, but that dream has a cost. It also distracts from the real and tangible opportunities emerging in a climate-changed world. They’re akin to being on one of the first ships bound for the New World. This time, with foresight.

Kings in the North

The shifting climate advantages countries with land above the 42nd Parallel. I’ve previously outlined which of those are most open to immigration and built a tool to track them. The goal is for anyone to be able to better position themselves in a post-climate-crisis world. One only needs to follow the retreating glaciers.

Ice melt is often portrayed as the bogeyman of climate change. My regular readers may have even noticed how this topic is conspicuously missing from this visualization of our near future.

Sea level rise is a climate risk that arguably gets too much air time, to everyone’s detriment. It’s highly localized; only three biomes (river deltas, shallow islands, and lowland coasts) are critically affected. The IPCC doesn’t project significant water-logging until 2100 or later. It’s also possible that it somehow lulls people into a false sense of security about climate change as a whole. Since this is the only risk most hear about, many assume it’s the only risk worth considering.

Ice melt is more typically talked about in terms of sea level rise. Yet in fact, the new land it reveals may be the bigger story for humanity. As global temperatures rise, areas near the poles become more hospitable. Regions once able to sustain only tiny populations are set to grow dramatically.

Of all places on Earth, the Arctic is warming fastest, 4x faster than the planet as a whole. Over the last 40 years, it’s already on average +3C warmer. Retreating glaciers reveal valleys with new, clean, freshwater lakes. Bit by bit, melting permafrost transforms into arable land. Over 3 Million square miles of such land will become newly farmable by 2070. Alaska is a prime example. In just the last five years, the state saw its number of operating farms jump by a whopping +30%. Further east, the Yukon just documented their first ever successful wheat harvest.

Sub-arctic farming isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Thawing permafrost could just as easily turn into a bog as a wheat field.

However, the opportunity is clear and present to agribusinesses looking to exploit.

The UN is already sounding the alarm that our “old reliable” breadbaskets are reaching a breaking point. Heavy droughts and a depletion of local aquifers threaten half of the world’s food supply. These polar newcomers and the adjacent northern regions could increasingly attempt to fill the gap. More pleasant climates with more accessible, untapped, resources, will attract migration. Economies and rising demand move with them. Land values go up, development projects break ground, and investment flows in. New infrastructure is built to support this growth and a virtuous cycle begins.

If you’re still in doubt, have a look at how opportunistically Russia is approaching climate change. The phrase that strikes me from that report was “enormous, temperate, inviting Siberia”. Words I never imagined going together. Moreover, they provide a clue about how positively Russians view their own prospects.

Taking A Shortcut

Flourishing in the Great White North is not without its challenges. Higher temperatures are also prematurely melting ice roads. Today, rural polar communities are dependent on them for transport and essential supplies. New and permanent infrastructure will need to be built to replace them; but what do we do in the meantime? They will rely on the other super-highways mother nature has given us already: water. A barge, for example, can move 1 ton of cargo nearly 647 miles on a single gallon of fuel. That’s almost 4.5x the amount a truck can. When factoring in traffic and idle time, the barge’s efficiency jumps to 10x. Three new waterways to do this are opening before our very eyes.

The first and the most used today, is the North Sea Route (NSR), which runs along Russia’s north coast. This route is a competitor to the twin bottlenecks of the Suez Canal and Bab el-Mandeb Strait (of Houthi fame). It cuts shipping distances from Asia to Europe by -30%.

The second, and less predictable one, is the North West Passage (NWP), which runs along Canada’s north coast. This route could become a legitimate competitor to the evaporating Panama Canal. It cuts shipping distances from Asia to the North American East Coast by -18%.

Lastly, we have the mariner’s dream: the Transpolar Sea Route (TSR). This one cuts right across the North Pole. It competes with both canals, and drops shipping distances by as much -40%.

These new routes allow cargo ships to act more like airplanes and travel along a great circle for long distances. A great circle represents the shortest distance between two points on Earth. Tracing these lines between the key hubs of the late 21st century and the world’s largest ports reveals a clear story.

So why haven’t we been using them all along? Try sailing a ship that far north and you’ll eventually hit a massive icy barricade: a 2.5 Million mile wide, 15 feet thick behemoth. She is the brood mother of the legendary iceberg that sank the Titanic, and nearly everyone on it. She relents for only 10 days of the year, and only to the top-of-the-line (nuclear) ice breaker ships. In other words: not suitable for commercial use. The TSR remains unassailable… for now.

However, that reality is far from static. Since 1980, ice cover of the Arctic Sea has decreased by half the size of Europe.

In that time, cargo volume through the NSR are up by +540% and by +72% for the NWP. The North Sea Route is expected to open to profitable commercial summer shipping in as little as four years. Regular summer time container shipping could start as early as 2050. Of course, Russia has already begun moving on this. Trade expansion along their north coast and a growing ice breaker fleet are now national priorities.

Navigating these waters is already looking much less like a suicide mission and much more like this:

The NWP is a different story, it’s still quite unreliable today. Yet, it could very well be North America’s great frontier in the last half of the century. Currently, only 18–24 ships make the journey in any given year, half of which are cargo ships. However, proof of its commercial viability is already here. In 2013, The Nordic Onion (yup, that’s a real ship’s name) successfully and profitably, delivered cargo via the NWP from Vancouver to Finland. This trip alone saved $200K compared to the typical Panama route. Unlike canals, there are no size restrictions in deep waters. By 2050, ships could have up to 80 more days of access. Shanghai — New York is the most in-demand shipping route in the world, and the NWP is primed to welcome that demand. If even part of the summer traffic shifted from Panama, it would create major economic benefits to these long overlooked areas.

Yet, what the shipping route lacks in volume, it makes up for in logistics downstream.

Twin Peaks

Enter two unlikely heroes, Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence Waterway.

Churchill, the port town of Hudson Bay, and once considered a literal “backwater”, is now experiencing a revival. What makes this location unique is its geography and interconnectedness. Hudson Bay was carved deep into the Canadian heartland by ancient glaciers. The bottom is deep enough that even today’s cargo behemoths can call it home. As its western port, Churchill is positioned almost in the dead center of the country. It’s also home to a railway that runs directly south to the regional capital of Winnipeg. This connection links the port to the entirety of both Canadian and American rail systems.

Major infrastructure investments are still needed to make the logistics practical. However, don’t understate Churchill’s strategic advantage. Consider the example of it’s distant American cousin, Chicago. The reason it’s a megacity today is largely due to advantageous positioning. Chicago lies at the intersection of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The city’s function is to facilitate trade between the two greatest natural transportation networks on the continent. This is the backbone from which modern American industry grew. You can think of each skyscraper in Chi-town as an accumulated tax on every container that has ever passed through it.

That is the size of the Hudson Bay opportunity for Canada. If even part of this is realized, the impact would be monumental. For now, Churchill only has a population of 870 (not thousands, 870 individual people). Yet, it has all the right ingredients to become a new boom town by the turn of the century.

It’s already the largest arctic port in North America and receives cargo ships today. Canada isn’t blind to the opportunity and investment has already begun to flow. First up will be dredging the port floor to accommodate even larger ships, as well as upgrading its rail link.

The continent’s second greatest natural transport network is The St. Lawrence Seaway: the Mississippi’s little brother and a joint asset of the US and Canada. It too is a canal; like Panama, it connects an ocean to inland lakes. This seaway allows cargo ships from the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans to enter The Great Lakes. Its reach extends surprisingly far. Ocean faring container ships can drop off their hauls as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota.

Unlike the Panama Canal, it sits upon the largest freshwater repository on the planet. No risk of drying up anytime soon. It’s also smaller, only able to accommodate ships half the size of those passing through the locks of Panama. However, smaller, more maneuverable, and shallower cargo ships will likely be the first to brave the ice in a warming arctic.

Ships like the Venta Maersk were already successfully navigating the NSR as of 2018. A smaller ship of the same class could end its voyage in The Great Lakes. It could also handle the last leg for larger ships offloading cargo at deepwater ports like Churchill or Halifax. That first mover advantage will be critical. Warming temperatures are set to transform shipping on The Great Lakes even sooner than the Arctic. The Lakes have less ice to contend with. Historically, they’ve been traversable eight months of the year. However, we’re already seeing this period extended to 10 months today. An ice-free winter on the lakes becomes more likely with every passing year.

That advantage is directly set to boost local economies. The combined metro areas of The Great Lakes — St. Lawrence Corridor are their own mega-region. It encapsulates the two most populous and productive regions of Canada, as well as the American Rust Belt, and then some. That’s some 108 Million people and $6 Trillion in GDP today, or around 30% of the GDP and population of both nations combined.

If The Great Lakes were were their own country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest economy, larger than all of Japan and half the size of China.

The entire area sits comfortably above the 42nd parallel. Increased trade along the seaway is only going to make it more wealthy and desirable in the coming decades.

Economic Leylines

I want to be careful with your takeaway from all this. What I’m NOT saying is that climate change can be ignored; it can’t. The localised benefits I’m describing in no way outweigh the massive human, environmental and economic costs. The thawing of permafrost, for example, is itself a climate tipping point — releasing vast amounts of methane and millennia of stored carbon. The flora and fauna losing their habitat is contributing to the Earth’s sixth great mass extinction — this is happening on our watch, and caused by us. Turning some of this into farmland is not a ‘good thing’.

Recognising what will likely happen and where, and the resultant movement of industry, people and infrastructure is, however, hugely important to getting ahead of the issues to come.

As both myself and countless others have stated at length: Unequivocally, the goal should be to mitigate climate change as much as possible.

It is also undeniable that we’re witnessing the very beginning of powerful forces converging in near Arctic waterways.

In Canada, warmer weather, new farming opportunities, existing infrastructure, and ample water reserves will be exploited. Similarly, in the US, The Great Lakes region is positioned to become America’s fasted growing economy. Migration and development will follow. Ice-free shipping lanes could become our new economic leylines. If they do, we will witness the birth of the North American Silk Road in our lifetimes. Long neglected backwaters and the Rust Belt cities along them may well get their renaissance. The rest of us should be so lucky.

This article is the ninth in my ongoing efforts to demystify climate science, its impacts, and provides tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read my other work on this topic below.

List: Your Personal Guide to the Climate Crisis | Curated by Stanislav Sinitsyn | Medium

Is Climate Change Opening up a North American Silk Road? was originally published in The New Climate. on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A second passport, residency permit, or other legal escape hatch is not something you buy at the airport on the day things fall apart. These systems move at bureaucratic speed; they’re not for emergency use. By the time most people realize they need an out, politics, paperwork, age, or bad timing have already conspired against them.

This article is about the cost of waiting. Migration is often put off as a decision for “future me”; in reality, it’s a de-risking strategy with a long lead-up. In a world of rising instability, time is no longer neutral. It either compounds in your favor, or erodes your leverage. Nature brings climate risk; humans bring political risk.

Living on Borrowed Policy

Nowhere is that political risk more evident, than in today’s United States of America. Recent shifts on immigration and border policy are a hard reversal of precedent. The US, for most of its history, has generally welcomed immigrants of all walks of life. That included refugees, workers, students, entrepreneurs, and even (limited) family sponsored migration. In fact, the US has welcomed more people than any nation on earth. This philosophy has been (literally and figuratively) carved into the national spirit.

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

— Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus “The New Colossus”

Just imagine making this kind of statement today. Openly welcoming homeless people into the country!?!? Entirely unpalatable to any party, to say the least. It only takes one election cycle to change everything. The first Trump administration was even relatively friendly to skilled and family migration.

Today, we live in a completely different reality. Medical students are having their visas revoked. Waves of legally obtained work visas are revoked, without notice or explanation. Swearing-in ceremonies canceled across the country, even for people who did everything right. Legal visa holders, from “privileged” nations such as Canada and Ireland, have been detained. Their deportations took months to sort out. All the while, they were held in horrific, prison-camp-like conditions. Even fully naturalized citizens could be at risk. The US Justice Department made the stripping of citizenship from criminal offenders a priority. Traditionally, this was the “nuclear option”, reserved only for treason, or worse. If you’re not aware of how suffocating becoming stateless can be, it’s probably worth reading up on. That’s just twelve months in a single country. We’ll continue to see changes like this, both in and outside the US. Political backlash and the 3rd order climate effects only point in one direction.

Glass Cages

Political Risk doesn’t just exist for immigrants either; if you hold a single passport, you’re on this train as well. I’ve written at length about the concept of Passport Privilege. Unlike its more popular cousins of Race and Gender, this privilege changes… and faster than you think.

Venezuela is the most dramatic example we’ve seen this century. In 2015, their passport was ranked 28th best in the world (top 15%). Venezuelans enjoyed visa free travel to the EU, North America, and most major APAC countries. In just 10 short years, they’ve dropped to 40th place. Venezuelans today are all but locked out of North America and APAC. Even their Latin American neighbors are starting to impose restrictions. It’s largely a politically driven shift. Even their head of state is suffers from a lack of mobility today, so to speak.

You don’t need to look that far to see the shifting influence of nations. Before Brexit, the UK was the world’s 2nd most powerful passport; today it’s ranked 8th. Another politically driven shift. In a more extreme case, you have the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The result was a severe curtailment of all Russians’ mobility and financial freedom. Imagine having your bank accounts frozen. Your Visa and Mastercard: cancelled. No international airlines at your airports. You’re denied entry at borders. Sending or receiving mail abroad is nearly impossible. A third politically driven shift; this one being the most abrupt of all.

Relying on a single passport, regardless of its strength today, is putting oneself at risk. As we’ve seen, this exact situation can play out in just months. Obtaining a second passport, for the average person, in the best of times, takes years. Preemptive diversification becomes critical, especially in uncertain times.

Even if you never plan on using it, a second passport is a lifeline.

For the lucky and unaware, having to physically apply for a visa before booking a flight is a lengthy and costly process. This usually involves gathering all your core identity documents, then translating, and notarizing them. At times, it requires an in-person consulate appointment. That will be on their schedule, of course. They may be located in a different state; in some cases, appointment setting alone can take months. In other words, in a time of emergency, you’re trapped.

Natural ‘Law’

COVID-19, once again, serves as a valuable, recent, reference point. Australia’s response to it is a case study in just how quickly things can change. Despite being pro-immigration and one of the world’s strongest passports, “The Land Down Unda” had one of the strictest lockdowns anywhere. At times, residents of Australian capital cities couldn’t travel more than 5 km from their homes. No, that wasn’t a typo, five kilometers. During 2020, even if you held a valid legal working visa, you still weren’t allowed to enter the country. Pandemic deaths weren’t always sufficient cause for non-resident family visits either. Even returning Australian citizens were subject to a mandatory (often self-funded) 14 day hotel quarantine. Emergencies often toss “Due Process” right out the window.

Your ability to travel freely in normal times is not nearly as valuable as your optionality during a crisis.

Plan with the latter in mind.

Consider the most comically optimistic case. What if we don’t see any further emergencies, no major political shifts, and no additional migration stressors? Even then, time still wouldn’t be on your side. Your health, energy, and mental faculties may decline slowly. Your prospects to obtain a second passport, past your 20s, diminish quickly. It’s another piece of economically logical, yet inhumane, financial calculus. Countries do not benefit from taking in older residents that they’ll soon have to support.

Make no mistake, the only reasons countries will ever offer a migration option is to:

1. Boost their economies
2. Mitigate low birthrates

That’s it.

Only nine countries in the world offer a transparent, points-based, migration system. Seven of them will still have viable climates in 50 years. 100% of those either enforce an age cap or actively penalize older applicants.

Australia, once again, being one of the most restrictive. Generally, if you’re over 45, barring unique circumstances, you’re ineligible for direct residency. As an individual, your odds continually worsen after age 32. At best, delaying the decision to obtain a second passport, when one is young and best positioned, is a risky game of financial chicken. The implicit bet is that you will eventually amass substantial wealth - enough to offset your age and qualify for an investment or business visa. That’s assuming those stay around too, Australia closed its investor pathway in 2024. This doesn’t even qualify as a “gamble” since the “winner” just gets to maintain their position.

Don’t be a Stranger

Online talk of “backup plans” and “options” almost always ignores one crucial fact: local integration. The discourse mostly comes from folks in liberal, foreigner-friendly, multi-cultural, bubbles in large Canadian and American cities. Growing up in these places, it’s easy to imagine that the developed world has started moving past xenophobia. Hate to burst that bubble, but that’s just NOT the case in most of the world. It’s not even the case for all of North America.

It’s a difficult concept to put hard metrics to. Getting unbiased survey results alone is challenging. I ran headfirst into this during my attempts to document Australia’s migrant integration reality. After over a year on the ground, my experience was in stark contrast to what I had read prior to arriving. There seems to be a pervasive social-protectionism in developed countries. This is especially true in central and northern Europe.

In practice, citizens can be staunchly unfriendly to immigrants, despite voting for policies to admit more.

Do not mistake one for the other.

In times of peace, the social barriers foreigners face range anywhere from nuisance to actual psychological trauma. The intensity depends largely on luck and individual circumstances. Times of chaos make these issues more acute, even dangerous. Regardless of how well insulated a country is, the climate crisis will put pressure on communities to become more self-reliant. Supply shocks in food, materials, and even housing will sharpen racism. Favoritism is a tempting, often unconscious, razor in a scarce resource situation. “In-group” preference is hardwired by nature; it’s how we made it this far. That wiring can also become the solution. The only way to ensure that you’re not left on the wrong side of our base dynamics is to integrate yourself into the community beforehand.

This mirrors the legal side; you only have a small window of opportunity to become part of the “in-group”. The open invitation only extends for so long. You take it by paying it forward: early and often. Make sure everyone knows you. Make sure everyone values you. Build deep connections with around you. If you make yourself indispensable to the community, the community will, in-turn, take care of you during a crisis.

Stop being “That weird new guy down the block who keeps to himself all the time”. Make no mistake, you very much will be “that guy”, at least by default. Your cultural quirks will absolutely read as “weird”. If left uncorrected, your silence or hesitance with local slang will register as “reclusive”. Instead, start being “Tom, the guy who helped me fix my porch; his daughter braids my girl’s hair.” Suspicion and de-humanization are much less sticky when you have community roots. They can be your shield in the chaos, but that process takes time and consistent effort. For anyone from a collectivist culture, that statement is ridiculously obvious. It’s a dynamic that wealthy, individualist, western countries have largely forgotten.

Life moves fast ; bureaucracy moves slowly.

Sudden changes in policy and the environment can quickly upend your chances at prosperity. If it can happen in historically pro-immigration countries like Australia and the USA, it can happen anywhere. In 2026, the window to move is still open for most, but there is no telling how long that will stay true. Every day you delay starting the process, increases the likelihood you’ll be caught on the wrong side when the door closes.

The Devil You Know

Let’s level with each other for a moment; you and I both know the facts are not really the reason for your hesitation.

If this piece is resonating, even a little bit, and you haven’t taken the next steps, what’s actually weighing on you is an emotional reckoning. It’s one thing to understand a situation rationally, logically. It’s something else entirely to accept it in your heart. We sit with feelings we can only describe as grief, in mourning the loss of someone. Yet you ARE mourning. Mourning the loss of life as you’ve know it. Mourning the loss of what could have been. Mourning what you were promised when you were young.

We’re all mourning a collective dream.

Taking action to prepare for a new and different future almost makes that loss too real. It feels too sharp, maybe too close to an admission of defeat. You’re not alone, every generation has felt this, in one form or another. Our ancestors saw the deaths of cultures, governments, social orders, and everything in between. It’s now our turn.

