Probable Futures

Creating and publishing the Probable Futures climate handbook with beautiful visuals, rigorously vetted science, soundtracked audio narration, and accessible language took numerous writers at Probable Futures in collaboration with designers, editors, scientists, and engineers at partner agencies. We’re happy to share that the result of that work has been widely recognized as a high-quality and useful resource by organizations across industries from visual design to government bodies: Our digital platform has received awards from the The Anthem Awards and Communication Arts magazine. It’s been featured by Fast Company, Bloomberg News, and the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences Front Matter magazine. It is a recommended resource by the U.S. Government’s Climate Resilience Toolkit. It's a suggested classroom resource by SubjectToClimate as well as the state of New Jersey’s climate core curriculum and appears on dozens of other climate change “recommended resource” sites. Give it a read or listen, and let us know what you think. https://buff.ly/4cbVZRe

Climate change doesn’t have to be abstract. Explore places that matter to you using our 30+ maps of key climate risks: https://buff.ly/3YvG8tz

You’ve probably heard “storm of the century” used to describe a storm so extreme we only imagine we’ll experience it once in 100 years or once in a lifetime. Here’s how they’re changing:

“A stable climate enabled settlement, and settlement led to property.” At this week’s First Street Defining Climate Risk and Financial Modeling event in NYC, Spencer Glendon joined Dr. Carolyn Kousky and Dr. Jeremy Porter for a talk on the macroeconomic risks and repercussions of climate disasters. On stage, Spencer shared his own insights into the history of climate stability and examined the challenges and risks that come with losing that stability.

To learn how to use the Probable Futures map of days above 28°C wet-bulb to assess heat and humidity risk where you live, start with our explainer walking you through how the map changes at 1.5°C, 2°C, 2.5°C, and 3°C of warming in Miami, Florida with example guiding questions to start considering wet-bulb risk: https://buff.ly/3QhFon4

We regularly publish explainers anyone can use to understand key climate concepts—and we’ve heard they’re quite useful when they address the topics that matter most to you. What should we cover next?

Our climate handbook distills the essentials of how our climate works and how it’s changing into an easy-to-read digital handbook. Begin reading, or sign up for email to get the handbook delivered to your inbox:

Although this excerpt is from Spencer Glendon’s December 2021 seasonal essay, “Solstice greetings: bear stories,” there’s much that remains relevant, and we promise you’ll learn about more than bears: “Out of curiosity, I googled ‘climate change images.’ I was shown a preview of 10 photos, half containing polar bears. In Glasgow, there were larger-than-life polar bear statues, people in polar bear suits, and papier-mâché polar bears in life vests. I wondered why the people who put effort into making these displays and traveling with them to Scotland thought they would be effective. What was it about polar bears that might change human behavior? This is not a snarky question. Every day, the Probable Futures team works to figure out how to reach people to help them envision what is coming, prepare for what we can’t avoid, and imagine better ways to live in an unstable, warmer world. As I considered protesters in their polar bear suits, I became aware of the presence of bears in my earliest childhood. I decided to learn more about how bears became part of American and European culture. What I learned turned out to be instructive.” Read the full essay here:

Leanne Hickman’s recent experience in the climate-informed decision-making masterclass Alison Smart teaches on a monthly basis in partnership with Terra.do is exactly what we’re hoping to create with our executive education offerings. Thank you so much for sharing your takeaways Leanne Hickman.

How do we measure climate change? In small-sounding numbers called degrees of warming that tell us how much the earth has warmed since pre-industrial times. Learn about how we measure climate change and the significance of 1.5°C in our explainer: