We Are Experiencing a Break with the Past
A “discontinuity” is a watershed moment, one where past experience loses its value as a guide to decision-making about the future. Climate foresight investigates how the future will be discontinuous with the past because of the impacts of climate change, ecosystem disturbance, resource depletion, and societal upheavals.
Foresight is not prediction. The world is too full of deep uncertainty to make confident predictions about exactly what will happen. Instead, climate futurism seeks to improve our odds of success by being aligned with the forces driving change and alert to unexpected shifts.
What Is Climate Foresight?
Climate foresight is the discipline of understanding how climate disruptions reshape our systems — cities, markets, infrastructure, governance, communities, and personal lives — and how to make smart, durable choices in response.
It shifts the question from “What will happen?” to “What are smart moves I can make to prepare for rapid and uncertain change?”
Core Concepts
1. Discontinuity
The moment when past expertise and experience stop being a reliable guide for future decisions.
2. Brittleness
The way systems fail suddenly when stressed by discontinuous conditions.
3. Ruggedization
The process of building durable capacity to survive and succeed in turbulent times.
4. Relative Safety
Understanding where stability will persist, and where people will move.
5. Planetary Thinking
Seeing local choices in global context. The climate crisis is not an issue — it’s an era.
Why We Need Foresight Now
Almost every system in our lives — housing, insurance, infrastructure, mobility, food, finance — was built for conditions that no longer exist.
These aren’t future risks. They are the new operating conditions. We must make decisions aligned with the world we actually live in, not the one we wish we still inhabited.
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About Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen is one of the world’s leading climate futurists. With 30 years of experience, he helps individuals and organizations understand not just what is changing, but how to live well inside that change.
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