Yet there is another, more dangerous, emotion at play here. Your thoughts and feelings are real and your concerns valid. But recognize, what you’re experiencing is also fear and complacency. Together, they masquerade as a defense mechanism: cognitive dissonance at it’s finest. Our deep emotions flare up to trick our prefrontal cortex into rationalizing a fear of change. They prey on our deep desire for stability, contrary to the ever-changing world around us. “Ignore the blinking red lights” they say. They trick us into believing that if we avert our eyes, that somehow everything will just go back to how it was… how it’s “supposed to be”! This a fallacy of the highest order. It too plagued our ancestors since time immemorial.

Or, for those that prefer non-fiction:

“The only thing we have to fear — is fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

— Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The flip side of that coin is complacency. George Lucas beautifully illustrated this in the early scenes of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Mild spoilers of a nearly 50 year old movie ahead.

Luke initially rejects what he knows and feels is right; he gives into complacency. “One more year” he says, despite knowing he’s uttered these same words every other year as well. We can always come up with true and logical reasons to stay. We default to what’s familiar, even if we know it’s dangerous. Even if we know a better and more prosperous future is on the other side of some uncertainty.

“The devil you know” is more seductive than you realize.

Notice that even being given a real chance, growth opportunities, a mentor, and a compelling reason to leave, it was still not enough. Luke ends up repeating the words of his uncle; he uses someone else’s excuse. Nevermind that those same words deeply frustrated him, just a few days prior. Giving into fear and complacency is ultimately a betrayal of self, not to mention future generations. Tragically, it’s easier than we realize.

Your Own, Personal, Hero’s Journey

Inaction in addressing an increasingly bleak future at home comes at a heavy toll. In Luke’s case, it took losing the only family he has ever known to snap him out of it.

A powerful and cross-cultural proverb comes to mind here:

“The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time… is now.”

— Anonymous

Depending on where you are in the world, the biggest risk you ever take may just be staying put. Leaving months or even a few years “too early” is nothing compared to the cost of leaving even a minute too late. The first step is realizing what’s keeping you in place is not facts (or lack of them). It’s calling this deadly trifecta of grief, fear, and complacency by it’s name.

The second step is to start taking small, but tangible, steps to build momentum, to make a future move easier. We discussed many of the steps in a previous article. Even if you’re not ready to “jump ship” quite yet (or ever), a solid emergency plan will help in any situation — climate disaster or not. Expat Prep does an incredible job outlining a few of the simple, yet powerful, steps you can take. These aren’t nearly as difficult or disrupting as you might think. They include:

1. Maintain credit cards with high credit limits
2. Open and fund a bank account in a foreign country (HSBC bank makes this incredibly easy, no affiliation here)
3. Digitize your identity documents, create notarized official copies of them
4. Hold those copies and some cash in a safe deposit box — somewhere other than where you live
5. Have a specific place in mind where you can go in case of an emergency
6. Memorize the route to the nearest bus station and airport, without using gps or internet
7. Pre-apply for ETAs / Visas for places you may want to retreat to (usually valid for several years)
8. If your passport has less than two years of validity (or if you don’t have one), apply for / renew it immediately
9. When financially feasible, work towards obtaining a foreign residence visa (or better yet, citizenship)
10. Learn a major second language

Not only will these steps prepare you for anything, they also make you feel like a badass. Why? Because you actually will be one, after taking these steps. These seemingly small acts are the culmination of unflinchingly staring down the cold, hard, facts. It’s proof positive you have the courage to think critically and counter-culturally. Proof you’ve sat in the mud with your emotions and come to terms with them. Overcoming your own fears and insecurities is nothing short of self-actualization. In taking bold actions to secure you and your family’s future, you become a beacon of strength and inspiration for those around you. Come hell or high water, you will be one of the prepared ones. You won’t just “make it”, you’ll be in the best position to seize the future opportunities in this new world.

“King Shit” as the kids on TikTok say these days.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

What opportunities, you ask? Don’t act so surprised! It’s true, there is a lot of darkness out there, don’t downplay that in the slightest. However, any great change also comes with opportunity. That’s the topic of my next article. I’ll see you there, king.

The TL;DR

• You can’t buy an escape hatch at the airport.
• Bureaucracy is slow, crises are fast.
• Climate risk is gradual, political risk is abrupt.
• One passport is concentrated risk; its power can decay rapidly.
• Age quickly closes your immigration pathways.
• Community integration is protection, not a nice-to-have.
• Hesitation is: grief, fear, and complacency - not facts.
• Prep your docs, banking, credit, visas, and learn a language now.

This article is the eighth of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science, its impacts, and provides tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the other articles below.

List: Your Personal Guide to the Climate Crisis | Curated by Stanislav Sinitsyn | Medium

Building an Exit in a Fire was originally published in Digital Global Traveler on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When it comes to climate change, Chief Science Advisor to Barack Obama, John Holdren, said it best:

“We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is, what the mix is going to be?

— John Holdren

Most coverage still treats mitigation as the only story. Cut emissions, sign treaties, build renewables. All essential, all largely outside your personal control. What you do directly control is your share of adaptation vs suffering. That is the gap I write to fill: practical tools for finding your climate haven and building a real adaptation plan.

Even with tools in hand, most people end up stalled at the same two mental hurdles:

“I believe you. I appreciate the resources and I plan on using them, but we’re talking 2050–2070 here. I’ve got a good thing going. I can’t uproot my life, not now! Besides, my family and friends need me here.”

or for the gamblers and the skeptics in the room:

“If climate risk were really that serious, the market would show it. The fastest growing economies are in the ‘Global South’. In America, the sunbelt is booming. If the scientists were right, that real estate would be bleeding money. I will only consider moving if, and when, these places turn unprofitable.”

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, you are in the right place. The first objection is emotional. The second is a math problem. This article tackles the second one head-on. Here’s why waiting for markets to “prove it” means putting your entire nest egg on the chopping block.

“Smart” Money

At the core of the investment statement is an age-old argument. An argument to cede individual decision making to a supposed higher intelligence.

We do this a lot more than we realize. More often than not, this deference actually does yield the right answer. It’s one of nature’s most efficient strategies. It lets us conserve resources while accelerating decision making. An absolute necessity when, so often, failing to quickly act carried a death sentence. This is why yawns and laughs are contagious. Why the concept of “uncanny valley” is so widely recognized. Why certain fears like insects, snakes, heights, and even trypophobia (not linking that one) are practically universal.

Relying on ancestral knowledge is one of the competitive advantages of our species. It’s a reason we’ve made it this far. Arguably, the entire idea behind Free Market Capitalism is to leverage human nature at scale. PhD economist Arthur Brooks certainly believes this. The “invisible hand” of the market functions much like a hive-mind for the whole economy. It usually makes decisions better than individuals. Even better than the smartest folks with the best data too.

So why does it “usually” lead to the right answer, instead of “always”? Knowingly or not, we inherently make assumptions whenever we outsource our thinking. These can be about another individual, a group, generational wisdom, or even an AI model. Among others, we assume:

1. The third party is aligned with our interests / goals
2. It’s using the most up-to-date information
3. The information / “training data” it’s based on accurately reflects our situation

I honestly don’t think this concept would’ve landed with most before AI use became widespread. Yet, AI is only the latest iteration of intelligence outsourcing.

Markets do a halfway decent job with the first two assumptions. However, during times of fundamental or rapid change, they tend to stumble over the last one. What about Consensus Intelligence then? It can take the form of a law, a “best practice”, a piece of “common sense”, or a socially agreed-upon paradigm. These are useful bedrocks, but are inherently slow to adjust. Even individuals fall to this fallacy, if they aren’t careful. It’s the whole meaning behind the cautionary phrases: “The map is not the territory”, “The word is not the thing”, and “The menu is not the meal”.

Yet, these are precisely the situations when the dissenting opinion prevails over consensus. Usually in spectacular ways.

(Old Habits) Die Hard

Netflix and Amazon are prime (pun always intended) examples. At their debut, most analysts thought their profit margins were too low. Their reinvestments: unlikely to ever pay off. They didn’t stand a chance against the huge incumbents in their industries. This outdated conventional wisdom persisted a shockingly long time. These conclusions were still repeated a full decade after the companies’ founding. Even after they proved the territory had fundamentally shifted, consensus still lagged.

Kodak is a perfect example from the other side. They invented the world’s first digital camera but purposefully mothballed their own invention. Why? To protect their existing film-based business. Conventional wisdom, at the time, was that digital cameras were of low quality. They could never compete with high fidelity film. Six years on, an internal investigation revealed that digital cameras would replace film within a decade. Despite competitors’ digital investments, Kodak doubled down on the outdated consensus. Habits die hard, even in the face of clear data.

Consensus Intelligence is right, until suddenly, it’s dead wrong.

These are case studies on the inherent short-term bias in markets at large. Quarterly reports regularly win out over decades-long investments. “Short-termism” is was what led to the demise of Blockbuster and diminishment of Kodak. Even future-oriented sectors are more shortsighted than you might think. Election cycles are two to four years. Private Equity typically doesn’t look past six. A Venture Capital fund’s lifecycle is ten years.

Paradoxically, climate risks play into WHY returns in these areas are high, at least in part. For those that slept through Finance 101, let’s recall two key concepts. Risk = reward and no such thing as a free lunch. Another way to say that: something that looks too good to be true, probably is. In practice, if you’re reaping above average returns, you’re also taking on above average risk. Your conscious awareness of them (or lack thereof), doesn’t change the math. Crypto folk know this all too well by now.

Let me put this in plain English:

Miami is such a hot market right now because you’re taking on the risk of your building flooding any given year.

States like Texas need to offer perks, like a 0% income tax rate, to be competitive. People need an incentive to endure the drought, heat waves, and power outages. Unfortunately, these just come with the territory, and are only getting worse. The full brunt of climate risk isn’t yet priced in. However, its effect is present and will only grow over time; eventually we will reach a tipping point.

Let me be clear, this is not the time nor place for brinksmanship. At least not for the average person. In return for a decade (maybe less) of quick gains, you risk the entire nest egg.

Do Not Pass Go; Do Not Collect $200

Fundamentally, people are not businesses. They do not have the same needs and do not behave in the same way. Relying on the business sector to guide your personal livelihood decisions is a category error. It’s a violation of the first assumption of outsourced intelligence we discussed earlier.

Look, I get it, “concentration of risk” and “cognitive frameworks” are all too abstract. So, let’s bring it back down to earth… to your mortgage.

The average person’s largest asset is their home. A full 92% of individuals own their homes for at least six years, with 47%+ owning their homes over a decade. In certain regions, the average can be as high as 19 years.

Neither your time horizon nor risk profile is the same as an institutional investor’s.

Consider that, for most people, 15–30 year mortgages are the norm. Lenders have the legal right to force you to insure their loan. That should tell you everything you need to know. You take an existential risk by staying put in a climate danger zone. Your largest asset could become uninsurable, unsaleable, or non-existent… overnight. The tightening noose of a mortgage, without an asset, leads straight to bankruptcy.

We’ve seen it all before, most recently with the 2025 Palisades Fire in LA.

State Farm, the largest insurer in California, looked at their data and saw the writing on the wall. By May 2023, they stopped accepting new policies in the fire-prone neighborhoods. The following year, they canceled over 72,000 policies in those areas. 1,500 cancellations for homes in the Pacific Palisades… mere months before the largest fire in state history. Louisiana fared even worse in 2021 after Hurricane Ida. At least 11 insurance companies went bankrupt after that storm.

That’s 60,000 people left without their home and largest asset, with payments still due next month.

It’s a cold calculus that every insurance company is obliged to make. Yet, it glosses over the human cost: the families on the other side of that equation. Their home, most of their belongings, and their vehicles destroyed… without compensation. On top of their literal (and sometimes figurative) underwater mortgage, they now also owe rent. Bankruptcy becomes the only way out.

As if adding salt to the wound, their credit is destroyed as well. The real injustice is that this all happens at their moment of greatest need. Credit was their lifeline to relocate to safety and reestablish their lives; it too now lies in ruins. Let’s take a moment to remember that:

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.

— Bob Hope

Life comes at you pretty damn fast sometimes. I know, because a version of this story played out in my own family.

Yet, an entirely different version of these events could’ve transpired. What if, even a year prior, they would’ve realized their nest egg was built on climate quicksand? They would’ve been able to sell their house, potentially even for a handsome profit. Build the courage to look at the writing on the wall, even if the consensus is to look away. It may be the only thing between your family and utter ruin.

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy only when others are fearful.”

— Warren Buffett

Survivor’s Guilt

We may be tempted to think that those the disaster passed by are lucky. The remaining households are breathing a sigh of relief today. However, I promise you it’s not all sunshine and daisies in the neighborhood. Tomorrow, they must shoulder the burden. In the wake of a disaster, like Hurricane Ida, insurance rates hike up to 82%.

I’ve talked about “doom loops” and Derailment Risk before, especially about the interplay between debt and climate. Today, however, I’m referring you to the authority on the subject. That would be Hamilton Nolan, an award-winning journalist for The Guardian and The Times. He describes exactly how disasters are crippling state-run insurers of last resort and the federal government. His concluding thoughts from years of research are nothing short of chilling:

These disasters will ultimately force a re-shaping of American culture as we know it.

Those links are all great reads, but in short, he describes a death spiral which looks something like this:

1. Climate change forces private insurers to leave or go bankrupt.
2. State Insurers of Last Resort are forced to pick up the pieces.
3. State insurers face catastrophic losses exceeding their capacity.
4. Remaining insurers raise costs; governments raise taxes to fund bailouts.
5. More insurers, and now wealthier individuals, leave the market.
6. House prices plummet due to foreclosure and a mismatch of supply vs. demand.
7. An already strained state and local government loses its tax base.
8. Social safety nets, state insurance, and public services are cut.
9. Families left unemployed or bankrupt by storms lose their remaining income and protection.
10. Gangs, drugs and violence take root in the vacuum.
11. Remaining residents are locked into continually worsening conditions.

Rise and Fall

This isn’t just conjecture; it’s precisely what happened in Detroit at the turn of the century. These days, it’s hard to imagine Detroit synonymous with anything other than urban decay. However, in the 1950’s, it was America’s 4th largest metro and the beating heart of economic opportunity. Droves of young people were flocking there in a new age gold rush. Echoes of this era are still visible today, but only if you know where to look.

“Colossus” isn’t an exaggeration here. You’re looking at the largest cast bronze statue commissioned since the Italian Renaissance, complete with a 45 foot tall marble backdrop. Just think of the optimism this city must’ve had to build it.

Yet, by 2010, Detroit had lost over a million residents. One in three properties sat boarded up and foreclosed. House prices plummeted by -82% in two years. Tax bills, based on the prior values, amounted to 15x the current value of the home. The truth is:

If it happened in one of the largest cities, in the richest country on earth, it can happen anywhere.

There’s a reason why cyberpunk cornerstones like Robocop and even the reboot of Deus Ex are set here. This genre is well known for its unfiltered (if not over-the-top) warnings.

Keep in mind that Detroit only faced one crisis: an economic one. Today, the “Too Big to Fail” cities of the American (and Global) South are not so lucky. They’re facing a climate disaster AND an economic one in its wake. Yet, most continue to bet their livelihoods on a game of Russian Roulette.

Vote With Your Feet

Playing financial brinksmanship with a looming existential threat is not a winning gambit. Sustainable gains only come from stable, well collateralized regions. Debt is a double edged sword. When deployed carefully, strategically, it’s a force multiplier that creates class mobility. It also magnifies losses and can destroy a fortune faster than you can think. What happens when debts are called and the assets backing them are found lacking? They become impaired, too high risk to insure, and the entire system collapses. Knowingly or not, this IS the fire you’re playing with living in a high climate risk area.

It’s one thing if you’re well diversified: own businesses across states and countries; but most are not so lucky. It’s another thing entirely when an underwater mortgage spells “game over” for you and your family. Being locked into an increasingly dangerous area, with ever fewer opportunities, is a death knell. Yet today’s economy is such, that most of us can only afford to keep our eggs in a single basket, while still making ends meet.

For the average person, a base in a climate secure region is by far their best bet.

That bet starts with building a Plan C (for climate, obv), before the doom loop comes a knocking.

Just remember that financial risks are only the tip of the iceberg. My next article is about the rest of them. We still have our first question to address, after all. It’s the unspoken barrier that prevents so many from taking their future into their hands. Stay tuned, especially if you’re still amongst the hesitant.

The TL;DR

• You don’t control the world’s mitigation pace.
• You do control how much of your future is adaptation vs suffering
• Each day waiting is a vote for more suffering
• Markets are a lagging indicator, insurance is a leading indicator.
• Markets are inherently short term biased, and historically anchored
• Insurers only survive with strong predictions, grounded in reality
• High returns in risky regions aren’t a contradiction.
• They’re incentive for taking climate risks, only some of which are priced in today.
• The doom loop is the real danger.
• You can’t diversify away a blown-up primary asset.
• Treat relocation as risk management.
• Build a “Plan C” early enough that you sell on your terms.

This article is the seventh of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science, its impacts, and provides tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the other articles below.

List: Your Personal Guide to the Climate Crisis | Curated by Stanislav Sinitsyn | Medium

The Climate Housing Trap was originally published in DataDrivenInvestor on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’re no longer fantasizing about “finding yourself abroad.” You’re reading climate reports, analyzing political chaos, or realizing a shrinking future at home. A chilling through darts across your mind: I might actually need to leave. You hit Google, nearly drowning in visa acronyms and half-baked advice on social media. A wrong move could cost you years and five figures in fees.

Disclaimer: Any immigration decision needs to be made with the help of a qualified legal expert.

The quality of that advice can make or break your chances. But before you even get to that conversation, you need a grip on the basics. You need to know whether a cross-border move is even remotely in the cards, climate-driven or otherwise. Good legal services usually command the highest premiums. After reading this, you’ll know what to ask for, roughly where you stand, and how to avoid headaches and wasting a ton of money.

Legal migration is complex. Each case is unique, and the internet is full of confident half-truths. So let’s pause with the climate charts for a minute and cut through this noise. While I’m not a lawyer and this writing in no way should be considered legal advice, what I do have is a wealth of lived experience. I have navigated the American citizenship process from start to finish. I have studied and obtained student visas in three different countries. I’ve also worked as a digital nomad in a half-dozen countries since 2022. I’m now on my way to a third citizenship.

In other words, I live inside this system. I’ve spent years researching it and keeping tabs on new developments. This article is the guide I wish I had at the start.

Passport Privilege

Let’s start with the foundational document: your passport. As The Nomad Capitalist is fond of saying:

“You’re only treated as well as your passport.” — Andrew Henderson, The Nomad Capitalist

Some of my more fortunate readers left the womb holding a Top 10 passport. It may shock them that most of the world CAN’T just book a flight to wherever, on a whim, and expect to be let in. A weekend trip, or even a connecting flight, can turn into a bureaucratic nightmare for everyone else.

Even a passport in the top 1/3rd globally may not allow you to see half the world.

Holding a lower tier one, you would face months of planning, exorbitant cost, and grueling questioning. It’s an exhausting (and frankly dreaming) level of legwork in collecting stacks of arbitrary paperwork. That’s not even considering the myriad of privacy concerns that opens up. All this with no guarantee of outcome, even if you are squeaky clean or make good money. It’s all because of where, when, and to whom you were born.

Along with race and biological sex, a passport is the 3rd great privilege of our era.

Like the first two, we are born into one. From our very first breaths, they massively shaped our opportunities. Unlike the first two, it’s directly quantifiable and actively upgradeable. Of course, having money makes that easier, but it’s far from the only path. Strategic planning, patience, and the sheer will to improve one’s lot in life can turn this privilege on its head.

So, how does one do it?

Visa Ladder 101

Considering how often migration is discussed these days, this should honestly be taught in school. When people talk about “legal migration” they’re usually referring to a visa process.

