The Los Alamos National Lab's just-out report on climate change
Built from the summer symposium where I presented as a panelist
I didn’t author anything here. The staff who put on the symposium did. They summarized some points from my talk.
Coolest of all: Throughline designed the doc’s data visualizations and included a cluster of Jim Nuttle’s illustrations that immediately made me jealous and now taunt with the possibility of using them in future iterations of my brief — they’re that good.
So, a quick tour of my version of the highlights, with the full report downloadable above. LANL wants a wide and free distro, so share at will.
The panelists I spoke alongside:
Here’s the quick summation of my points:
Another panelist noted that from a geopolitical perspective, the coming decades will witness the confluence of globalization, demographic aging, the rise of a global majority middle class, changing politics, and climate change. The resulting turbulence in global geopolitics will elicit major structural changes in the world order, shifting the focus from East-West competition to North-South integration. As the most extreme effects of climate change, such as the loss of arable land and water scarcity, are concentrated close to the equator and in the Global South, there will be immense pressure on these populations to migrate to higher latitudes. The destination countries in the Global North will have to determine whether to accept or repel these migrants. A whole-of-government soft power response will be needed to overcome the potential instability of mass migration from the Global South.
The U.S. is supremely advantaged in this future of North-South integration for myriad reasons. The West has a history of inter-state peace over the past century, enabled by the military spending and national security capability of the U.S. This border stability and military supremacy is poised to continue in the decades to come. The Americas have expanding resource advantages in water, food, minerals, and energy. Trade is largely unintegrated compared to Europe and China but primed for integration. Relative to other regions, the Americas are more uniform linguistically, religiously, ethnically, and demographically, which will ease integration. The highest latitudes are freer, more open, and more democratic than in the East. The U.S. has no superpower rival in the West and still enjoys the most admired national brand in the world; therefore, it can be the role model.
I got the “another panelist noted” treatment because my stuff didn’t exactly fit with the other two panelists, which is both fine and appropriate. I’m not an academic and so my material packs a different punch — by design.
Some of the great data visualizations from Throughline:
That one I love.
The great handoff between coal and natural gas that I’ve been tracking for 30 years now!
You’ve probably seen this data before. It’s just really well presented here.
Self-explanatory: Middle Earth will have it rough.
Now, for the treat!
Nuttle’s drawings.
This one is so cool: progress, response, effort made, happy ending.
Like I say in the book/brief: the Global South sees risk and danger, while the Global North sees a financial liability. Spot four of my five superpowers here. Super cool.
Suggestive of the all-of-the-above reality with an emphasis on renewables.
That one is a direct pull from the book, and I really like it — and will definitely use it in the future. Very cool to see my concept redone here.
This one is simply brilliant and brilliantly simple: Where are you going to move and find it both safe and affordable? This is a snapshot image of the property insurance issue.
Supremely clever. If Susan Crawford doesn’t pirate this (and the one just above) in the future, then she’s missing out.
Al Gore would love this one. Hockey stick meets goalie!
All in all, a beautiful presentation and a nifty write-up. I thoroughly enjoyed my time out west as Los Alamos.
See below for posts I did back then:
For photos from the trip (to include a fantastic hike at a national monument park):
