When We Are with Alex Steffen Do You Know What You've Lost?
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Mar 20, 2026 A quick probe into how much climate-driven loss is already happening and often goes unseen. Short, incremental harms that quietly erode assets and services get spotlighted. The conversation highlights hidden financial exposures like insurance, pensions and corporate value. It warns about political and corporate denial that delays reckoning and urges noticing brittle systems in everyday life.
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Hidden Incremental Losses Are Already Happening
- Climate losses are often incremental and hidden inside systems we depend on rather than dramatic disasters.
- Alex Steffen cites rising insurance rates, shorter infrastructure lifespans, and heat forcing outdoor workers to miss days as examples of stealth losses.
Predatory Delay Masks Present Risk
- Predatory delay and political obfuscation convince people loss is only a future problem, not a present one.
- Steffen compares it to using credit then ignoring the bill, showing we already incur climate debt today.
Value Collapse Can Be Quiet And Pervasive
- Climate-driven devaluation may happen as many small drops instead of one obvious crash, leaving people unaware why assets collapse.
- Steffen warns assets can plummet across geographies without a single identifiable market event.