We’re not talking about the credit card in your wallet, but a personal bill of rights.

For the un-initiated, a visa ladder looks something like this:

• Tourist: short stay (3 months or less), no intent to immigrate. Overstay, frequent re-entry, or even “look like you’re moving” and you’ll face immediate barriers.
• Temporary Resident: time-limited (year by year), often sponsored (employer, family, study, investment, skills). Restrictions on work rights, employers, benefits, and renewals.
• Permanent Resident: long-term status (4+ years), broad rights, requires a minimum on-shore presence. Benefits end at the border.
• Citizen: For life, comes with a passport, political rights, and global benefits. Demands high time and financial commitments, usually comes with a sacrifice.

Regardless of passport strength, your Great-Grandfather’s “Ellis Island” days are long gone. The concept of packing all your belongings and rolling up to the border of another country to settle, no longer exists. Period. Not only will you be denied entry, but in the 21st century, you won’t even be allowed to board a commercial plane or ferry. A move within the EU is the only remnant we have of that today; even those folks can face significant hurdles.

Let’s walk through each rung of that ladder in detail.

The Right to Witness

If you’ve ever entered another country, you likely did so on a Tourist Visa. These are the little stamps people used to collect in their passport books. But wait, you’ve never had to pay or fill out any paperwork before? How were you allowed to board without sharing any sensitive information? This is passport privilege at work.

Each country has a “visa waiver” list. A group of countries that they more-or-less trust and grant their citizens Tourist Visas, on arrival. The most powerful passports in the word are on nearly everyone’s “waiver” list. These lists make travel quick and convenient by automating the Tourist Visa process. It does NOT remove the need to have a valid one.

Much to the chagrin of my fellow digital nomads, tourist visas are short term by design. If you wish to stay longer than the touristic max (typically 30–90 days), countries start putting you in the “immigrant” category. At which point, the conversations with the border guards become a lot less friendly.

Regardless of legality, all it takes is simply being suspected of becoming an “immigration risk”.

Eligibility alone is not a free pass. If suspected, for any reason, you will be interrogated at the border. Entering legally and holding a friendly neighboring passport won’t be of much help. For those of you lucky enough to never have experienced this, I truly wish it stays that way. It’s hard to put into words how being treated like a “dirty criminal” makes you feel. It’s a gut punch to your dignity (not to mention cortisol levels), even if you’ve done everything “by the book”.

Take for example, the US/Canadian border - one of the most open in the world. Canada freely allows Americans to visit and even continue working (for non-Canadian companies) up to six months of the year. However, try rolling up to a Canadian border checkpoint, your car packed full of bags and saying that. I assure you that even the heat of July won’t be enough to overcome their icy reception.

The Right to Linger

So what if you wish to stay longer? This is where a Temporary Residence Visa comes into play.

These typically have to be applied for from your home country. The paperwork makes tourist visas looks like a cakewalk by comparison. They almost always require a form of sponsorship. That means either a company wants to hire you, you’re living with a close relative, or studying at an educational institution. The government itself can sponsor you too. Special programs exists targeting business owners, investors, or to fill skill shortages. Temporary residence is usually limited to a set number of years, can’t always be renewed, and is quite restrictive.

What strings are attached? Well, not all visas of this class allow you to work or make money in that country. If they do, they may limit working hours or perhaps even lock you to single employer. You’re typically excluded from social benefits. No free healthcare or unemployment, even in countries known for their generosity. Some countries won’t even allow you to buy a property, doesn’t matter if you can pay in cash. These visas aren’t cheap to get either, costing between a few hundred to over a thousand dollars.

So why would anyone in their right mind agree to such an arrangement? Temporary residence is usually a prerequisite. It’s a years long (a decade in extreme cases) gateway to a golden ticket known as a Permanent Residency (PR) visa.

The Right to Grow

“Golden”, in this case, applies to both the benefits offered and the cost. We’re talking several thousand dollars here, before legal fees. My American readers are more familiar with this concept through the term “Green Card”; in the EU it’s blue. PR is second only to citizenship, and as the name implies, it’s permanent. Unless you commit a serious offense, they are infinitely renewable. With PR you DO get the benefits of a natural born citizen. You can work anywhere, study anywhere, own a business, come and go as you please - without scrutiny. Crucially, you gain the ability to sponsor family members for PR visas of their own. This privilege is the one the right wing is particularly critical of, preferring to call it “chain migration”.

The only things PR doesn’t get you? Voting rights and passport privilege.

The Right to Thrive

Citizenship, and thereby a passport, is the ultimate prize. As such, they can come with language requirements, civics tests, and various promises of fealty. Renouncing previous passports or agreeing to go to war (if called upon) are not out of the question. In fact, some countries refuse to offer citizenship in any circumstance, other than birth to two existing citizens. Your location of birth is by no means a guarantee of citizenship.

Citizenship is primarily associated with global travel privileges. However, it can also expand your work, residency, banking, and even investment options. Unlike PR, these don’t just stop at the borders of that country, but impact your standing globally.

More so than even “money” or “status”, passports are a true reality distortion field.

Nothing changes about the person from the day before their swearing in ceremony to the day after. Their inherent value, history, thoughts, emotions, values, faith, bank balance — you name it— remain identical. Yet, flash the right passport in the right place, and suddenly the whole world’s perception of you changes. You suddenly get the benefit of the doubt, you’re welcomed, perhaps even become sought after. Flash the wrong one and well… Suddenly banks start freezing your accounts, airlines refuse book your tickets, countries close their doors, and companies ghost you. The world suddenly becomes a lot smaller and more hostile. All over a piece of paper we were randomly assigned at birth.

What qualifies as “the right one” won’t stay the same for the duration of your life either. Just ask the Russians about that one.

The Gold in the Pan

Is an arduous climb up a visa ladder the only way to secure one’s future in a climate resilient region? No, there are shortcuts. Refugees sometimes get lucky. If you have enough money (7 figures), the right ancestry, or hold certain passports already, you may get an express lane. Otherwise, this is the tried and true path. Millions have successfully followed it over the last century to change their fortunes.

So where does that leave us? Well, I have a tool to gift you, and this one is special.

When I first started down this path, half a decade ago, there was no clear answer as to which country was the most likely sanctuary. Everyone had different opinions and metrics (if any were even presented). Listicles regurgitated varieties of the same ill-researched tropes. Articles often confused PR with retirement visas, or digital nomad visas, or worse yet with obscure rural home buying schemes. (A few of those actually turned out to be legitimate). False narratives and out-of-date advice were rampant. Details were scant, and embassies were of little help.

Most immigration attorneys only know their visa niche in a single country. They charge hefty upfront consultation fees with no regard for your outcome. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a “GP for Immigration”. There’s no one to corral the specialists, understand your personal needs or strengths, or present the best options globally.

In light of this, I set out meticulously researching. I compiled data, validated it, and updating my strategy. I read real immigrant stories and distilled the key metrics to those that actually matter. I wanted to empower everyone needing to secure their future with a climate informed move.

A Labor of Love

What I’m about to present to you is a true labor of love. The first version of which I scrawled together during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The process described above was significantly more time consuming and painstaking before AI. Fortunately, we had all the time in the world back then.

I just needed to know what my realistic options even were. Where would it take me? How quickly could moves be made? What kind of commitment is required? My advantage: deep experience with one of the hardest immigration processes in the world. The visa concepts we reviewed were not foreign to me. Perhaps I was in the best position to make sense of all of this? For over a month I could hardly think of anything else. Every hour of spare time I could muster went to independent research. Slowly but surely, I scraped together my notes into a google doc.

The first version of the Ease of Climate Migration Index was born.

Today’s version has come a long way. I’ve continued to keep tabs on and update it over the years. Notable global and national changes have occurred since. Geopolitics shift, immigration attitudes swing, and along with them, the opportunities of individuals. Countries I once thought were “easy wins” have settled lower in the ranking. Simultaneously, ones I thought would stay closed forever, began to crack their doors.

The FAQ within the link describes my ranking methods, but essentially the key metrics are:

To Qualify

• Top tier national NDGAIN
• Significant land on the correct side of the 42nd parallel

To Rank (in this order)

• The more PR’s granted the better (directly comparable across nations)
• The lower the investment minimums, the better
• The more pro-immigration the current politics are, the better
• The quicker the time from your first visa to citizenship, the better
• Tie breaker for forcing you to renounce existing citizenships

To Date A Nation

With a new map in hand, let’s get you started on a game plan to find your sanctuary. Think of it much like dating to marry. You’re sussing out if a country has the qualities to be a good life partner, both for you and your children.

Step 1: Ancestry and Privileged Access

By virtue of your birth and family history, you may already have advantages others don’t. Think of this as a friendly introduction to a potential partner. These usually yield higher quality connections, in less time, and let you skip the “swiping stage” entirely.

Start with assessing your family tree. Can your grandparents prove that they are from one of the European countries on the list? We’re talking accessible records over “family lore” here. Think marriage, birth, hospital, immigration, and school records from that country. If so, it may be worth checking if that country has a liberal Jus Sanguinis law. It’s rare, but a second citizenship could literally be your birthright.

That aunt or uncle obsessed with lineage and record keeping is about to become your best friend.

Next, do a quick search to see if your country has any special migration agreements. For example, Mexican citizens have an advantaged pathway into Canada (via NAFTA). American citizens get their own visa stream into the Netherlands (via DAFT). Filipino citizens get fast-tracked Spanish citizenship (via Article 22). It’s possible your country has a similar agreement with one on our list.

Step 2: Compatibility Filter

For the rest of us, it’s off to setup a profile, set standards, do an honest self assessment, and adjust our filters.

I suggest finding a few countries on the index whose culture and identity you vibe with. Research them from every angle. Ideally, these will be higher up the list, but even the ones in the middle are possible for the determined. Review the details of the visas listed and see if you qualify (or could qualify) in the very near future. Typically this means having a professional skillset the country is looking for. Perhaps you’ve managed a business of the type the country needs? You might be surprised how high the demand for teachers or the trades is in certain countries.

Consider if you’re willing to learn that country’s language. Perhaps they already speak yours? Even if it’s a minority language there, you’ll still have a leg up. Consider language groups and sister languages. Knowing one romance language (such as Spanish or Italian) makes learning the others easier. This shortcut could save you thousands of hours. The US Foreign Service conveniently groups languages into tiers based on ease of learning for an English speaker. The good news is that many Northern European countries are in the easiest tier. Just think, in as little as 24 weeks from now, you could have a powerful tool in your migration arsenal.

Step 3: City Level Fit

This is the part where you go beyond first impressions. You are now trying to get an understanding of their personality, interests, and values. Is the fit more than just skin deep?

Once you’ve chosen a country, try to identify target cities on the right side of the 42nd Parallel. Where in this band might have the kind of people and events you enjoy? The internet, and now AI, provide no shortage of ways to go about this research. One effective way I’ve found is to look up some of your favorite hobbies and gauge the size and engagement of that community. You might be surprised that there’s a vibrant convention focused on exactly your interests.

Quora, Reddit, Meetup, and Eventbrite are your friends here.

Another fun way would be to look up some of your favorite artists. See where their top listeners cluster — the more obscure the better. This is a built-in Spotify feature. It may seem like an odd approach, but some bands represent entire sub-cultures. You may have “chosen kin” on the other side of the globe and not even know it.

Next, double check their climate prospects. Look up those cities’ climate drifts. Try to imagine actually living in that environment, rather than a city’s current one. Familiarize yourself with the NDGAIN city level attributes. See if you can place your city of interest in a low, medium, or high level in each of these categories. That last step will require some time, but it will be most revealing.

Step 4: “Going Steady”

Most people wouldn’t jump into a marriage sight unseen. Nor would they plan a grandiose event for a second date. It’s the same with choosing a city. Think of this stage as taking your first, firm, step into their world. You’re meeting their close friends and family; seeing if you can actually stand being in a room with them all day.

If your current passport allows, pick the cities that stand out most and visit them. Forget sightseeing and leave the city guides at home; this is a very different kind of trip. You’re scouting; taking special care to spend time there in a non-touristic way. Not from a visa sense, of course, I mean:

• Talk to the locals and stay in a less trafficked area.
• Shop at the neighborhood market
• Stay in an AirBnB that a local could actually afford.
• Work from the city library and visit a local festival or art event.
• Go to meetups and talk to other immigrants who successfully moved there. Ask them how they did it, what surprised them, both good AND bad.

This is a complete shift in mentality and priority from your typical vacationer.

Even if a visit is completely out of the question, you have a backup option. At minimum, connect with people from your target country residing in or visiting your own. Ask them about their country:

• Why did they leave?
• What are the biggest differences between here and there?
• Do they have immigrant friends from your country back home? How do they live?

Reach out to your network and see if any of your connections have lived in your target country. Even if not, it’s highly likely you know someone who has warm connections there. Invite that person out to coffee and ask for a personal introduction.

I know some of these points will be challenging for the natural introverts. I too am a fellow introvert who has gone through this exact process.

I can’t stress enough how important developing social skills is for successful immigration.

Building a new network of friends and colleagues is challenging. It’s frustrating, especially at the beginning — when cultural barriers come into play. However, it’s well worth it, and is required to truly thrive. Start with baby steps.

Step 5: Plan Your Future Together

At this stage you’re seriously considering your long-term potential with that partner. You’re envisioning your future together. You’re planning on how to balance each others careers, goals, life stages, and faults.

When you’re feeling good about both a country and city, consider your career plan. Of course, remote jobs make these kinds of moves significantly easier. For the majority, however, this means assessing what companies in that city would want to hire you badly enough to sponsor your work visa. Are you comfortable starting or buying a business there? Are you comfortable freelancing? Connect with some recruiters in the city and have a discussion about your resume and what would improve your appeal. Do this before making the move.

So much can be done from abroad, but do keep in mind that there is no replacement for “boots on the ground” in job hunting. Don’t expect to have a job lined up before you arrive, but do have a realistic understanding of your chances and timeline.

A “Good No” Saves Years

Be prepared for your research to hit a non-negotiable during any of these stages. You’ll have to start over, but that’s part of the game. Scratching a country off this list IS making progress. I too have fallen in love with cities (both as a tourist and on paper) before learning an ugly truth. Lackluster job markets, a socially closed populace, untrue “lore”, prejudice hiding just below the surface. These are all examples of unexpected but fatal flaws that made me smash the eject button. Consider it dodging a bullet. It’s much better to discover these before committing years and resources to the wrong city. It’s precisely why the research process in this article is so rigorous. You’re making a monumental change that will affect generations, and it needs to be treated as such.

It can be a winding road, but I know you’ll get there. I believe in you, even if you’re hesitant. My next article is aimed directly at the skeptical, nagging, and scared voices in the back of your head. The moment they speak loudest is when you see the climb before you. Stay tuned.

The TL;DR

• Immigration is a project, not a last-minute escape hatch. Learn the basics so you don’t waste money on bad advice or the wrong legal help.
• Start by inventorying your advantages. Passport strength, ancestry, and special country-to-country agreements can bypass years of effort.
• Know the pros & cons of each visa ladder rung. Tourist status is for visiting; true relocation usually takes a temporary path residency and, eventually, citizenship.
• Treat it like dating to marry. Target countries, then shortlist cities for lifestyle, language tolerance, and climate trajectory.
• Don’t forget the test drive. Pressure-test finalists by visiting like a local. Interview people who’ve lived there, and only commit once the job/sponsorship reality checks out.
• Expect dealbreakers and treat them as progress. Crossing countries off the list early is how you avoid expensive mistakes.

This article is the sixth of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science, its impacts, and provides tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the other articles below.

List: Your Personal Guide to the Climate Crisis | Curated by Stanislav Sinitsyn | Medium

So You Want to be an Immigrant? was originally published in Digital Global Traveler on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It isn’t just “the planet” you’re worried about, but your actual street, your mortgage and the place you hope to retire to. Heat, floods, fire, and failing infrastructure won’t hit every city equally. Some places will be squeezed to breaking, others will quietly emerge as havens. A “Plan-C” is about refusing to leave that to luck. It’s ensuring your family doesn’t wake up on the wrong side of nature one day.

To build it, you don’t need any more shock. You need to know which cities combine low risk with high coping capacity. It’s time to understand what a resilient city actually looks like. Climate maps (like this gorgeous Nat Geo tool) provide a useful, if not simplistic, global categorization. What it leaves out is why certain cities are higher or lower risk. For that, we need to turn to The University of Notre Dame. Their work is closest thing we have to a report card on which places are actually built to handle what’s coming. After this, you’ll no longer be left guessing on exactly where your prospects stand.

What’s an “ND-GAIN” anyway?

If you guessed “a chart” then you are a winner! This one tracks a city’s climate risk on the left axis vs its climate resilience on the bottom. It looks like this:

Let’s quickly summarize each quadrant with an example we can all relate to.

In the green: low risk & high resilience

Basically, you want a city that is as close to the bottom right as possible. These are the overly-prepared straight-A students from your school. You know, the ones who read every chapter, do all the practice problems, and even research beyond the syllabus. They will see the least amount of climate impact and already have the infrastructure today to handle worse.

Ann Arbor, Michigan & Madison, Wisconsin are the teacher’s pet.

Code blue: high risk & high resilience

If you can’t have it all, the next best place to be is in the top right. These cities will face significant climate change, but have risen to the challenge. These are the kids from a troubled home that still ace every test. They excel in mitigation and are determined to “make it”.

You just can’t keep Cambridge, Massachusetts & Minneapolis, Minnesota down.

Yellow light: low risk & low resilience

If that too isn’t an option, then your answer may be in realistic hope. Cities in the bottom left are behind the curve, but they are far from a lost causes. These are the classic procrastinators with easy semesters: un-tested but the material is forgiving. Fortunately, their climate impacts will be relatively less severe. They still have time to address the gaps in infrastructure, but need to get moving soon.

Lafayette, Louisiana & Kansas City, Kansas might just do their best work under pressure.

Red alert: high risk & low resilience

Finally, if you’re in the upper left… my condolences. These cities are directly in the path of a doom-loop scenario. Everything is stacked against them. If you find yourself here, a move is likely your best option.

Santa Ana, California & Hialeah, Florida are the riskiest cities in the country.

Dot to diagnosis

Once you find your city, I encourage you to click into it. Search your city, note its position, then scan through the detail page. The real power of this tool is in showing you precisely why each city was rated as such. Their strengths and weaknesses laid bare against their climate future. The sheer breadth of factors considered make it possible to both quickly and deeply understand what you’re in for. It covers six broad categories.

For risks, we start with their direct climate threats. Think damage from floods, heat waves, droughts, and sea level rise. Urban risk includes things like hospital bed capacity, health insurance rates, and the city’s water management plans. The population’s vulnerability is also considered. This includes average age (of humans and buildings), people living in flood zones or in the path of rising seas. The researchers even manage to pin down the ephemeral. Resilience risks, such as community involvement, city finances, openness to clean energy, trust in government, and educational access are all considered.

I honestly can’t think of too many more factors to include. It’s thorough, approachable, and leaves little to guesswork.

ND-GAIN is the most criminally under-circulated report on the planet.

American bias

A quick note for my international readers. I’m sure you’ve realized the report doesn’t cover global cities at this level of detail. We’ll talk about national statistics (and their cons) down below. However, stick with me on cities for a moment. There’s a workaround and it’s still a worthwhile read for you. Your goal: find an American city to use as a stand-in for one in your own country. If that sounds like a lot, don’t worry, I have shortcut for you.

Vividmaps offers a particularly helpful companion. It draws climate sister cities in the same color. Here’s a step-by-step on how to use it:

• Start by looking at the USA and find some areas that are similarly colored to your city, or one you’re familiar with.
• Next, choose a few similarly sized American cities from that region to find in the ND-GAIN chart.
• Make sure it has the same setting as your city: coastal if you’re coastal, inland if you’re inland.
• Last but not least, read through their vulnerability and readiness dimensions.

