A World Reconfigured: An Intro
A funny guide to a serious topic
It was just another article I stumbled across. Russian military build-up in the Arctic. Curious, I thought to myself. Surely they have better things to do with their soldiers. You know, like sending them to the bloody theater of war in Ukraine. I was about to move on, but something pulled me into digging deeper. I couldn’t understand why and I wanted to solve that mystery.
See, I always loved detective stories. As a child, I read almost any Sherlock Holmes story I could get my hands on. For me, it wasn’t much about the solution, but that moment when a strange, peculiar event, an anomaly, opens a portal to much deeper stories. The difference between a “who’d done it” and the “Adventures of the Devil’s Foot”.
In an odd way, Russian military build-up in the Arctic was that moment for me, a moment that made me understand i’ve stumbled into something deeper that a simple deployment of forces.
By that moment, I was already keenly aware (say, terrified) of the impending catastrophe that is climate change. Like most of my colleagues and friends, I was looking into the future and thinking about what we can do to save ourselves from disaster, and how will the future look like. I knew by then that my generation will face a different climate than the one we grew up in, but it still seemed far. There’s still time until the AMOC collapses, until the Amazon becomes a carbon bomb and the oceans will swallow our coastal cities. I thought our economy, our society, our politics had some more time.
In a way I was right. There’s still some time. Yes, the impact of our changing climate is being felt all over the world, but there are still some years to reverse course, to save ourselves.
But in a way, I was wrong. Or, I was missing the point. One article after another, I started noticing that no one is really waiting for the climate to change. In fact, as we meet for conferences and hold summits (that are important) and build the new wave of technologies to power a new, low carbon economy (that are critical), many of the systems we rely on are… changing in response, and are changing quite significantly.
It’s not a coordinated set of actions. It’s not a bunch of suits sitting in a room and thinking about how to manipulate the world. Rather, little by little, each industry and each system we rely on is reacting to a world that is less familiar with each passing day. With the basic assumptions of the world we inhabit becoming less true, the systems around us have to adjust, shift course and change the underlying dynamics that define them.
In other words, our world is being reconfigured as our planet changes.
This realization seems pretty obvious, but in many cases the clues to this reconfiguration are hidden in plain sight. They hide behind boring articles, actuarial reports and stock market filings. They hide behind the buzz and neckbreaking speed of current events. Many of us still do not feel the brunt of the reconfiguration, and those of us who do, probably cannot see the forest for the trees, as they are likely to encounter one tree at a time.
But the forest is growing, one tree after another: From insurers refusing to insure houses in Florida and Beverly Hills to opening shipping lanes in the Arctic to the growing sector of Climate Service Providers that are being gobbled up by asset managers, we are witnessing meaningful changes to how our world operates. Little by little, the world we inhabit becomes as weird as the planet we live in.
Welcome to the Reconfiguration.
(if you’re wondering what’s with Russian military build up in the Arctic… stay tuned for the first exploration into the reconfiguration!)
This substack is dedicated to my hobbyist detective work to uncover and understand the Reconfiguration, and to discuss the changes in our systems.
What can you expect?
I will explore in future posts different aspects of the reconfiguration, ranging from geopolitics to insurance to entertainment (maybe). It’s not a Theory of Everything, but rather a journey.
I will do my best to keep things breezy and humorous, and will experiment with different writing styles. Where applicable, I will try to highlight those who are working towards making our world better and less bizzare. By profession I have an affinity for technology and startups, and I will try to highlight some where relevant.
I will also try to incorporate funny memes and AI-generated photos, just for kicks.
Who Am I?
My name is Arod and I have terrible climate anxiety, some free time and a love for mysteries.
I work in Consulting and spent time working in the intersection of Climate Change, technology and corporates. This substack is not affiliated with my work and is mostly the result of my passion to better understand a world that seems weirder, but more exciting, by each passing day, and my passion for making the world we inhabit a little bit better.
Writing this substack is my way of adding to the climate conversation, deal with my climate anxiety and make a quick buck engage with likeminded people who share my passion for climate change
Who is this for?
Really, anyone. But more specifically:
Readers who share a passion for understanding how climate change reconfigures our world
Readers who are interested in climate change, climate technologies and climate solutions
Readers who love a good, slow, unfolding mystery
That’s it for the start of our journey! Hope to see you next time 🙋♂️