It seems increasingly likely that AI is going to crash this economy, but not in the future-of-everything go-fast-and-break things way that boosters like to imagine. Less like rocket fuel and more in the sugar in the gas tank.

I'm voting for Tom Steyer because the climate emergency is the defining challenge of our time, and he is a true climate leader. Steyer is also more progressive than Becerra on the social and policy issues I care most about, like housing policy, utility regulation, education and health care.

So fucking short sighted

I'm voting for Tom Steyer because the climate emergency is the defining challenge of our time, and he is a true climate leader. Steyer is also more progressive than Becerra on the social and policy issues I care most about, like housing policy, utility regulation, education and health care.

I’m a climate scientist. Let me fix this headline. “Nearly a century ago, scientists showed that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. Today, we know human emissions account for over 100% of the warming. Yet dark money and disinformation still work to keep Americans addicted to fossil fuels.”

This piece — about reimagining our work lives on a planet in crisis — may have had more impact than any other newsletter I’ve written. As the Last Decade now becomes the Lost Decade, climate foresight even more vital for finding our paths. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/discontinu...

As was foretold, we are in a goddamn manure storm. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/el-nino-fa...

This piece — about reimagining our work lives on a planet in crisis — may have had more impact than any other newsletter I’ve written. As the Last Decade now becomes the Lost Decade, climate foresight even more vital for finding our paths. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/discontinu...

How are you getting your bearings in this chaotic new world? alexsteffen.substack.com/p/getting-yo...

The common understanding of climate adaptation — existing places and systems incrementally accommodating gradual shifts in weather patterns in fundamental continuity with the past — is going to cause catastrophic harm.

This isn't just corruption or grift, it's a full-on criminal enterprise. If Republicans in Congress hadn't sold themselves out completely, they'd shut this down immediately.

A reminder that there is no profit model for solar geoengineering other than capture of government appropriations. In the absence of systemic governance and policy, VC investors can get their return only through public corruption, not technological innovation.

California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra just took half a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry. This on top of the max contribution from Chevron. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Understanding climate response as society-wide defense of what exists from the impacts of changing conditions doesn't track with current reality — nor does the assumption that response will be lead by government, with massive public investments. We're moving into a very different world than that.

“We are as unprepared for the potentially massive distortions of successful climate response as we are unprepared for the systemic declines brought on by worsening brittleness.” Cheap danger & expensive safety - @alexsteffen.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/alexstef...

Let this radicalize you

Let's note that not only is this an effort by Trump cronies to block financial accountability for predatory delay, it is itself an attempt at predatory delay, since concern about financial liability for intentional climate destruction has been exerting negative pressure on fossil fuel values.

Are you trying to chart a course through the growing climate chaos around us? I lead a Personal Climate Strategy Workshop to help people make better decisions in the face of escalating uncertainties. The New York Times covers it here: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/n...

Back in Worldchanging days, I wrote a lot about the idea that “We need to build a civilization on this planet as if we were planning to stay.” The paradox is that long-term durability now requires not only slow long-term thinking, but short-term acceleration of capacities. bsky.app/profile/alex...

I tweeted this offhandedly nine years ago. I fear it was right. (Of course, being mushroom-cloud wrong would not be so great, either.)

Sometimes I imagine trying to explain current headlines as a time traveler to even the recent past www.newscientist.com/article/2524...

Let's note that not only is this an effort by Trump cronies to block financial accountability for predatory delay, it is itself an attempt at predatory delay, since concern about financial liability for intentional climate destruction has been exerting negative pressure on fossil fuel values.

Meanwhile, Xavier Becerra, another candidate, is actually taking oil industry donations, and this is made a minor point in the story. If you agree that the climate-housing-energy nexus is the central issue in CA politics, then Tom Steyer is the obvious choice.

This is a weird hatchet job. Tom Steyer, who's running for CA gov, has by far the strongest policies and record on climate. Times runs a story about the appearance that his investments are tied to coal, while noting that he's not actually invested in fossil fuels. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

Are you trying to chart a course through the growing climate chaos around us? I lead a Personal Climate Strategy Workshop to help people make better decisions in the face of escalating uncertainties. The New York Times covers it here: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/n...

A group of nations is working to slow down the IPCC reporting process, for some mysterious reason... www.carbonbrief.org/ipcc-frustra...

Today is the last day to sign up for the Personal Climate Strategy Workshop! alexsteffen.thinkific.com/courses/Pers...

Most people: We'd like less light pollution, and more starry nights. The Valley: Cool... How about giant unregulated space mirrors reflecting the Sun onto your community, turning night into day whenever we can make a buck off it? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/c...

“This wave isn’t going away. It’s going to keep building, because the climate crisis is now the context for every important decision we make — where to live, what to invest in, which career bets to place, when to move, what to hold onto and what to let go.” alexsteffen.substack.com/p/the-coming...

This piece is kicking up some dust. More and more upwardly mobile people who've trusted suburban homeownership and rising incomes to secure their future are now finding their lives getting brittle as the climate crisis worsens. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/resilient-...

“This wave isn’t going away. It’s going to keep building, because the climate crisis is now the context for every important decision we make — where to live, what to invest in, which career bets to place, when to move, what to hold onto and what to let go.” alexsteffen.substack.com/p/the-coming...

What if the chaos isn’t going away? What if all this isn’t just a rough patch? What if this is the world we have to learn to live in, now? alexsteffen.substack.com/p/the-patter...

There not being a normal is the new normal.

What if the chaos isn’t going away? What if all this isn’t just a rough patch? What if this is the world we have to learn to live in, now? alexsteffen.substack.com/p/the-patter...

There not being a normal is the new normal.

"Alex Steffen will change the way you think about planning for your future.” — Britt Wray "One of the most impactful learning experiences I’ve had on any topic in the last decade" — Tiago Forte The next Personal Climate Strategy Workshop begins 4/14/26. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/theres-not...

"Alex Steffen will change the way you think about planning for your future.” — Britt Wray "One of the most impactful learning experiences I’ve had on any topic in the last decade" — Tiago Forte The next Personal Climate Strategy Workshop begins 4/14/26. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/theres-not...

Wow! This essay is becoming one of the more popular things I've written since I started my newsletter. It's about the danger of having done well enough to feel we're safe from the climate crisis, when in fact our prosperity is built on risk and brittleness. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/resilient-...

I hadn't seen this before. This is pretty remarkable. Earth and Moon in one NASA photo. ht @astrokatie.com

Wow! This essay is becoming one of the more popular things I've written since I started my newsletter. It's about the danger of having done well enough to feel we're safe from the climate crisis, when in fact our prosperity is built on risk and brittleness. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/resilient-...

"This essay is about a different kind of danger — the danger not of having nothing, but of having enough to feel safe while being deeply exposed."

New: Why being relatively well-off doesn't necessarily make you safe from the economic brittleness of the climate chaos — but it does make the risk you face harder to see. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/resilient-...

Yes. But it's not ignorance, or magical thinking, or ideological blinders. Not primarily. It's predatory delay. It's the intentional sabotage of science and policy to make climate action harder and thereby prolong the profits of oil, gas and other high-carbon and unsustainable industries.

New: Why being relatively well-off doesn't necessarily make you safe from the economic brittleness of the climate chaos — but it does make the risk you face harder to see. alexsteffen.substack.com/p/resilient-...

"The decisions they’re being forced to face — where to live, what to invest in, when to move — are the highest-stakes decisions of their lives, being made in the midst of some of the largest climate and ecological upheavals in human history."

These assholes are going to try to destroy every effort we have going to stop climate change. All is not lost, but things are likely going to get much worse before they just become a massive, all-encompassing discontinuity we are forced to learn to try to manage. heatmap.news/politics/win...

Yes. But it's not ignorance, or magical thinking, or ideological blinders. Not primarily. It's predatory delay. It's the intentional sabotage of science and policy to make climate action harder and thereby prolong the profits of oil, gas and other high-carbon and unsustainable industries.

The slightly longer answer is that at this moment, the truly big choices are still in front of us. The difference between the best possible and worst possible outcomes ahead are staggeringly vast. Giving up before we fight for the best outcomes available is unwise and unethical.