Found a city’s whose infrastructure, health, and social challenges sound like your local news? You’re on the right track.

Comparing extremes

Let’s revisit a couple of our model “students” in more detail. They exemplify the extremes of best and least prepared. Reading through these two examples will sharpen your intuition. After this section, you’ll have a much better gut sense on where your own city leans.

Ann Arbor, Michigan : the “City on a Hill”

Amongst the rolling green heart of southeastern Michigan lies Ann Arbor. It’s the kind of place that feels both intellectually alive yet comfortably grounded. The home of the University of Michigan is packed with students, artists, and coffee-fueled academics. Cyclists, shaded by thick canopies of trees, as far as the eye can see. The streets are lined with bookstores, cozy cafes, and craft breweries. The Huron River winds lazily through quiet parks and charming neighborhoods. Ann Arbor presents a small-town feel with big-city smarts. Composting, voting, and showing up for town hall meetings are par for the course.

Ann Arbor sets a high bar for climate readiness. At 30/100, it has one of the lowest climate risk scores in the country. In other words, we’re looking at a natural haven. Neither flooding, sea level rise, extreme heat, nor droughts are major concerns here.

The probability of a major flood in Ann Arbor before 2040 is only 10%. Even if one were to happen, the projected impact would be $305,000 — extremely low by city standards. Ann Arbor benefits from nearby Great Lake Erie, without exposure to coastal sea level rise. Heat and drought do pose some risk. However, solid infrastructure and services put the city in a strong position to handle them.

Readiness is where the city truly shines, however. It scores 84.6, ranking among the most resilient cities in America as well. That’s thanks to a highly civically engaged populace open to innovation (Social Readiness: 88.9). Ann Arbor is solvent, with strong credit and proactive energy policies (Economic Readiness: 82.1). Local government has low levels of corruption. Their educated, climate-aware electorate (Governmental Readiness: 82.9), not far from politicians’ minds.

In short, Ann Arbor isn’t just geographically lucky. Its citizens are doing the hard work to stay ahead of the curve.

A culture of preparedness allows them to bounce back quickly if something does go wrong.

As climate shifts, living in Ann Arbor will soon feel more like the Jersey Shore. A stark contrast to its current, much colder, climate twin of Berlin, Germany.

Santa Ana, California : the dumpster fire

In Orange County’s concrete core, Santa Ana crackles with heat and hustle. Palms sway above mural clad streets; sidewalk vendors fill the air with the aroma of carnitas and al pastor. It’s a city of warm evenings, packed taquerias, and cumbia drifting from open doorways. Cars muscle through traffic in tight neighborhoods. Children play in concrete courtyards. Families gather in shaded yards. While the city exudes chicano culture and community, it faces growing threats. The streets: dense, the infrastructure: aging, green space: sparse. Santa Ana, unfortunately finds itself on the opposite end of the climate spectrum.

With a risk score of 79.6, the city is exposed to serious threats. It faces some of the highest heat risk in the country, sporting an eye-watering 99/100 in that category alone.

To say Santa Ana struggles with droughts is the understatement of the century. The city’s adaptive capacity score is exactly 0.

That’s right — zero. That means neither a drought management plan nor significant water strategies. Little infrastructure is in place to manage prolonged shortages.

Santa Ana’s overall climate readiness score is only 29, putting it in the lowest tier of American cities. It ranks poorly in every single category. Social Readiness stands at only 27.5. This points to low civic engagement and limited local innovation capacity. Both elements are crucial for building grassroots climate resilience.

Santa Ana fares no better in Economic Readiness either. City coffers are already strained with debt. Low bond ratings discourage investment, minimal incentives exist for clean energy adoption. Its Governmental Readiness (at 32.6) is less than half that of Ann Arbor. The culprits are: low education levels, limited climate awareness, and higher levels of public corruption.

In short, Santa Ana is facing some of the toughest climate challenges in the country. The city is utterly unprepared for them. The tools to manage and recover from the coming disasters simply aren’t in place. Even if the desire was there, developing the needed infrastructure would be an uphill battle (to say the least).

Living in Santa Ana will soon feel like being in the nearby Joshua Tree desert.

Where to start looking

You now have a sense of what criteria to look for in a resilient city. You also know the kind to avoid. Many of you are likely realizing how precarious our current homes actually are. This begs the question: where do we start looking?

While ND-GAIN is not available for global cities, it IS available on a country level. It’s a decent place to start; the trend graphs being most revealing. Nations with policies that are unwaveringly geared towards resilience become easy to identify.

Some countries, like Switzerland, max out the index nearly every year. Others, like the United States, are squandering their excellent head starts.

You’ll even find newcomers who refuse to accept their climate destinies. Countries like Singapore are determined to become regional bulwarks.

Why only a “decent place to start”? National stats run the risk of being averaged out to meaningless.

Think of a large and varied country like Australia. An Aussie living in the hot, equatorial, wetlands of Darwin will face a far different climate reality than one living in the crisp, breezy, alpine hills of Tasmania. The average between the two often tells you nothing; it may not even exist as a real place.

A country doesn’t even have to be particularly large to muddy up its ND-GAIN and obfuscate areas of real danger. If elevation changes dramatically in a short span, so does the climate zone. Costa Rica is the poster child, with most of earth’s climates packed into just 288 miles.

Averages aren’t much consolation if the next town over is enjoying clear skies while your house is under water.

So where precisely do we look? I hope that with enough funding and interest, the University of Notre Dame will extend the project to global cities. After all, it would be extremely difficult to gather the statistics needed to complete your own GAIN analysis for every city in the world (even with AI). For practicality, we need a better way to narrow the playing field.

A Line in the Sand

If you’ve explored some climate mapping tools, you likely noticed a pattern. There are cities, and even countries, that bucked the trend. Climates that actually improved with time: fewer rainy days and more pleasant temperatures. These places tend to hug the poles.

To be clear, there is no hard consensus on a precise “safe zone” among climate scientists. We will all face climate disasters and unique hardships in the coming decades. However, they do agree (within a few lines of latitude) where negative climate impacts will be milder.

In some areas, the warming comes with silver linings. That zone starts at roughly the 42nd Parallel and continues north.

In the west, effectively all of Canada lies above this line. It skirts the southern borders of the American states of Oregon, Idaho, Michigan, and Massachusetts. In Europe, nearly all of France is above the line. The top halves of both Italy and the Republic of Georgia are above line. Turkey is below it. In the East, it passes along the southern border of Kazakhstan before dividing Mongolia from China. The Korean Peninsula is just below it. The Japanese island prefecture of Hokkaido sits happily perched above it.

Of course, the southern hemisphere has its own equivalent.

This sister zone starts at the 42nd Parallel South and continues down towards Antarctica. While it’s the same volume of the planet, the habitable land area here is tiny by comparison. In the west, 42 South marks the border between the Argentine states of Rio Negro and Chubut. In the east, it passes along the north coast of the Australian state of Tasmania. The parallel nearly bisects New Zealand’s islands. The nation’s capital, Wellington, sits just north of the line.

But why here and not elsewhere? YouTuber Yellow Dot Studios beautifully explains why these particular parallels are favored.

In short, it’s because this region:

• Avoids the heatwaves and pest encroachment
• Has no significant flooding or hurricane risk
• Contains ample freshwater
• Has manageable wildfire risk

The more polar leaning areas also stand to benefit from melting permafrost and ice. New freshwater and virgin farmland are left in their wake. These regions actually have the potential to sustain large populations for the first time.

Much like the degree of warming thresholds, it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. 42N/S is not a magical barrier against climate change. Stepping on the pole side of the 42nd won’t guarantee safety. Similarly, stepping on the equator side won’t necessarily spell doom either. However, the closer you are to this line (or a pole), the brighter your future looks, and vice versa.

Is the Door at Least Cracked?

Something incredible happens when you combine the parallel concept with ND-GAIN. Let’s look at only the countries squarely in the best ND-GAIN quadrant (least risk & most resilient). Then let’s eliminate any countries without significant territory on the polar sides of the 42nd. We’re left with:

• ~40 million square kilometers of land
• 30% of Earth’s total landmass
• 36 countries
• Tens of thousands of possible cities

Honestly, this is great news!

We absolutely have suitable space for everyone forced to relocate by climate change.

Consider that the vast territories of polar nations are becoming more hospitable every day. Canada and Russia are prime beneficiaries and they’re hardly the only ones. Physical possibility is, of course, only half the battle — but an important one.

As we’ve seen, ND-GAIN is an incredibly broad resource. Food, water, health, ecology, human habitats and infrastructure are all included. It even covers many important social considerations. The ease of doing business, rule of law, corruption, education, and inequality rates are all factored in. However, it’s missing one critical component.

A country must actually be accessible in order for it to be a climate haven.

Immigration is a murky and nuanced topic even on the best of days. Culturally similar nations can be starkly different in welcoming newcomers. Two individuals, who are 99% similar, are afforded vastly different options. Many of the key characteristics are not in our control; certainly not where (or to whom) we are born. Governing laws and attitudes change on a dime. Even a once warm and welcoming country can quickly revert course. A once in-demand skill can lose it’s sway, as can a passport.

Those few feet over an imaginary line make all the difference in the world. The next article is all about how to cross it properly, if you so choose. Or perhaps more accurately, if nature has chosen for you. Stay tuned.

The TL;DR

• Climate risk is local. Plan for your city (heat, floods, fire, infrastructure), not “the planet.”.
• Plan C = pick cities on purpose. Target places with low risk + high readiness, not on a hopeful or hazy hunch.
• Use ND-GAIN as your filter. It’s a risk vs resilience report card, and the real value is understanding why a place scores as it does. Know if your city can do better.
• Country averages can lie. They hide massive regional differences, so use them only to narrow the list.
• Practical shortcut: Focus on strong ND-GAIN poleward of ~42° N/S. Then the real bottleneck becomes immigration access. (More on this next)
• Follow me for the next tool in your arsenal.

This article is the fifth of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science, its impacts, and provides tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the other articles below.

List: Your Personal Guide to the Climate Crisis | Curated by Stanislav Sinitsyn | Medium

Your City Has a Climate Report Card was originally published in The Environment on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What to do after seeing the graphs

You’ve stared down the climate charts. You know what “Degrees of Warming” actually mean for our soon-to-be world. You can picture the heat, the floods, the food shocks, the migrant crises. They stopped being numbers on a screen the moment you realized they’ll hit in your own lifetime.

Feeling shaken by that is rational; staying stuck there isn’t. This article is about empowerment. It’s about channeling your fear into motivation and a plan. To do that, we’re borrowing the toolkits used in finance, engineering, and national security. We then apply them to your life. No more doom-scrolling yourself numb; the order of the day is Risk Management.

As the risk in question is existential (the highest order), let’s assume a conservative position. That is:

When the consequences are dire, it’s best to assume, act on, and be prepared for, the worst possible outcome.

With each passing year and degree of warming, the worst-case scenario becomes the more likely one. Despite this, I’m sure some of my (more optimistic leaning) readers are experiencing a knee-jerk reaction. If this sounds like one of the voices in the back of your head, let me pose a series of questions to make my case. In the process, we’ll set up a useful framework for managing this type of risk.

Donald Rumsfeld to the rescue?

Remember former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld?

It’s ok, I don’t either. He’s only famous for two things: orchestrating the American invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s and The Rumsfeld Matrix. Today we’ll be talking about his latter, lesser-known work. In justifying the invasion, he reveals a fascinating framework for strategic planning. How to manage risks, especially those you may not be aware of yet? The diagram below is deceptively simple. Yet thinking through it often causes a surprising shift in behavior.

It’s divided into four quadrants. On one side we have awareness of a risk. That is, do we see it coming? How much time do we have to respond to it? The other side is the understanding of a risk. That is, how clearly can you see the risk? How easily can you determine its impact when it arrives?

We, therefore, get the following categories of risk. Let’s go through each.

Known — knowns

• AKA: Visible & Measurable
• Description: We see these coming from a mile away. We know exactly what will happen when they land.
• Climate Analog: These are the 1st order effects of climate change. They are easily predictable with measured rises in average global temperatures. Eg: heat waves, rising seas, crop shortages, etc.
• Action: Prepare for their arrival ahead of time to mitigate their impact

Known — unknowns

• AKA: Visible but Vague
• Description: Risks that we definitely know are coming but do not yet know their severity. They evolve quickly, are difficult to predict, and may not be fully understood until they hit.
• Climate Analog: These are the 2nd and 3rd order impacts of climate change. It’s less clear and harder to predict how humans, our systems, and governments will react. This is especially true of sudden changes and of the interplay between concurrent crises. Another example could be how quickly additional carbon is added as Global South nations grow. Their rates of growth and green adoption are hard to pin down.
• Action: Collect as much data as possible; project as many scenarios as possible. Consult as many experts as possible; attempt to reconcile differing perspectives. Position yourself to be ready to mitigate the worst-case scenario.

Unknown — knowns

• AKA: Our Inherent Blind Spots
• Description: These are biases. Risk that we have unconsciously and implicitly accepted as “just a part of life”. We therefore never seriously assess them. We often (and wrongly) believe we can’t do anything differently. Despite data to the contrary, they persist.
• Climate Analog: These often surface in response to climate data. On a broad scale it’s believing that our economy cannot function (or will be unacceptably diminished) by converting to green power. It’s believing that humans do not have the ability to impact the climate in a meaningful way. On an individual level, it’s refusing to consider climate planning when it comes to your future. It’s blindly carrying on where you currently are, as you always have. It’s ignoring the implicit risk you are taking on through inaction.
• Action: This is a bit of a tougher one, but the goal is to turn these into Known — Knowns. Increase self awareness through a continuous process of reassessment. Think outside the box and identify where your personal blind spots are. What assumptions do you make? What do you take for granted? What type of fallacies do you usually fall for? Understand true causes by asking five levels of why. You know… like just a toddler does all day long! Adopt first principles thinking.

Unknown — unknowns

• AKA: Completely Unpredictable Events
• Description: Acts of God, black swans, sudden breakthroughs / failures of technology, and other exceedingly unlikely events.
• Climate Analog: Climate reporting tends to be pretty bleak. A lot of people tend to use this category as their refuge for unwarranted optimism. Often, that leads to magical thinking. We assume that anything arising from this category is going to be positive. “Deus ex Machina” and “Hail Mary” live here. We believe that nature will continue to be resilient indefinitely. We hope that technological breakthroughs will only positively impact the climate. We pretend that somehow our city / region / country is special, that it’s immune to climate change. Well, two risks have recently emerged from this category. Our grids are on overdrive feeding power to new technologies like AI and Cryptocurrency. New and unexpected wars are releasing additional carbon. Neither of these could have been predicted at the turn of the century.
• Action: Recognize and accept that there are negative impacts you will not be able to predict, even with all the resources in the world. Any risk mitigation strategy inherently overlooks these risks. By their very nature, they are impossible to plan for. The implication here is that we need to humble ourselves. We must plan to leave room for unexpected negative events to arise from this quadrant. In practice, this will absolutely feel like your plan is excessive. You’ll wonder if you’re over-prepared. You’ll even lose out on some potential gains. It also means you’re not falling for hubris.

Let’s linger in that last quadrant for just a moment. If you slept through stats class, this section is most certainly for you.

Techno-optimists

Believe it or not, I am an optimist at heart. I believe in the human spirit and that necessity is the mother of invention. It IS possible that we will miraculously invent our way out of this crisis. After all, it’s why we humans have gotten this far to begin with… perhaps precisely how we got into this mess too. Humans are also naturally bad at both statistics AND exponential thinking. (Daniel Kahneman goes into great — and entertaining — detail in his book Thinking Fast and Slow; a recommended read for anyone).

The feasibility of carbon capture tech could be a lengthy article on its own, but let’s interrogate the most optimistic case. For the moment, we’ll ignore that scientists in this field say only 10% of climate plans reflect the tech’s real abilities. We’ll put aside that they themselves do not believe it can reverse climate change alone. (Even in a best case scenario, the tech can’t capture sufficient carbon fast enough.)

Let’s map out exactly the proposed risk profile this optimistic position is taking. It assumes the following:

1. Devices capable of removing most of the carbon from the atmosphere are possible
2. That these devices will be invented before we hit 3C of warming
3. Sufficient resources exist and can be extracted quickly enough to manufacture them
4. Production of such devices at scale is possible
5. Global deployment of enough devices occurs before we hit 3C of warming
6. The devices are able to be maintained for long enough to remove sufficient carbon to return us to, at most, 2 degrees of warming

To make the math simple we’ll assume that the likelihood of each step doesn’t affect the others. The way you assess the probability of an outcome as a whole is to multiply the probability of each step together. This is highly speculative, so I encourage you to have a chat with your favorite AI about it. Have it consider various sources and assumptions. Feel free to comment if you get some interesting responses.

For the purpose of our thought experiment, I used GPT 4.5’s deep research feature. I asked it to be conservative whenever making estimates. At each step I required a source, along with reasoning to support its probability.

Below is a summary of GPT’s responses to our assumptions and the probability of each event. Personally, I think it’s still quite optimistic.

1. 70% — Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology exists as a proof of concept; net capture is not high enough to be practical
2. 60% — Pace of innovation is uncertain; it’s impacted dramatically by policy and investment
3. 80% — The resources exist, but the massive scaling needed may put pressure on supply chains
4. 50% — DAC consumes a high amount of energy and is not yet economically competitive
5. 40% — Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) tech has historically underperformed expectations. Global deployment at the scale needed is speculative.
6. 30% — High risk in captured carbon leaking back into the atmosphere over time

Aaaaaand the grand total is… (drum roll please!)

A whopping 2.5%!

You had better odds of being born a triplet.

Let’s put the techno-optimists’ (and that voice in the back of your head’s) belief into gambling terms. They are betting your livelihood, as well as all future generations of your family, on rolling snake eyes. There’s no up-side to the bet either; you just get to keep your existing chips if you win.

Slow motion train wreck

There’s one more idea that we need to keep in mind to start our risk assessment. This is the concept of Derailment Risk, otherwise known as a “doom loop”. It’s the formal name for what our “Patient Earth” was suffering from in a previous article. Each effect of climate changes has multiple negative consequences. They stack, one atop the other, and together become an existential threat. Derailment Risk is a vicious cycle in the same vein; it’s precisely why 3C of warming is so disastrous. It sets off a cascade that could lead us to a “Hot-house Earth”. That cycle is more familiar to Venus than our current planet. Were it to happen on Earth, it would render our planet inhospitable.

The doom loop begins when nations start incurring ever growing climate infrastructure debt. Anyone working in software engineering or project management will find this all-too-familiar. It’s Tech Debt made flesh on a global scale. Storms and disasters of growing intensity take a greater financial toll. Governments are then forced to divert more and more of the budget to organizations like FEMA. They’re forced into an ever more costly cycle of cleanup and rebuilding. More and more money vanishes just to maintain a semblance of our status quo. Even in a country as prosperous and resource rich as the USA, a $1.4 Trillion gap in infrastructure maintenance exists today. It’s expected to reach $5 Trillion by 2040. The American Society of Civil Engineers barely gave the nation’s infrastructure a C grade. Countless fallen empires are rolling in their graves right now.

These rising costs don’t happen in a vacuum. Every dollar spent on disaster recovery has an opportunity cost. When our transit, electric, water, broadband, and other key infrastructure systems begin to fail, the money has to be pulled from somewhere. Any social issues we are struggling to solve today will immediately take a back seat. Most certainly any investment into green tech or decarbonization efforts will as well. They’re already grossly underfunded, even in our current, non-climate-strained, state.

Yet another medical analogy: our society over-focuses on the most expensive treatments. We’re always shelling out for emergency interventions. Yet we ignore simple, affordable, and effective preventative measures.

Smaller and more vulnerable island nations are already staring down the barrel of derailment. Ever stronger hurricanes unrelentingly exact their toll. What does one do when climate disasters inflict double your nation’s GDP worth of carnage, every year? Not a hypothetical, this is the situation in Dominica today. What happens when 40% of your current budget is eaten up by servicing debt from last year’s disaster cleanup? This is precisely the kind of destabilization that leads to further exacerbated migrant crises. An ensuing ethical crisis follows in managing them. As with anything climate related, the scale and severity only increases over time. The wealthy “Global North” nations are not immune either. They just have a slightly longer runway before facing their own derailment risk.

Today, we’re still on “easy mode”, yet struggling to rise to our existing societal challenges. How do we expect our governments to perform when they have to juggle multiple crises and a battered economy?

Let’s not mention the investment needed to reverse or prevent rising carbon levels.

Savior complex

There’s a certain injustice to all this.

Many of the nations that are least to blame, are also least well equipped to handle the crisis, and also bear the brunt of these catastrophes. Climate change is the definition of a collective crisis. No individual nation can exempt themselves, nor can any nation single-handedly become the world’s climate savior. It doesn’t matter if even the long shots come to pass. China can revolutionize green energy grids and production. Europe can go entirely carbon neutral in 20 years. Canada can go completely plastic free. It won’t stop the crisis. Why? Because simultaneously, Americans will continue driving large gas guzzling vehicles. Across the globe, the Middle East can’t stop drilling for oil. The Global South has no choice but to run billions of air conditioners just to survive.

The climate crisis seems to be a “perfect storm” meeting our collective Achilles’ heel. I can’t help but think back to this often overlooked dialogue in the 1998 film adaptation of Lost in Space. They’re discussing why the Jupiter II mission — successfully leaving earth with a human family onboard — was so critical.

GENERAL

Major, you are aware Earth’s resources are severely limited.

WEST

(played by none other than Matt LeBlanc, of Friends fame!)

Every schoolchild knows our recycling technologies will save the environment. Sending a family across the galaxy is a publicity stunt to sell soda to people of all ages.

GENERAL

What I am about to tell you is classified. Every schoolchild has been lied to. The recycling technologies have failed. In less than two decades Earth will be unable to support human life.

The original script had an even spicier line which didn’t make the final cut:

GENERAL

We spun the ad campaign to give the mission a friendly face, keep people from panicking in the streets. We partnered with Coke because the 900 billion this mission cost would have bankrupted the government.

This scene was never meant to play out as a documentary.

Ok, that was a nostalgic deep cut. There’s a more recent, objectively better, and more realistic film to help frame your thinking. I’m talking about the magnum opus of flaccid disaster response in the face of clear evidence. It has to be the 2021 film Don’t Look Up.

Give that a watch to dismantle any techno-optimism or government-savior complex that may be holding you back. That goes double for our current geopolitical climate. Fortunately, we have a lot more time and individual options than the protagonists of either film. We are also facing a less extreme crisis than these movies depict (at least in our lifetimes).

I don’t think anyone has said it better than the authors of Derailment Risk, cited at the start of this section.

“Ponder these figures: can you envisage a remotely comparable event — short of nuclear Armageddon — that could cause damage on a similar relative scale in larger, richer states, and do so repeatedly?”

It’s far past time we begin acting like it, both as a society and as individuals. There’s plenty already written about the societal level. I’m here to guide you as an individual.

Assessing your personal climate risk

So… how do we deal with these harsh realities? It begins with a sober assessment of one’s personal climate risk. The purpose of this section is to help you take stock. We must connect your future climate visualization to your present day-to-day. This breaks us out of paralysis, allows us to decide what to do next, and to act while we still have time. What preparations do you need to start today to manage the risks of tomorrow?

We have a head start: a useful barometer, in form of a global disaster in our rear view mirror. Even starting this conversation in earnest before 2020 would’ve been difficult. We all suffered from a lack of reference in our lifetimes.

COVID-19 was, by all means, an entry-level global disaster.

It was averagely infectious and less lethal than the prior global pandemics. The majority of advanced economies were spared the worst by rapidly transitioning to remote work. Loans and government interventions kept many businesses running and people earning. Even physical industries were able to adapt relatively quickly. Low cost interventions like better distancing, masks, and staggered shifts saved lives. Even modest investments, such as upgraded HVAC systems and HEPA filters, were widely implemented. Our performance during COVID relied on significant mitigations being within arms reach.

In other words, we were lucky.

Keep that in mind as I pose the following questions:

1. How well do you believe your state or national government handled the COVID-19 Pandemic?
2. Do you believe your government is now better or worse prepared for a greater disaster?

Then, consider more broadly, how your government has performed over time.

1. Is infrastructure in your region improving or crumbling?
2. Are social issues in your region improving or worsening?
3. How strong do you feel your government’s finances are?
4. Is heavy debt necessary just to maintain the status quo?

Given your answer above, do you feel your country is susceptible to derailment?

1. In less than 15 years?
2. In less than 30?
3. In your lifetime?
4. In your children’s lifetime?

Even without many references, I suspect you likely have a gut sense on most of these now. This will form your base risk and frame the cost of inaction. It’s what you can expect by staying put and not preparing.

As is usually the case, the devil is in the details. Most climate information you encounter in the press is faaar too broad to be useful. Outside of assessing political risk, looking at country level data is largely irrelevant. Unless, of course, your country happens to be the size of Singapore. The more varied the terrain, crossing many longitudes, the more misleading national averages become. Even regional analyses can be insufficient. Take California, a particularly long and geographically varied state. A Californian living in the alpine reaches of the Sierra Nevadas will be facing a very different climate reality than the one living in the arid Inland Empire.

This is precisely why you must start at the city level.

Tokyo drift

Not the one you’re thinking of, but you’re welcome for the ear-worm. When it comes to climate preparedness, there’s one critical oversight I encounter time and time again. Folks approach the implications with a Normalcy Bias. Any climate article is practically a treatise on it. Think of it as the opposite of the classic Wayne Gretzky quote:

“Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

You don’t need to be a hockey fan to know or understand this quote. Yet 70% of people fail to act on it in a disaster scenario. I’m aiming to bring that stat down a smidgeon.

It’s natural; even the well versed and educated in climate science often fall prey to this in practice. We plan our retirements and envision our twilight years based on today’s reality. We plant roots and build communities, expecting the cities that host them to remain largely unchanged. We do this in one breath and complain about how “weird” last winter was in the next. We talk about how brutal this summer was, or how the seasons are becoming unpredictable. We wax poetically on how “different” the seasons feel from when we were kids. Yet, somehow, our minds are still anchored and rooted in how the climate “should be”.

On some level, despite knowing better, we’re expecting everything to “go back to normal” one day.

I’ve got two tools to help take care of that for you.

Let’s start simple and get comfortable with the idea of a climate zone. The world’s about to seem a lot smaller. Did you know that you can get a sense of the weather in any region of the world almost instantly? Simply check how a foreign climate zone compares to your own, or places you’ve been before.

You don’t need to travel to Shanghai to know how the weather is there. You already know if you’ve been to the American South.

Both have hot summers and are wet throughout the year, putting them in the same climate zone. It’s also why much of California’s coast feels so… Mediterranean, same climate zone. They’re not just for making your vacation planning super convenient either. Climate zones allows you to better grasp how each part of the world will transform over time.

The following tool is the best introduction to this concept that I’ve ever come across. It follows 70 global metros (definitely places you have heard of) and categorizes them based on their climate zones.

I’m going to paint some very broad strokes here. In short, these zones answer two questions:

1. How hot are the summers?
2. Is there a wet/dry season and when does it occur?

So scales of temperature and rain, really. It then classifies them into four broad (color coded) categories. Finally we add some shading for sub-climates. For example, New York and Seoul are both in the “Cold” climate zone (shaded purple). Both have hot summers, but Seoul’s dry season is in the winter. That means Koreans don’t face the “Snowmageddon” New Yorkers have become all-too accustomed to. Seoul gets a slightly pinker hue to reflect that.

Take a moment before scrolling past the image excerpt above. Imagine what each sub-climate might feel like. If you can, pick a representative city in your mind for each combination of hot/cold vs wet/dry. Ideally, one that you have some experience with.

But wait, there’s more! As you scroll, time moves with you, to the year 2070. You’ll notice that a lot of these cities begin to shift into much hotter climates. The “Cold” climate zone all but vanishes entirely. Phrasing like “The New Scandinavian Riviera” and “Hollywood to Bollywood” communicate the concept better than I ever could. The places future you will flock to for a life of leisure are what many would consider frigid now. The tropical-paradise-retirement-havens of today are going to simply become inhospitable. Their wet bulb temperatures exclusionary for older folks in ailing health.

Yes, the famously cold city of Toronto, Canada will more resemble balmy Atlanta, Georgia in your children’s time.

What dangers might this climate drift pose for your city? I’ll refer you to National Geographic’s — frankly stunning — tool for just this purpose. (It’s worth their email collection, I promise!) Compare the drift of any two cities side-by-side and watch it shine.

Crucially, it points out how many more dangerous heat days a city will experience. Most chilling is their note on the 90 cities that will soon drift into uncharted territories. That is, people living in them, will be facing a climate that no human being ever has before. Those zones would be impossible in a pre-warming Earth, and have no analogs today. Almost like living on another planet.

A tale of “two” cities

Case in point: graduates today planning to retire in Southern Florida or a Caribbean island will be sorely disappointed. That’s the equivalent of a retiree today considering a move to a Saudi Arabia… with hurricanes! I wish that was an exaggeration. According to U Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, Miami’s 2080 climate analog is Abu ‘Arish, Saudi Arabia.

This isn’t an exact science, of course. Each tool and model is based on different climate assumptions. However, consider what we’ve learned so far about risk mitigation and our climate trajectory. It’s wise to treat the climate zone drift you see here as a BEST case scenario and plan accordingly.

To generalize, if you live in North America, your city’s weather will likely shift by 9 miles with every passing year.

It may be wise to consider visiting a few of your climate analog cities today. Find which city has the weather today that matches the 2070 weather of the place you’ve settled in (or planning to retire to). Buck the trend and come during some of their more extreme seasons. You’ll not only save on airfare, but you’ll leave with some valuable insights.

Ask yourself the following questions while there:

1. Would I actually be comfortable in this kind of climate all the time?
2. Would I be able to handle this climate with less mobility, less energy, fewer mental faculties, while also manage the diseases of old age?
3. How would the infrastructure in my city handle the weather that my climate analog experiences today?
4. Are my city streets already flooding with less rain than I see here?
5. Is my city already struggling with rolling blackouts in less extreme heat?

Finally, layer on the third-order challenges that we discussed in the previous article. It’s weather AND increases in political tension, crime, and pathogens. It’s weather AND food / water shortages. Do you believe your chosen city will be able to withstand all of these hardships, simultaneously? Would it continue to make progress on existing social issues in this environment?

Plan “C“ starts here

If the answer to the questions above makes you feel uneasy or even terrified, you’re not the only one. That is also your cue to begin working on a backup plan. I’ve introduced you to a framework and gave you the first tools, in a growing arsenal, to tackle your personal climate risk. In the next article, I will continue adding arrows to your quiver. They will be even more precise. I will guide you through everything you need to know to create your personal climate response plan. This is where the real value comes in. You can begin to feel empowered rather than anxious; you’ve earned that. Stay tuned.

The tl;dr

• Use the Rumsfeld Matrix to sort climate risk.
• Treat technology as a low-probability upside, not a plan.
• Watch for signs of derailment (the climate doom loop) at national, regional, AND city levels.
• Understand your city’s climate drift; plan for where the puck is going.
• Visit one climate analog city in its worst season.
• List your top five local fragilities (power, water, heat, food, health, flooding)
• Read my next article on how to start your “Plan C”

This article is the fourth of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science, its impacts, and provides tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the other articles below.

List: Your Personal Guide to the Climate Crisis | Curated by Stanislav Sinitsyn | Medium

Anxiety to Action: A Climate Risk Playbook was originally published in The Environment on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The first and second-order effects of climate change are clear and well documented. Rising global temperatures cause heatwaves, droughts, storms, etc. In the previous article in this series, we went a step further and discussed how heat waves consistently stoke violent crime. This is a second-order effect of a warming climate. Taken together, these become systematic risks, a new class of hazards. Like a worsening heart condition, climate change acts as a threat multiplier on society. It makes all existing conditions that much more dangerous. We’re talking: political tensions, economic inequalities, environmental racism, and xenophobia.

These are the third-order effects of climate change. The ways our societies react and change as a result, and how that presents a new threat in and of itself.

Social Powder Kegs

A landmark meta-analysis (study of studies) was published in Science magazine in 2013. It covered 45 datasets and 60 studies around conflict and climate change. The authors dug as far back as 10,000 BC and all the way to present day. What they found was sobering. Each standard deviation from average temperature increased conflict between groups by +13%. In other words, heat inflames the tribalism within us.

Recall that best-case scenario we blew past last year? It expects 2 standard deviations of change by 2050. The worst case anticipates 4 standard deviations. Put simply, today’s political polarization could be half-again worse in 25 years. The same goes for racially motivated and extremist religious violence. The effect doesn’t end at national borders either. A similar Stanford study found that, at 4C of warming, wars between nations become 26% more likely. This is our current trajectory for children’s twilight years.

An escalating series of climate-driven migration crises add gasoline to this fire. We’ve already seen our first at the US border. Back to back hurricanes in 2020 devastated Central America’s agricultural industry. In just 3 years time, the number of starving increased 4x from 2 to 8 Million people. It’s no surprise that the US Border Patrol recorded 1.7 Million illegal crossings in 2021. That was the highest volume this century… so far. 43% of those encounters involve people from Central America. In a rare move, the Biden Administration openly acknowledged that climate change was a significant driver. The evidence was that compelling.

It’s not hard to understand the migrants’ positions. Imagine you and your family depend on farming, to not only put food on the table, but for your entire livelihood. 1 in 4 people globally do just that. Your fields: repeatedly destroyed. Your children: on the brink of starvation. Facing this and all the challenges we’ve already discussed… What other choice do you have but to leave?

Most parents say they would go to the ends of the earth for their children. There just happen to be a few borders between here and there.

Every nation will be facing either a climate or migrant crisis (likely both) by 2050. Understanding the full extent of the upheaval doesn’t require much imagination. You only need to look where the climate crisis has already struck. The Syrian Civil War of 2011 was the first geopolitical event directly and definitively driven by climate change. It started with a drought of unprecedented severity. Lack of food and water caused a massive and sudden migration from rural to urban centers. Reports on these types of migrations often describe “informal housing settlements”. I find the phrase disingenuously euphemistic. Let’s “call a spade, a spade”: these people were living in makeshift ghettos.

The surrounding neighborhoods erupted into riots. Inevitable clashes with police and the military ensued. The remaining, impoverished and isolated, rural communities were easy pickings. Religious extremists took this opportunity to radicalize the youth. When the dust cleared, over half a million lives were lost.

You might be tempted to think that scenario is unique to the region. The Middle East is surely no stranger to armed uprisings, civil unrest, religious strife, and terrorism. However, one only needs to look at the diagram below to realize how these forces act on every nation.

In one region “Violent Non-State Actors” manifest as jihadist. In another, you’ll see unsanctioned militias. Perhaps your state gets vigilantes. We’ve only seen this in the Middle East and Africa so far because these are some of the most climate vulnerable countries. They feel the impacts first.

Sadly, it’s all happened before.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Let’s walk back a few generations. It’s 907 and you’re living in China; these are the last days of the Tang Dynasty. The country you live in has been around longer than America. In that time, it produced transformative inventions such as gunpowder, mechanical clocks, gas cylinders, and paper money. Some buildings even used water for air conditioning. Yet your mighty empire was brought down by rain; first a surge and then sudden lack of it. The Asian Monsoon largely determines the water available in the region in any given year. In 858 massive flooding overran the canals and devastated vast tracts of farmland. Twelve years later the rains stopped almost entirely — a famine broke out. The resulting instability was enough to spark multiple revolts. The surrounding powers sensed weakness. The ensuing collapse reshaped Chinese history.

It’s worth noting that The Asian Monsoon is largely driven by fluctuations in sunlight. Today, air pollution in China is once again causing a decline in this monsoon.

The other side of the Pacific was not faring much better at the time.

The great Mayan civilization was facing a similar climate-driven collapse. At 700 years old, an empire of over 13 Million built massive pyramids. They had a highway system and developed the 365 days calendar we use today. Their collapse also began with a series of mega droughts that disrupted food and water supplies. The Maya had long deforested their empire. Agriculture and their famous monuments needed a lot of room. The already compromised biodiversity simply couldn’t recover. Parasites and pathogen carrying insects thrived in such a “disturbed environment”. The empire, over-populated, could no longer sustain itself. Internal conflict and competition for dwindling resources took over. Eventually their once great cities lay abandoned, sacked by rival empires.

It seems we don’t learn our lessons.

Even in the 1400’s, the 600+ year old Khmer empire (of Angkor Wat fame) collapsed for similar reasons. They too cleared their land for greater agricultural output. They too drained their lakes. Regular rainfall turned into a decades long drought. Then periods of intense rains destroyed critical infrastructure. The Khmer had even built the water management systems to manage such a crisis. Sadly, adequately maintenance wasn’t in the budget. It failing catastrophically when it was needed most. Why? As climate change began to take its toll on the cities, the elites began leaving. Without their resources, the city was doomed to collapse under its own weight. As usual, another empire (in this case Siam), stepped in when they saw an opening.

Sound familiar? These are exactly the risks that climate scientists are warning us about today.

History is littered with empires brought down by their climates. Yet it takes a special kind of human folly to believe we’ve transcended nature. We cling to the belief that our technology somehow makes us immune. We’re repeatedly wrong.

Certainly, these builders of monuments, all believed themselves to be above nature. Don’t we as well?

Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

Let’s bring this all back to the 21st century.

A climate refugee crisis is looming. The IPCC estimates that 3.6 Billion people live in the regions of greatest danger. Like the Syrians in 2011, these people will have no other choice but to leave. The WEF confirms that just 2C of warming could produce as many as 1.5 Billion climate refugees by 2050. Let’s put that number into context. There were only 38 million refugees in the whole world in 2024. WWII was the single worst displacement event in human history, at roughly 50 Million people. In other words, we haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s coming. This won’t happen all at once, of course. There’s no hard data on when the trickle becomes a flood, but we can estimate. Starting in 2030 (5 years from the time of this writing), an additional 250,000 people are going to die every year as a direct result of climate events. The figure is cumulative: it will be 500K in year 2, 750K in year 3, and so on. We can use this as a proxy for how many more climate refugees to expect each year. The casualties will be the ones that didn’t make it out.

Keep in mind climate refugees are in dire straits. They are not the typical economic or political immigrants of decades past. They won’t be coming alone or in small groups. They’re not here to work and send money back home. Ultimately, they’re not even coming because they want to. They have no other choice.

They won’t be deterred by harsh or unwelcoming immigration policies. They likely won’t even be much deterred by guns, bullets, or arrests. A prison sentence in Europe or even the harrowing conditions of a US border camp may be preferable to the situation back home. If even one of their family members is granted asylum, it could all be worth it. Humans are capable of enduring tremendous hardship and adversity when pushed to desperation or backed into a corner. Their actions may not be pretty or always ethical. Just a tiny sliver of hope is often all that’s needed to press on against impossible odds.

What’s a Nation to Do?

We’ve seen three kinds of responses to refugee crises in the past. There’s the militarization, the open door policy, and the attempted middle ground of controlled entry. Let’s examine how each plays out.

The Hard Option

The first approach is best characterized by the United States and Hungary.

They’re usually championed by “strongman” type, authoritarian-sympathizer, heads of state. Both nations have built border fences, limited crossing points, and total crossings. Some days are limited to as few as 30. Irregular border crossings are further and further criminalized. Both countries have seen refugee camps and mass detention centers growing on their borders. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called such detentions unlawful. The camps are rife with human rights violations. Reports of refugee abuse, beatings, unwarranted use of attack dogs, tear gas, and water cannons are rampant. It’s an ethical nightmare to say the least. Trump’s America is even going a step further — violently removing existing migrants. “The largest deportation in America’s history” is already underway. Warnings that 42% of America’s agriculture relies on undocumented laborers remain unheeded.

The Soft Option

Sweden, on the other hand, began optimistically.

Their strong social safety net, a model for the world, is it not? During the 2016 European Migrant Crisis, Swedes took in more refugees per capita than any other nation. So much so, that by 2022, over a quarter of their population was foreign born. A figure double that of 2002. Integration did not go over smoothly. Most of the migrants lived in segregated neighborhoods with high unemployment rates. Education levels dropped to the point that literacy became a real problem again. The lack of opportunities in the area lead to the rise of gangs and ensuing violence. Local police, unable to control the conflicts, called in the military to quell riots. Sweden today has the second highest homicide rate in all of Europe. These neighborhoods also became fertile ground for radical islamist groups, such as the Nyans. They anticipate enough support by 2026 to enter Swedish parliament.

Even a well-intentioned, wealthy country, with strong social programs, struggled to integrate a large influx of refugees. It begs the question of whether the seemingly compassionate approach is feasible anywhere. Providing food and water to so many in a climate-strained environment is a massive undertaking in its own right. Providing real opportunity for those people may be impossible under our current systems.

Is There Even a Middle Ground?

Italy and Greece attempted to walk the tightrope.

Both have taken in climate refugees from North Africa and the Middle East. Both have set limits ensuring immigrant populations don’t exceed roughly 10% of total. Italy’s population growth was entirely due to immigration in the last few years. Half of Italy’s immigrants were able to find eventual employment. Yet despite these apparent wins, we see a splintering. EconPol Europe describes Italy today as a two tiered society. Immigrants are taking on largely low skilled and irregular jobs. Companies now throw cheap labor at their problems instead of innovating. Even so, immigrant unemployment rates still rose above that of native born Italians. GDP remained largely stagnant as the welfare system took on additional strain. Resulting tensions have risen among Italians; politics have begun to shift right.

Greece saw similar immigrant employment rates. Although, they came out ahead in net economic impact: a +2.8% rise in GDP attributed to immigration. However, they did so at the cost of providing less support to their immigrant population. Over 1/3rd of Greece’s immigrants live in dystopian conditions. Think shipping containers inside refugee camps. Positive economic growth hasn’t stopped all-too-familiar political tensions and nationalist movements from rising. Armed citizen militias now patrol the border. Greece is slowly moving towards the militarized approach. Detention camps and incidents of violence are on the rise.

Economics, it seems, does surprisingly little to mitigate the backlash. If anyone could’ve proved that false, it should’ve been the Germans. They showed the clearest positive impact of accepting refugees. Immigration grew their economy by 95 Billion Euro. Yet Germans still saw attacks on refugee homes. Alt-right parties such as the AfD are on the rise, and so are highly divisive local politics.

Herein lies the problem. Controlled and measured responses, even with a growing host economy, still invariably push everyone to the far right.

An equal and opposite reaction indeed. Are we then caught between a rock and a hard place? The perceived threat of a strain on social safety nets alone triggers backlash. Is even a limited intake of climate refugees enough to push a country towards authoritarianism? How then do we handle the much larger and inevitable waves of the coming decades? Such waves of migration may have the potential to actually bring our systems to a grinding halt. It seems that us humans have not yet discovered how to handle mass migration.

You’ll notice a pattern in the language used in the news on this topic. Most publications call such backlash “civil unrest”. I too find that term to be grossly euphemistic. If you’ve witnessed any major protests in person, you’ll know what I mean. While I haven’t been to Syria, I do have one experience to call on. I lived in downtown Oakland during the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests. I saw buildings boarded up; folks did what they could to prepare for an onslaught. I saw my favorite businesses set on fire. Carnage filled the streets: a chaotic soundscape of helicopters, sirens, chants, and loudspeakers. BLM, by and large, was a peaceful protest. I shudder to think what’s coming.

We don’t have much time to figure this out.

The Comedown

My goal with this article was to illustrate the multifaceted nature of a climate disaster. A topic that is both mentally and emotionally daunting. It’s vast and multidisciplinary; not all aspects get the conversational airtime they deserve.

“A lot of the way in which climate change is really bad is like death by 1,000 cuts.” — Solomon Hsiang, UC Berkeley Global Policy Laboratory

By now it should be clear that it’s not just the damage from the storms. Nor is it the deaths from heatwaves and droughts. It’s not even the loss of food crops, ecosystems, and entire species. All of these are, without a doubt, significant challenges in their own right. They are also just the first few dominoes. It’s the tumbling chain of their second and third-order consequences that pose an even greater threat.

Climate reporting tends to be myopic; we are not dealing with each crisis in isolation. Nor will these crises be contained to a small part of the Global South. The wealthy nations of the world won’t be able to ignore this one.

No, our global civilization will be collectively facing all of these crises simultaneously.

Of course, our myriad of existing non-climate issues won’t just politely disappear either. If anything, they will be exacerbated. If that wasn’t bad enough, the severity of each increases with every passing degree. This is what terrifies me most. The compounding nature of this crisis and its implications are being left out of the mainstream narrative to our detriment.

Visiting Hours for Patient Earth

You might remember this picture from the first article in the series. I can’t shake the parallels between the climate crisis and the concept of Multi-Morbidity.

Individuals at highest risk of death are the ones suffering simultaneous ongoing illnesses.

Diagnosis becomes harder. Treatment and recovery becomes more difficult. Vicious cycles emerge. An establishment focused on individual treatments, via specialists, is ill-equipped to handle these cases. You suddenly have cascade failures to worry about.

Fall after 65 and fracturing your hop is a perfect example. Your chances of dying in the year following are 1 in 3, and in the next five: 2 in 3. The cascade begins with long periods of immobility, leading to muscle loss and increased likelihood of blood clots. The ensuing surgery puts you at risk for complications and infections. Finally, the loss of independence takes a heavy mental toll and many people just… give up. The fall is only the trigger.

Your body — and the planet — are quite resilient. At times they’re able to survive and recover from deadly conditions, even stroke or cancer. Yet the odds of surviving a stroke while already on chemotherapy… well, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Each degree we add to our planet’s pre-industrial average temperature is stacking another chronic illness.

That’s precisely why the prognosis gets exponentially more grim at the top end of that scale.

Next Up… Empowerment

Okay, take a breather, the doom and gloom is over. You’ve made it through the hardest part of this series and you deserve it!

You might also be left wondering “What now?”. Worry not, from now on, we arm you. The next articles contains tools to determine your personal climate risk, as well as mental frameworks to help you manage that risk. You’ve reached the summit, now is the time to rest before the trek down. Stay tuned.

This article is third of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science and its impacts, as well as providing tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the first two articles below.

• What ‘A Few Degrees’ Means For You
• Meet The Four Modern Horsemen

The Refugee Century was originally published in Age of Awareness on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcome back. In the previous article, we discovered the deadly accuracy of climate models. But what does this mean for our daily lives in 2050? Let’s bring life to the data. To fully appreciate it, we need to go beyond a mere intellectual understanding. We must engage our emotions, see it in our mind’s eye, and viscerally feel what we’re in for. Fair warning, it’s going to get dark, heartbreaking even. So, let’s take a moment to talk about what I aim to do here and why I’m writing this series.

I know dealing with harsh realities can send some of us into denial, depression, or paralysis. Despite the title of the article, I am not the doom-and-gloom type. I am a solutions-oriented optimist that stares the hard truths in the eye. For only by being as close to reality as possible, are we empowered to do something about it. My ultimate goal is to give you time to prepare, to best position yourself, and seize the opportunities ahead. However, before we get to that point, we must fully cope with what is coming.

So, if you’re ready to stare into the metaphorical abyss with me, dear reader, please read on.

First Comes the Heat

Let’s tackle the obvious one first. We’ve already discussed the warming planet. A small shift, portions of a degree on average, make us shrug when we shouldn’t. Small digits hiding the real and dangerous long-term shifts. Shifts that will affect the daily lives of all 8 billion+ people on this planet, including you and me.

If you grew up in the north, you may remember a lot more snow days as a kid. Don’t your father and grandfather say the same about their childhoods? Does it seem that each summer has more unbearably hot days, and consistently so? Rain appears as a “feast or famine”: prolonged droughts broken by flooding. Every so often the weather “snaps back to normal”, as if sharing our collective childhood memories for a week.

This is precisely what a climate shift feels like in the moment. Your city acting more like it belongs in another biome with each passing year. Easy to ignore in any week (though even that is changing now); undeniable over a couple decades. Tundra begins to thaw, temperate climates become more tropical, and arid regions begin to resemble deserts.

A third of the world’s population will be living in Sahara-like conditions by 2050.

The warming is mostly gradual. Nature tries to keep balance, its homeostasis. Yet, sometimes the extra energy makes the system lurch in dangerous, unpredictable ways. After all, temperature is a measure of how forcefully air molecules are moving. High energy in the air is a heatwave. They are already deadly, and will only become more so.

In just the past year, India and Iran sustained 50C (122F) temperatures for up to 24 days. The Middle East had 600 heat-related deaths just last year. India alone saw 45 heat-related deaths in 36 hours. This is only the beginning. By 2050, nearly every region of the earth is going to be facing more and deadlier heat waves. Like India, countries near the equator face the highest risk. Heat waves are expected to happen 30 times more often and last five times as long. Imagine back-to-back months at 50C.

I’ve got a new phrase for your vocabulary: Wet Bulb Temperature. It’s the reason for the heat-related deaths. Quick Thermodynamics lesson: Humans cool down through sweating. We expect that sweat to evaporate, taking with it our excess body heat. For human survival, both temperature and humidity must be below 90 — that’s Fahrenheit and percentage, respectively. Ever heard someone say they prefer “a dry heat”?

A hotter day with no humidity results in a lower wet bulb temperature. Biologically, it’s easier to handle.

Fatal exposure can occur at 5 hours in a wet bulb temperature of 31C (88F), even for a healthy adult. For an older person it can be as few as 3 hours at 22C (72F) wet bulb. This assumes you’re sitting still; any activity greatly reduces your survival time. Symptoms may appear in as little as 20 active minutes in these conditions. While AC is the obvious short-term solution, not everywhere can be air conditioned. The high wet bulb days are precisely when power grids are most strained, leading to deadly hours-long outages.

It Gets Ugly Before It Gets Deadly

Humans don’t really function all that well in the heat. Far before you hit the (surprisingly low) deadly limits, quality of life plummets. Heat increases our heart rates, blood pressures, and discomfort. Like a powder keg catching a spark, it’s enough to tip the vulnerable to violence.

Long-standing research points to predictable increases in crime in tandem with rising temperatures. 86% of mass shootings occur in the summer months. We see an +18% increase in inmate violence on hotter days.

A day that is hotter by 10C results in a +9% higher violent crime rate.

Even the privileged and those not prone to violence still suffer negative effects. Heat literally makes you less intelligent. A +20% increase in the number of hours a person spends above 32C (89F) results in a -10% cognitive decline. This affects both indoor and outdoor workers. Surprisingly, active use of AC did not do much to offset this effect.

Even people in air-conditioned rooms saw their thinking slip.

Their decline was only -36% smaller than those without AC.

One other piece of bad news: the -10% decline was an average across several ethnic groups and regions. People from equatorial regions, accustomed to hot days, proved more mentally resilient. But denizens of typically colder climates, exposed to the same conditions, saw declines as high as -15%. That’s worrying, as heat waves encroach on regions unfamiliar with them.

So what’s the collective, macro, impact of all this heat? A significant hit to GDP. In fact, above 27C (80F), each degree of increased heat resulted in a loss of -4% of GDP. Even a 1C increase in average daily temperatures resulted in a -3% loss of productivity. Developed nations usually grow between +1% and +3% in GDP per year. A hit like this could easily tip the scales from steady growth to a perpetual recession.

TL;DR — higher AC bills, worse sleep, shorter tempers, slower thinking — and on muggy outage days… real danger.

Next Come the Storms

There’s another consequence of faster moving air particles. As the air contains more energy, it builds potential for concentrated release. Remember the childhood game of rubbing a shag carpet with your bare feet? You build up a static charge; the faster you do it, the bigger the jolt when you finally touch your sibling’s arm.

The “Hundred-Year Storms” of the past — large and destructive — become commonplace as average air temperature builds. For every 1C of warming, hurricanes like Katrina will appear 2–7x more frequently. We’re already starting to see this play out with storms like Hurricane Milton. In just 36 hours, a run-of-the-mill storm was whipped into a Cat-5 monster by higher than normal temperature air over the oceans. Fortunately for Florida, it weakened to a Cat-3 before landfall. We won’t be this lucky every time.

Land-locked communities shouldn’t shrug this off either. Each 1C increase in average temperatures causes a +12% increase in lightning strikes and the heavy rainstorms that cause them.

Our infrastructure is simply not built to withstand that kind of battering. Most bridges were built to handle a single “Hundred-Year Storm”. Their designers didn’t account for climate change. Rebuilding and hardening all our bridges is an infrastructure project in the ballpark of the initial US Interstate System. Tall order.

What does a Hundred-Year Storm even look like? Consider the California Megastorm, also named — I sh*t you not — “ArkStorm” and “Atmospheric River 1000”. It has a 1 in 30 chance of striking any given year at 2C of warming. Imagine rainfall with such vigor and intensity that it has the power to reshape entire rivers and breach dams. Given those odds, we will see it happen in our lifetimes, and potentially more than once.

Some communities will find themselves in a situation where they simply don’t have time to recover from one disaster before another one hits. It could be due to lack of disaster relief funding or slow and uncoordinated response. Perhaps multiple simultaneous storms in the region spreading resources too thin. Nature will keep mercilessly kicking them while they’re down.

We’ll discuss cities caught in these doom loops in a future article. For now, we can imagine what that might look like by visiting Charity Hospital in downtown New Orleans. One of the largest and oldest hospitals in the world was gravely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Even two decades later, it still lies abandoned.

When forgotten buildings become forgotten blocks, then districts, the situation becomes precarious. It’s a matter of time before one storm simply pushes your home past the point of no-return. The futile effort to rebuild will no longer make sense, too much has been lost time and time again. The community disbands or withers away, turning its remaining townsfolk into climate refugees. I’ve experienced this personally on a small scale. Even before 1.5C of warming, a large tornado would wipe a samll community off the map in my state every few years.

Like heat waves, storms too are expected to incur a perpetual reduction of GDP between -1% and -4% every year in damages. The risk of recession increasing once again.

Life: Disrupted

As we saw with cognitive impacts from heat, the direct damage from these frequent, intense, storms is only the beginning. Storms wreak havoc on logistics.

Our digital world has brought near instant access to goods, from across the world, for cheap. It’s called “Just-In-Time inventory”, and we’re addicted. Think Amazon and Temu. Manufacturers and resellers just don’t tend to hold much inventory anymore. The key innovations are digitization, demand forecasting, and orders at the speed of light. They just order what is needed right when a sale is made or expected.

The average consumer has followed suit. We don’t store many excess supplies in our homes these days either. We too can have just about anything reliably delivered within two days, sometimes even hours. Minimalist pantries would be utterly shocking to someone from even two generations ago. However, the increased frequency and strength of storms could up-end the entire system.

It’s estimated that 80–90% of all goods travel by ship at some stage. These supply lines underpin the entire world economy.

However, they are vulnerable to delays and disruption. Take the Panama Canal for example, arguably the most important piece of infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere. Due to recent droughts the lakes that make up this channel have not been refilling to their usual depth. Each time the canal locks open, more water is released into the ocean than flows back via rainfall.

Already the shallower lakes have created a problem. The mighty canal, forced to reduced ship capacity by -17% and implement a weight and size cap for entry. This was all before 1.5C of warming. We’ll dive deeper into what that means, and the opportunities it could present, in a future article. For now, I’ll just mention that storm related logistic delays are expected to cost us $25 Billion per year. The economic impact to Americans alone will be around $7.5 Billion per year.

Logistical disruptions are pure chaos in today’s world. Recall the never-ending COVID era shortages. First masks, then toilet paper, then baking yeast, even yoga mats weren’t safe! Recall surging prices in Europe after the (much memed) Ever Given cargo ship briefly blocked the Suez Canal in 2021. These situations tend to bring out the worst sides of human nature. Opportunism, hoarding, exploitation, scalping, divisiveness, and even violence will become more common.

Unfortunately, businesses are just as unprepared as you are.

Only 11% of key supply sites across the US, China, and Taiwan are prepared for the coming disruptions. 80% of US based manufacturers have no continuity plan whatsoever. 48% of Chinese sites echoed the same sentiments. Facing a heavier storm, only 30% would be able to relocate or restart operations within 10 weeks.

In other words, our core consumer industries aren’t resilient. They’re simply not prepared for what’s coming. Call it another side-effect of short-term-oriented, late-stage, capitalism. Many of the goods you take for granted today will face significant shortages in the future.

TL;DR — harder-hitting, frequent storm trap us in a rebuild-repair cycle as bridges/grids get overwhelmed; abandoned building and towns ensue. Logistics delays create perpetual scalping and price spikes

Then The Shelves Were Empty

I have more bad news.

These shortages won’t just be limited to iPhones or consumer goods. The very foods you rely on, both for pleasure and survival will be affected. Think the corporate price-gouging in your grocery store is bad now? Just wait until the “supply shortage” excuses actually become reality.

Remember that California Mega Storm I mentioned a while back? Now is probably a good time to mention that California produces 50% of the nation’s fruits and vegetables. It doesn’t take much to imagine the shockwaves across American and global food prices.

It’s not empty conjecture either. A recent (smaller) flood in California’s Central Valley caused a +33% price shock across the state. Hurricane Florence caused $1 Billion of food losses. A 2022 heatwave in South West China caused vegetable prices to double. These events are babies in comparison to what we will witness in the next few decades.

Droughts and heatwaves alone are expected to render 40% of the world’s current farmland unusable for at least 3 months of every year.

The global economic impact is expected to hit $69 Billion per year.

This would put strain on any household, even in developed nations. The most vulnerable, those already suffering from food scarcity, would be sent over the edge of starvation. We have less of a buffer than we realize.

Our existing farmland has been significantly over-farmed for decades. It’s already starting to erode. In fact, one third of global farmland is in a degraded state today. Crop yields are declining year-over-year. By 2050, the degradation is expected to rise to a staggering 95%. Simultaneously, the global population is expected to hit just shy of 10 Billion the same year.

Recent solutions have largely focused on adjusting crop varietals and making up for quantity with mass. Fewer, but larger cabbages haven’t played out in our favor. Crops today are up to -38% less nutritious than they were in the 1950’s. We’re discovering the limit of just how much we can pull from the soil using existing methods. That’s not even considering how additional pollution will impact these figures, even at the microscopic level.

It’s not just food shortages that will empty out the shelves at our local supermarkets. Some of our favorite foods are already predicted to nearly vanish. Sensitive crops, depending on precise growing zones, aren’t hardy enough to survive. More powerful storms mean they will become rarer and more expensive with every coming year until… poof! So which foods are we likely to lose? I’ll start with the most painful ones first.

Endangered Delicacies

Coffee.

The most likely scenario estimates we will lose half of our coffee crop as soon as 2050. In the worst case, the plant may go extinct by 2088. Expect coffee to become a luxury good towards the end of our lifetimes. Our children may never make enough to afford buying it regularly.

Our grandchildren will never know the taste of a perfect crema on top of a morning espresso.

If that wasn’t enough of a blow for the breakfast crew, maple syrup is also on the endangered list. Maple trees need consistent freezing temperatures to generate enough sap to harvest. With shifting climate zones, this is soon going to be a rarity even in the north.

Coffee’s cousin, chocolate, doesn’t fare much better.

We’re projected to lose one third of cacao producing regions by 2050. The remaining regions’ output will be cut in half due to increased heat and prevalence of pests. We’ll come back to pests in a moment, but already the impacts are starting to be felt. Cacao prices reached an all-time high during the 2023 storms in West Africa.

Let’s not forget about wine. 70% of both Californian and Australian wine regions will become unsuitable for grapes by 2050. The limited remaining wines will likely be reserved only for the most special occasions in our twilight years.

It’s not just our favorite indulgence foods that are at risk, but staples as well. Corn yields are expected to fall -24% in the next six years! Humans aren’t the only consumers of this crop either. Corn is a large share of animal feed; reductions in yields will drive up the cost of meat too.

Seafood won’t be a viable protein alternative for much longer. 90% of current seafood production is a risk from climate change. 34% of global waters are already being overfished today, tripling since the 70's.

We are already ”borrowing” fish from the future.

Their populations are falling further below replacement rate. 60% of waters have already hit peak yield. There is simply little more we can pull from the oceans to sustain human life; it’s a significant problem. 3 Billion people globally rely on seafood as their primary source of nutrition. On average, fish meets 15% of the world’s protein needs, with some countries as high as 70%. You’ll see shrimp, salmon, and shellfish prices increase quickly and be the first to disappear from store shelves.

The last major staple at risk is beans, one of the most affordable protein sources today. 400 Million people rely on beans as their primary source of nutrition, and half of those live in Africa. Beans are particularly sensitive to warm temperatures at night. Higher average temperatures are expected to drop bean yields by -25%. Coupled with corn shortages, Latin American countries are going to be under the greatest strain.

I would be remiss to leave out the impacts of pollinators from this discussion. About 40% of all crops rely on pollinators for their survival. 35% of global crops rely on bees for this labor specifically. Unfortunately, bees have been particularly sensitive to climate and pesticide impacts. Their populations declining by over 50% since 1970 in the US alone. Current conservation efforts (of which my family is part and parcel) have only been partially successful. We’ve slowed their decline, but have not been able to stop it. With this downward trend poised to continue, apples, avocados, onions, almonds, and even berries will too become luxuries. Some may even disappear altogether.

TL;DR — Empty shelves, strain soils, and a squeeze on staples (corn, beans, seafood). Favorites like coffee, chocolate, maple syrup and wine turn into rarities.

Finally, the Animals Vanished and Strange New Ones Arrived

The disappearance of bees will only be the first of these woes. Equally scary is what will take their place.

Without the shield of air conditioning, the animal kingdom is on the front lines of shifting climate zones. Just like the “canaries in the coal mines”, animal extinctions and migrations are the alarm. The bells are already ringing, if we care to listen. As of 2021, 19% of endangered species had already lost parts of their habitats. Half of all species have moved away from the equator. We’ve already recorded the first species extinction as a direct result of climate change.

Animals will also become the first climate refugees. Nowhere is this more apparent than the arctic. Take for example, the polar bear. Technically a marine mammal, their kind have been moving further south due to lack of food and melting ice sheets. Only 5% of their population lived on dry land in the 80’s; it’s increased dramatically, up to 50% today. Their stays are becoming longer too. Growing from a historical two weeks per year, now increasing eight-fold to two months. Over the next 15 years, these extended stays on land are further expected to increase to 4+ months per year.

Contrary to Coca Cola’s holiday marketing, polar bears are carnivorous and ferocious hunters. Further southern incursion puts them in direct conflict with drilling sites and human settlements. 2006 marked the first recorded instance of a human shooting a Pizzly Bear (grizzly-polar chimera) in the wild. Eight more encounters have been documented since.

… Bringing New and Deadly Diseases

The more dangerous migrations are far more subtle. Warmer temperatures bring species, both human and animal, into new regions. Regions they may not have been able to survive in before. The “locals” are unable to cope with a new competitor in their midst. The new species may not even have any natural predators there. You soon have an environmental takeover at the hands of an invader.

One such example is the Water Hyacinth. It can quickly cover the entire surface of a body of water, starving it of sunlight and oxygen. Literally suffocating fish, plants, and other human food sources.

Over 37,000 invasive species exist, 3,500 of which pose severe global threats. The cost? $423 Billion in damages every year. Even the co-author of the report, ecologist Helen Roy, believes this is just the tip of the iceberg. By 2050, the number of invasive species is expected to grow by +30%. The resulting damages will grow four-fold every decade.

Yet, it’s the tiniest creatures that will pose the greatest threat to human beings. I’m talking about the most dangerous tag team on the face of the earth: Mosquitoes and Viruses. This time, empowered by climate change.

Warmer weather spreads their range north, along with the deadly diseases they carry. West Nile Virus and Malaria are now being locally contracted in The United States. Insecticide-resistant mosquitoes in Texas, Florida, and even as far north as Maryland are the culprits. Even the old familiar, tick-borne, diseases are becoming more prevalent. Their carrier species are active for longer and survive the winter in greater numbers.

Parasites stand to benefit from warming as well. Toxoplasma gondii is the most common parasite transmitted from animals to humans today. Your favorite cat is a likely carrier and could’ve passed it to you already. An infection can lead to memory deficits, impairing inflammation, and puts you at higher risk for Alzheimer’s. Runoff from storms coupled with a warmer climate provides a perfect breeding ground.

Over half of known human pathogens are aggravated by climate change. The simple fact of new species mixing — with each other and with us — greatly raises the risk of another global pandemic. Bird Flu and Ebola are the poster children for this type of spillover. It’s one of the reasons why COVID-19 was first suspected to have jumped from bats to humans.

We know of at least 10,000 viruses that have the ability to jump to humans. They silently circulate amongst wild animals today, evolving with each spillover. We are usually never close enough to get infected. This all changes as climate zones shift. Both humans and animals will increasingly gravitate towards the same geographic havens. By 2070, climate change is expected to be THE biggest driver of animal-to-human viral transmission.

Let’s put that in perspective of our current warming trajectory.

The authors predict a minimum of 15,000 new viruses will jump to humans for the first time.

As a result, we have a 27% chance to see another global pandemic as deadly as COVID by 2033. That virtually guarantees another within the lifetimes of most people reading this.

TL;DR — Invasive species clogs the ecosystem, parasites and pests push north. New diseases showing up locally — and a real chance of another pandemic in our lifetimes.

What Comes Next… Is Us

We’ve now covered the first and second order effects of climate change. Let’s take a small breather.

I commend you on spending the last 16 minutes staring directly into the eyes of the beast with me. Most people would shudder to admit it’s even in the room with them. It’s a testament to both your will and commitment to the truth. You are seeing the world as it actually is rather than accepting placation.

The year 2050, as laid bare, is not the once distant threat for some future generation. Nor is it a speculative, but rapidly approaching one. It’s the most likely consequence of collective actions, ours and our ancestors. There is no sugarcoating the implications. At best, a world burned by increasing heat, struck by fierce storms, and left hungry by failing ecosystems will be tough for us (and our children) to bare. At worst, climate change sets off a cascade of dominos. Broken supply chains, vanishing foods, and deadly outbreaks have the power to tear down the foundations of our societies. This is going to be the greatest challenge of our twilight years. It’s important to recognize and approach it with the appropriate gravitas.

I promise there are solutions. You can take action to personally mitigate these impacts on you and your family; those are coming. However, we have one last push before we reach the summit and see our situation clearly. The next article in this series will require some introspection, on ourselves and our species. We next dive into the third order effects of climate change. How will humans in large groups react to all this? Just how thick does the air become when everyone shifts into survival mode?

Worry not, I’ll be your guide the entire way up.

This article is second of an ongoing series that demystifies climate science and its impacts, as well as providing tangible tools for individuals to take action. You can read the first article here.

Meet The Four Modern Horsemen was originally published in Age of Awareness on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Summer is coming, and it keeps on coming. If the phrase “climate change” doesn’t yet send a twinge of terror through your veins… it soon will. Does it seem like a far-off academic concept for increasingly inept politicians to waste time debating? Perhaps only a concern for people far, far away from you - both in time and distance? Maybe only for those in coastal regions or equatorial developing nations? If that rang a bell for you, I honestly wouldn’t blame you.

Climate scientists are notoriously bad at communicating in a way that resonates with the average person. They speak in numbers and facts, but we understand stories, emotion, our day to day.

How on earth are we supposed to make sense of “degrees of warming”? A couple of degrees is hardly noticeable. How come everyone is freaking out over such an insignificant change? I sympathize. Even if you understand the science around the seemingly small, but persistent changes in the world’s climate, its impact on one’s home, income, and livelihood is vague at best and contradictory at worst.

You may be aware that a catastrophe is looming. You might even be (painfully) aware that it will strike in your lifetime, but it’s easy enough to assume that your corner of the Global North will be immune. That your strong, well-developed, wealthy nation can weather any storm without so much as flinching.

Maybe you’ve had one of these thoughts before?

“We have plenty of infrastructure and resources, right?“

“We’re inventing new technologies daily, right?“

“Surely, if the problem got bad enough we could just throw some money at it… right?”

“As humans do, we would just innovate our way out of it!”

“We’ve been bending nature to our will for centuries now; there’s no biome we haven’t mastered!”

Again, I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest if that were your view.

Our modern societies have never faced a crisis like this before. Unfortunately, it’s also a crisis almost perfectly aligned against our very human blind spots. There’s no “enemy” to fight here — nothing to rally people of various nations and ideologies behind. The timescale of change is non-linear, something we humans are notoriously bad at conceptualizing… much less planning for.

Our species evolved in cyclical environments. Hardly anything changed, even between generations. Until just this last century, your father’s life was exactly the same as your grandfather’s. Mere seconds on a planetary time scale. We’re comically bad at predicting long-term technological shifts for the same reason. On a day-to-day basis it seems like nothing changes. Our short-term predictions fall so short of expectations.

Yet we’re repeatedly caught off guard by the tectonic shifts. Social Media, Internet of Things, Remote Work, Drones, Robotics, Gene Editing, to name a few. Let’s not forget the recent and meteoric rise of AI either. Climate change is similar. Barring the occasional freak storm, season to season, or year to year, nothing much changes. Yet it only takes looking back to one’s childhood memories to realize the seasons used to be very different. What would have been called a “once in a generation storm” is happening almost annually. We’ve slowly normalized it.

Like the frog in a gently boiling kettle, we haven’t noticed the water isn’t room temperature anymore.

The flames continue rising.

Demystifying Degrees of Warming

How do we begin to even understand this, truly? I don’t think most people realize how drastically different the last half of this century will look from the first half. It all comes down to this single metric you often hear cited on the news: degrees of warming. Climate scientists have done a good job of getting this important metric out in the wild. Yet they’ve completely fumbled in linking that number, in a very real sense, to our day-to-day lives. Fear not, dear reader, this just happens to be my specialty.

But before we dive into possible future hellscapes, let’s make sure we understand what the metric itself means.

Scientists have been taking temperature readings all over the globe and recording them for hundreds of years. They then total these for a single year and get an average temperature for the planet as a whole. Given our planet’s tilted axis, temperatures in the northern hemisphere will be in their highs in June. Meanwhile, we record low temperatures in the southern hemisphere that same month. The equator remains at roughly that same temperature all year round. In other words, the seasonal fluctuations in the north and south cancel each other out. This is the global average temperature. You can then compare that number year over year and see how it changes.

In centuries past, scientists would only see slight variations in this number. Colder years balanced out the warmer ones in any decade. This is known as the pre-industrial level. The NOAA put out a great article further defining these and related terms. Then, the industrial revolution changed everything. It marked the start of fossil fuel burning en masse: transportation, heat, and electricity. After about 1900, the global average temperature started to tick up every decade and has not stopped since. This is why the term “Global Warming” first started making headway in the late ‘90s.

When we compare the current global average temperature back to the pre-industrial level, we arrive at degrees of warming. How much warmer, on average, our entire planet is today than it would have been if we had never used fossil fuels. This is also often referred to as human-induced warming. I’m going to skip the discussion here around whether that assumption is actually true or not. Ultimately, I find that conversation to be a costly distraction. Regardless of cause, our planet is getting warmer and the pace is only accelerating.

The more important question is: what does that mean for us who will be living on a hotter Earth?

Enter Climate Thresholds

You may have heard the terms 1.5C degrees or, more recently, 2C degrees of warming. The shifting focus is painfully telling of our lackluster progress. These goalposts were originally set under the 2015 Paris Climate Accords. Ninety-four countries and the entire EU — about 98% of the world — agreed to cut their emissions. The aim: keep global temperatures within 2 degrees of the pre-industrial average. A smaller limit of 1.5 degrees was considered the “line of defense.” Extreme and irreversible damage, both to humans and the natural environment, comes after. In other words, anything past 2 degrees centigrade qualifies as a crisis we will endure in perpetuity.

A few caveats. First, there is nothing magical about the 1.5C threshold. It doesn’t mean that the proverbial “shit” is patiently and politely waiting to “hit the fan” until then.

Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said it best:

“Keeping at 1.4 is better than 1.5, and 1.3 is better than 1.4, and so on. The science does not tell us that if, for example, the temperature increase is 1.51 degrees Celsius, then it would definitely be the end of the world. Similarly, if the temperature stays at 1.49 degrees increase, it does not mean that we will eliminate all impacts of climate change.”

In other words, the closer we are to the pre-industrial level, the better.

The other key point: much like the Richter Scale for earthquakes, the damage caused by each degree of warming is exponential. The added damage caused by going from 1C to 2C of warming is double (or more) the damage caused by going from 0C to 1C of warming. It’s all cumulative, and precisely what makes the climate crisis sneaky-dangerous.

Our window to take action is precisely the window where the damage is smallest.

It might even be negligible at first. Our initial (successful) adaptations lull us into a false sense of security. However, once warming exceeds our ability to cope and respond, it becomes a runaway nuclear reactor.

The Australian Climate Council summarized just how much that half degree of warming between 1.5C and 2C actually matters. Frankly, it should terrify you. A couple of lowlights: loss in crop yields doubles, and the rate at which plants and animals go extinct is 2–3x worse.

So what do these degrees of warming actually mean to you? Gregor Aisch, CEO of DataWrapper, created a concise and well-cited chart for this. It, quite bluntly, describes the severity of each threshold. A quick warning: it’s heavy. You will want to be seated for this, undisturbed, in a place where you can process some difficult news. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

It’s a sobering diagram. We begin at the top, the worst-case scenario. At 5C above the pre-industrial average, we have a Hot-House Earth. A true apocalypse, with only 1 in 8 humans surviving. Drowned cities begin at 4C of warming. Climate wars begin at 3C of warming — death tolls hit a billion. Lethal summers and food shortages begin at just 2C of warming.

You’ll notice this chart has a few dates and projection lines for when we might reach these various states. I find it helpful to view the 2050 line as the conditions during my retirement years.

Keep in mind, we’re now closer to 2050 than to the year 2000.

The 2100 line represents conditions during my children’s retirement years. Suddenly these dates don’t seem so far away anymore.

There are three dotted prediction lines. The path we take depends on just how closely our global governments stick to their climate accord commitments. The bottom (best) scenario requires global net-zero emissions by 2050.

Unfortunately, I have more bad news to share. You may notice this chart was created with 2019 data; at that time, we still had a 5% chance of the best-case scenario. As of last year, we officially hit 1.5C of warming for a consecutive 12 months. That shut us out of the 2C threshold path, meaning we are now between the two worst paths on the chart. Scientists associated with the COP summit already openly admit to its failure.

Unfortunately, if you are alive today, your retirement will include food shortages and lethal summers. It’s virtually guaranteed.

How Can We Be Sure?

As with any alarming forecast, it’s important to take a step back and consider the underlying data. Is it reasonable to take any action based on it? What are the chances it is substantially off? If it’s off, in what direction is reality more likely to veer? What are the risks (both downside and upside) of that direction?

A good first place to start is to look at previous predictions; how accurate were they? If they were not, are the old predictions consistently over or under-shooting reality? Let’s see how the climate forecasts stack up.

Contrary to popular belief, climate models have proven to be extremely accurate in predicting the future.

Much more accurate than your local weather report. Over the past half-century, humanity has created 17 separate climate models. The most recent ten are all bang on, with no statistical difference to the reality we see today. The seven that showed some variance tended to be older. The oldest, going back to 1975, were off by a grand total of (drumroll please) 0.1C per decade.

Let’s frame this in a more familiar setting. How would your GPA look if you performed as well as the climate scientists? It would be the equivalent of scoring a B+ in your first seven classes and an A+ in your last ten. Your resulting GPA: a 3.89 or a solid A, top of the class.

Carbon Brief did an excellent job breaking down the most cited models. The IPCC forecasts since 1990 give a range of confidence: a best case, worst case, and most likely scenario. With the one exception of the 1995 report, reality was entirely captured within these bounds. The 1995 report slightly, but consistently, underestimated actual warming. If anything, most of the climate models are a little too rosy due to an unprecedented uptick in global temperatures in 2019. We saw a similar but larger uptick again in 2024.

The data is rock solid, and the models have been consistently proven right over the last 50 years. Consider that when looking back at our (rather grim) Data Wrapper chart. It’s abundantly clear that our lived realities in 2050 will involve significant hardships.

Earth’s First Physical

The thing is, it’s not “just warming” we have to worry about. That’s only the most obvious and well studied warning sign. It’s the fever that makes you take a developing illness seriously.

You may have learned about the Nine Planetary Boundaries from social media lately. It’s a hauntingly beautiful chart produced by the researchers at Stockholm University. In essence, it’s a broader climate scorecard — our planet’s first comprehensive physical. Warming is one factor, and so are many downstream ecological impacts and uniquely human activities. Let’s simplify these.

Good News First

Boundary one is atmospheric load: the amount of smog and air pollution our planet’s lungs can hold. Some extreme pockets exist: think New Delhi, India and Hanoi, Vietnam. On the whole, we’ve been backing away from the edge on this one. Thankfully, still in the green.

Boundary two is the singular poster child of successful climate action. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Our ozone layer — the planet’s skin. We crossed this boundary by burning a literal hole in it in 1980. Fortunately, we reversed course in the 90’s with The Montreal Protocol. We successfully phased out of the chemicals causing the damage. It’s like humanity began using sunscreen, learned to exfoliate, and moisturize properly. Today, we’ve largely recovered and are back in the green.

Now for the Bad

Let’s start with the one we know, warming. This patient clearly has a fever, one that started to be noticed in 1988 and has only gotten worse since.

The next and most distressed boundary is biodiversity. It’s how many different species the planet supports. Think of it as the planet’s microbiome and immune system. This one slipped by us before we even knew how to count, sometime in the 1800s. You’ll often hear scientists referring to our current state as the “Sixth Mass Extinction” as a result.

Next, we have tree cover — the earth’s skeletal system. It’s the physical support that keeps soil in place, stores carbon, and redirects rainfall. We also passed this safe limit (a -25% loss) near the turn of the century, standing at a -40% loss today.

Sixth, we have water. This one is obvious; us and every single animal on earth need it to exist. The human analogy is kidney function, and we’ve just slipped past healthy levels three years ago. Mostly due to aggressive redirection of rivers (referred to in the study as blue water) and the draining of ground aquifers (referred to as green water).

The seventh boundary needs a bit of explanation; it’s the nitrogen/phosphorus levels in the soil. This one is most affected by the synthetic fertilizers we’ve been overusing since the 60s. The byproduct of which causes oxygen deprivation in the soil and water surrounding our farms. It’s earth’s liver, and we’ve been binging synthetic fertilizer. We passed safe limits in 1970 and have continued to abuse it.

Eighth, we have ocean acidification. As cars and power plants release more CO2, our oceans increasingly bear the brunt of absorbing it. Each ton making them more acidic. Our oceans help slow warming, but it is a potential death sentence to all marine life — if it gets bad enough. Think of this as your typical blood panel, and we just came back with high cholesterol for the first time this year.

Finally, the innocent-sounding “Novel Entities” boundary. This represents the accumulation of the hundreds of new, lasting, and unnatural chemicals in the environment and our own bodies. Microplastics, PFAS, and radiation don’t biodegrade quickly (if ever). Over time, they accumulate to a deadly dose. Of all the transgressions, this one is the most undeniably human. We have strained our planet’s endocrine / detox system past its safe limit as of 2022.

Prognosis, Doctor?

So let’s round up our symptoms:

• Fever, growing
• Weakened immune system
• Frail bones
• A single normally functioning kidney
• Liver struggling from years of alcohol abuse
• Elevated cholesterol
• Disrupted endocrine system
• Healthy lungs, rarely smokes
• Healthy skin after recent treatment

You don’t have to be a doctor to know this patient is in trouble.

They might still be around in a couple decades, but you know that each coming year is going to be harder. Any additional illnesses will be much more severe. It’s painfully obvious that most of these ailments are not from natural causes, but from lifestyle choices. Unfortunately, they’re not headed in the right direction. This patient is in the throes of addiction.

Facing the Future, Eyes Wide Open

This is not a call to despair, but for sober, clear-eyed understanding. The scientists among us speak in facts and studies, but we act on emotions. We’ve demystified the science and seen the deadly accuracy of the models. Now a challenge lies before us. Translating these stuffy academic concepts into an emotional resonance that drives action.

To respond appropriately, we need to feel collectively (and viscerally) the weight of 2, 3, and 4C degrees of warming. We need to visualize the impact on the world as vividly as we recall our most cherished memories. Only then will we have the appropriate drive to actually make a change, both as a society and individuals.

This nine-part article series aims at doing exactly that. Clarifying the science, connecting it to your lived reality, and arming you with the tools to secure you and your family’s future… if you’re brave enough.

You can’t prepare for a disaster you can’t imagine.

The next article in the series is going to be a heavy read. It certainly was for me to write. We will unflinchingly stare down the worst-case scenario and come out on the other side prepared. You are ready for the challenge.

What ‘A Few Degrees’ Means For You was originally published in ILLUMINATION on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Dinner at the Edge of Immortality

We gathered in a circle, 25 strangers in a pre-soft-opening wellness space on the edge of the San Francisco Tenderloin. Alchemy Springs felt like a mix between event space, art gallery, and an unfinished startup office. Greeted with a locker and robes hanging from a set of wall hooks, I wondered for a moment if there was more in store for tonight than just dinner. Among the longevity crowd, a conversation over a sauna or cold plunge would not be considered unusual.

I hadn’t brought a bathing suit.

What I did have was little to no idea of what to expect from the next few hours. Even that duration was somewhat in question, as a previous email incorrectly indicated a (comedically) short 2-minute event.

Bryan Johnson’s previous dinners were shrouded in mystery and attended by the likes of the Kardashians and Andrew Huberman.

This was the first time Bryan was opening up the guest-list to anyone who didn’t have a follower count in the hundreds of thousands.

My attendance was secured as an extra VIP add-on to his new longevity conference, Don’t Die Summit, the very first day of which kicked off the following night. Was this simply a crowdfunding exercise to monetize his most engaged audience, or was this something more? What actually went on during these dinners? With typical tech founder bravado, Bryan had previously referred to them as “the most significant conversation you will ever have” — a bold claim.

Mr. Johnson has indeed raised thought-provoking questions on several podcasts. Still, I remained cautiously skeptical.

Who is this Bryan Johnson Anyway?

For the uninitiated, he is part of a cadre of new-money Silicon Valley founders, who in the mid-2000’s, created a critical piece of online infrastructure completely ubiquitous today. If you’ve purchased something online or sent money to a friend via Venmo, you’ve likely done so on rails built by Braintree, Bryan’s most financially successful venture to date. While not quite a billionaire (his current net worth is estimated around $400 Million), he has been described as a true “rags to riches” story by Tim Ferris: The son of a mormon trucker who sold phones to pay his way through college.

Though Bryan did not reach critical acclaim until he, quite publicly, set his sights on the longevity space in 2021. These days Bryan spends upwards of $2 Million per year on testing medical devices and interventions on himself — all in the hopes they meaningfully move him closer to reversing his biological age. He’s documented this journey along the way and gained the title of “The Most Measured Man in History”. Most recently he’s been focused on exposing the “dirty food supply chain” and has been spending $50,000 per month testing his food for contaminants and simply verifying labeling. In effect, dragging the industry (kicking and screaming, I might add) to higher standards.

Popular opinions of Bryan range from “a man bearing a cross for humanity” to the much less flattering “human guinea pig who wants to look 18 again”, as Fortune put it.

Today, I was going to find out which of these rang true.

Tasting Longevity: The Blueprint Diet

Behind the entrance hall, a buffet of Blueprint-approved foods greeted us. Bryan follows a very specific, vegetarian regimen, including copious amounts of olive oil, broccoli, lentils, and nut milk.

“Every calorie fights for its life” is the motto in his kitchen.

While I have shifted to a significantly more plant-based diet on the advice of leading functional medicine figures (such as Dr. Tim Spector and Dr. Mark Hyman), I’ve resisted cutting out meat entirely. To my pleasant surprise, a small selection of grilled chicken skewers were available for the carnivores in the group. Judging by the plates of my fellow attendees, nearly everyone shared my hesitation in taking the full veggie plunge. Perhaps I should reconsider, as my Whoop recovery score remained elevated in the days following the nearly vegetarian dinner and summit. The data and my body were already nudging me in a direction I was resistant to follow.

Meticulous measurement and listening to your body speak through data is a core pillar of not only Bryan’s philosophy, but an initiation rite in the longevity / biohacking community.

We were all genuinely impressed with the taste and quality of the food: practically everyone went back for second helpings. In addition to this longevity-optimized spread, an assortment of mixed fruit juices were available. Carrying tongue-in-cheek names such as “The Vampire” and “Below UV 3” — nods to Bryan’s aversion to sunlight and experimental three-way blood transfusions.

Yes, you read that right — Bryan’s son gives him a blood transfusion, Bryan in turn gives one to his father.

In his charming style, Bryan leans into these caricatures and finds them just as amusing as the rest of us. Loading up a plate of sautéed broccoli, cauliflower, and lentils, a side dish of chicken skewers and a triangular slice of pita, complete with a Vampire juice in hand, I proceed to join the circle. Having arrived precisely on time, I was surprised the only open seat was at the right hand of the man himself.

“Even more jacked in person”, I thought. Though there was a surprising warmth to him as well. For someone who was effectively a celebrity in Silicon Valley, he seemed down to earth with an almost calming aura. Truth be told, I was initially a little nervous to meet him, but found myself quickly easing into my seat as the conversation began.

Meeting the Architect

Bryan Johnson sat cross legged, shoeless, on a couch flanked by two small house plants. (Unclear if this was an intentional Zach Galafinakis reference.) The setup felt partly inspired by ancient Greek philosophers — think Socrates sitting among his students in an amphitheater. Bryan was wearing a variant of his familiar getup: a tight-fitting T-shirt that accented his biceps (Folistatin gene therapy doing it’s work? more on this later), a subtle neck chain, black jeans, and a Whoop band matching my own. The shirt was new though, the word “Blueprint” written vertically in blocky white font down the sternum, reminiscent of a cadaver’s “cut-here” line. His signature slogan “Don’t Die” was splattered in a large, blood-like, font on the background. Subtle, yet appealing to my punk aesthetics; “Gotta get me one of those”, I thought.

None of the attendees knew each other, we were just told to grab a plate and join the semicircle on arrival. It was a diverse group, even by San Francisco standards. Ages ranged from early 20s to a gentleman in his 70s; I later learned he was none other than Bryan’s father. Nearly every ethnicity was represented. As the conversation began, I picked up on a variety of accents and professions based on their responses. I soon realized folks had flown internationally for this.

Would You Give Up Control?

Bryan began by posing his trademark thought experiment:

“If you had access to a perfect algorithm that would give you the best possible mental, physical, and spiritual health, but in return you had to do everything it told you to do, when it told you to do it — would you say yes or no?”

I’d heard him expound on this as a guest on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. Thankfully, knowing where the conversation was headed didn’t end up spoiling the moment. A few hands shot up immediately; all ‘yes’ votes. Perhaps they too had gone through this thought experiment already? A few of the ‘yes’ crowd were tentative and clever, asking Bryan if they could caveat the algorithm, tweak it slightly to their desires, change its goals, retain some small amount of control while reaping most of the benefits. “No,” Bryan replied, “you’re either all in or all out.” This put some on the defensive — citing the Pareto Principle, human sanctity of free will, or the impossibility of a truly perfect algorithm. Valid points, I thought.

As a data-driven person who believes in science-backed health interventions (even enjoying many), I wanted to say ‘yes’. If alignment with what’s demonstrably best for me and attunement to my body is the stated goal, my rational brain should voice a resounding “YES!”… right? Yet emotionally, I felt a strong revulsion to the idea of giving up personal sovereignty. Despite knowing the driver would deliver me precisely to my yearned-for destination, a deep discomfort of letting go lingered. Perhaps a broader psychological statement about myself than I cared to admit.

The ones who said ‘yes’ realized the algorithm would take better care of them than they could. They realized that their late-night, low-energy, willpower-depleted selves had too much influence over their lives. This veto power was precisely at the heart of many of their problems. This concept is playfully dubbed “Evening Bryan”, for his proclivity towards junk food past 8pm.

Intellectually, I was already onboard, having built structures to remove authority from my own “Evening Slav” (with very positive results, I might add). However, I could not bring myself to take my second hand off the wheel entirely. The idea of willfully giving up autonomy just seemed too abhorrent as a concept to get over. It seemed antithetical to being human at some level. We all wanted to bargain with the algorithm, even if only a little tweak of a goal here, small limit there, etc.

To even my own surprise, I had to say ‘no’.

Confronting Humanity’s Dilemma

“This question was meant to offend you.”

Bryan continued, “It was meant to challenge your sensibilities and reveal your values.” Mission accomplished, Mr. Johnson.

But we weren’t finished quite yet. The next phase of the experiment was imagining what someone from the 25th century viewing our conversation would think of it, specifically of our intelligence in hindsight. The tone shifted immediately, somehow quieting the emotional reaction I had earlier and emphasizing the logical approach. Even some of the staunchest “no’s” conceded that they were, to some extent, using magical thinking, relying on a gut instinct or outdated conventions. It made my answer to the first question seem downright silly in hindsight.

This was exactly the reaction Bryan was looking for. He pointed out that the question could be reframed.

“Imagine we went back to the time of Homo Erectus. We could ask him all sorts of vital questions he would be an expert at: Where is shelter? Where is the nearest source of drinking water? Is this mushroom edible? But were you to ask him his thoughts on humanity or the future of the species, he would have nothing to offer.”

This is the exact position we find ourselves in today.

Bryan’s third question hit home: “If by 2027 an artificial super intelligence were to arise, what would we do about it?” The urgency of this date visibly disturbed some in the room.

2027 is the current predicted year that general AI models will exceed the ability of the top (human) AI engineers; it marks the first step to AI developing itself better than we can.

This question sent the room abuzz, shedding light on the occupations and worldviews of the attendees. Some offered spiritual answers, others bleak cynicism; some denied the possibility altogether, while others were blissfully optimistic. Yet no one really had what I would call a good or truly actionable answer.

This was, once again, entirely the point.

At this moment Bryan referenced his own son, Talmadge, a newly-minted adult stepping into university for the first time. Neither he nor Bryan have any idea what he should study that would be relevant in the next decade. The pace of change had accelerated so quickly that the old models of the world were simply insufficient for the long term; our predictive power was decreasing by the day, the very definition of “The map is not the territory”. Bryan observed that throughout the evening, we all followed the same pattern in our responses.

“<We> reached into the databases of our mind, found an appropriate model based on past experience, and applied it to the future.”

He then dropped the bombshell: Not only was this approach not serving us, but to continue to rely upon it would actually be detrimental. The emergence of super intelligent AI and a species inability to overcome their own metacognitive (thinking about your thinking) hubris IS The Great Filter.

Our species is next to be tested.

“Don’t Die” - The Philosophy

Now came the final phase, a proposition that felt like humanity’s last chance. Like our Homo Erectus ancestors before us, what if we shifted focus entirely to the present and let the future become emergent? What if we divert all our efforts to playing the one game that unites all life together, the most metabolically popular game — the one that makes capitalism, governments, and religions look like bright-eyed newborn babes?

That game is “Don’t Die”.

Bryan Johnson’s philosophy was coming more into view and the blood-splattered letters on his chest began to take on a new meaning. “Don’t Die” (in this very moment) is the great unifier, regardless of what opinions, goals, dreams, values, or sensibilities we hold. You, I, and anyone else on the planet can agree that we want to continue living from this exact moment to the next one. “Don’t Die” is the base layer; anything built on top of it becomes divisive.

“Live Well” can have many different meanings, but “Don’t Die” only has one.

Yet “Don’t Die” can also exist in any cultural context. Even an AI super intelligence, as alien to us as can be, must also begin with “Don’t Die”.

Reality Check

We could’ve philosophized all day, but what does “Don’t Die” actually mean in practice? Bryan proposes that in order to get alignment on a societal level, we need to first become aligned as individuals. We are made up of trillions of cells after all, and if they don’t work together, we cease to exist. This is the practical “Don’t Die”, where the individual longevity interventions come in. Our bodies speak to us in data, and in doing so, tell us what actions align with “Don’t Die”. This is why Bryan at one time consumed over 300 different supplements a day, takes shots of extra virgin olive oil, has his last meal at 11 AM, measures his night-time erections, and a whole host of other esoteric and (by most accounts) bizarre practices. These are all his ways to listen and act in accordance to his internal cellular consensus.

For the majority of us, “Don’t Die” (the practice) typically means eating whole foods, cutting out alcohol, getting regular exercise, and having a consistent and sufficient sleep schedule. Believe me, the irony of typing up that last line, while jet lagged on an international flight, is not lost on me. Bryan, too, has a knack for irony. With disarming charm he quipped, “Irony is hunting me”. Even the most meticulous health regimen can’t protect him from a careless driver. He playfully suggested this was exactly how he would go.

The individual steps were straightforward, yet the societal implications truly ignited discussion. The stark paintings of dead tree trunks on white backgrounds, prominently surrounded us, visually stimulated our thought processes. Ideas ranged from establishing a global network of undercover operatives, to creating a new currency — even the implementation of a Neo-Athenian style digital democracy. For a brief moment, it felt as though we were collectively constructing something meaningful. Even the skeptics and detractors were contributing valuable insights; their perspectives were respected and carefully considered by the group. We were refining each-other’s ideas in real time, a remarkable feat given the polarization in today’s America.

Bryan continued by expanding on one such idea. What if, in a similar way that money was a numeric equivalent of time, value, and resources, we begin ranking every initiative with a “Don’t Die” score? The score would then precisely encapsulate how each initiative impacts human wellbeing. Despite striking me as an outgrowth of the failure-to-launch that was the Triple Bottom Line, I found the concept compelling.

A politician could then say “My district is the most ‘Don’t Die’ district in the country”. An administrator could say “Our school lunches are the most ‘Don’t Die’ lunches in the country”.

Just as an individual would follow the habits that yield the best biomarkers, whichever initiative has the best score — those would be society’s new marching orders.

This begs the question, how would a “Don’t Die” score be implemented into current political and corporate environments?

I’d sensed the subtle simmering of religious undertones ever since I walked through the door; it was precisely at this moment when they became overt. The true purpose of this dinner and subsequent conference was becoming clear. As a former Mormon, Bryan doesn’t shy away from such comparisons: he brazenly admits to taking a page from the religious world. Religions, after all, are the longest-lasting institutions in human history; and Bryan wants to build a durable movement. A commitment to existence as the highest virtue.

His openly stated goal: to get 1 Billion people to self-identify as “Don’t Die”, first and foremost, by 2027.

He was seeking to grow his cohort of disciples, the ones who would be brave enough to start demanding a “Don’t Die” assessment in every aspect of their lives. To invoke this phrase as often as possible in the halls of power and influence. He wants people who will insist on change and have the courage to walk the talk when the “Don’t Die” scores demand difficult action. We were to steel ourselves in preparation first, now, by following hard-but-rewarding protocols in our own lives. We had already proven that we can do hard things.

Perhaps a covert network of change agents was closer to reality than I initially thought… We were either witnessing the birth of a new global movement or a cult doomed to buckle under the weight of its own lofty promises.

Reflections

We closed the dinner by thanking someone in the circle for a particularly insightful contribution, followed by a big group hug. A couple attendees even brought Bryan some parting gifts. My favorite? A custom made “Don’t Die” flag.

A few of us stayed behind to mingle. Perhaps we were all just as curious to learn about each other, or perhaps the senior Mr. Johnson said it best: observing our conversation was “like watching cells at work”. We wanted to see what would emerge from the night. One of my questions was particularly revealing of the caliber of humans that were in the room. I was keenly interested in the singular gene therapy Bryan had recently undergone in Roatan, Honduras. I too was very skeptical about the risks involved, yet this reversible Follistatin therapy seemed to be making quite a splash in longevity circles. I had to learn more. Bryan’s response was simply pointing to a gentleman and saying:

“Well, the inventor of that procedure is sitting right next to you.”

Synchronicity seemed to be everywhere at this dinner and subsequent conference, even more so than is usual for San Francisco. Over the course of 24 hours, three times I found myself discussing a topic of interest, only to discover that a nearby bystander was an expert in that field and joined our conversation. I later learned that the room was filled with medical practitioners, CEOs, venture capitalists, and of course data people like myself.

I had to know, did Bryan Johnson’s mission come across as messianic to the others — a sort of Joseph Smith for the 21st century — or was I projecting? I was hardly alone in picking up the spiritual guru vibes. Many felt he was the real deal; despite not being religious, I could feel this as well. There was a real desire in this man to improve the world and every human around him. I’m not talking about the vomit-inducing Silicon Valley trope of “we’re going to change the world with software”. No, it was clear that Bryan Johnson was not only putting his money where his mouth was, but often his life and livelihood as well. Genuine care and belief in principles were palpable in his presence; this man was all in.

Personally, I’m onboard with the “Don’t Die” mission. It’s a clearer and more principled approach to tackling the massive challenges facing humankind this century, at least more than any I have heard to date. It’s elegant in the way it pairs personal and societal action, and is ultimately hopeful, without being delusionally optimistic.

Bryan was just as sincere in his introduction to our dinner as well. He expected that by the time we were done, we would all feel very close to each other. Indeed, several unofficial messaging groups spontaneously popped up for staying in touch. I’ll be watching closely as this group grows; perhaps Bryan really is onto something.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to follow Bryan’s journey and regimen, integrating his and others’ longevity practices into my daily life. Someone certainly has to win the Longevity Olympics.