Cassandra Program
„Industrial civilisation is already unravelling – a long process that will outlast us all.”
The mission of the Cassandra Program is to help organisations, communities, and individuals prepare for a profound shift in living conditions driven by the combined impact of multiple, converging forces. Its purpose is to support thoughtful, informed adaptation, so that a liveable life can be sustained, as far as possible, under fundamentally changed circumstances.
What lies ahead?
Storms, flash floods, droughts, wildfires, hail, tornadoes, unbearable heatwaves and severe cold – extreme weather and its consequences that will claim lives and cause vast damage across the planet, even in the years immediately ahead.
Covid-19 will not be the last global pandemic of our lifetime. Scientists warn that the risk posed by zoonotic diseases – infections passing from animals to humans – is steadily increasing. The likelihood of recurring, novel pandemics is now higher than ever before.
By 2025, half of the world’s population lived in areas facing severe water stress, while access to safe drinking water increasingly becomes a privilege. Sixty per cent of humanity’s calorie intake comes from just three crops, and with climate extremes, inflation, fragile supply chains and armed conflicts, a global food crisis is fast approaching.
Rising energy demand, dwindling and lower-quality resources that are harder to extract, the costs of the so-called green transition, and price pressures from geopolitical conflict are driving higher costs, growing scarcity, and eventual supply disruptions. As energy prices climb, the impact will be felt across every aspect of daily life.
As the global economy drifts ever further from the real economy and becomes increasingly dependent on debt-based financial systems, the risk of more frequent and more severe economic and financial crises grows. Runaway inflation and mounting resource constraints only reinforce this trajectory.
Modern societies have become so complex that removing just one or two critical elements can destabilise the whole. Under the pressure created by overlapping crises and growing uncertainty, already fragile social cohesion may fracture – in some cases, within weeks.
The world is rearming at a pace not seen for decades. The question is whether we can resist choosing the worst possible path, or whether fear and prejudice will drive us into opposing camps, fighting to the end over the shrinking resources of a degrading planet.
This is a moment for honest self-reflection.
The stakes could not be higher.
Vision
We aim to encourage families, households, communities, and organisations to operate in more sustainable and resilient ways, even as the systems that underpin everyday life – climate, nature, society, and the economy – enter a period of ongoing decline.
Mission
Our purpose is to provide the knowledge and support people need to engage in honest, meaningful conversations about the future ahead, and to empower them to reduce the negative impacts on their lives as far as possible.
Integrated preparation
Click on the squares to explore the details.
Awareness and emotions
Behaviour and reserves
Inner
Awareness
Awareness
Resilience
Resilience
Preparedness
Preparedness
Care
Care
Outer
Relationships and community
Collective
Support systems
Anyone is free to make their own choices about how to live – less so, perhaps, when responsible for children – and those choices are neither right nor wrong, only their own. But they can be made with integrity only after facing reality clearly and deciding in full awareness of it.
As time moves on and these processes unfold before us, more and more people will turn to us with uncertainty and questions. How many of us are able to offer steadiness and support to others may prove to be decisive.
Where to begin?
Explore!
Explore!!
„Any social hopes we can still hold in the dark times ahead must be grounded in a clear-eyed understanding of the worst: the harshest physical realities and the least admirable human traits.” – Charles Percy Snow
Media
Engaging with the issue, understanding the facts, and accepting change.
Through written, spoken, and visual content we aim to make it possible for people to recognise the processes shaping their world, to see through complex interdependencies, and to understand how these changes are likely to affect their everyday life. On the path to awareness, this is the first step.
Sources
In a world flooded with trivial information, clarity is power. Today, the real challenge is not access to information, but judging its credibility. A source is only credible if it is trustworthy. Everything published across Cassandra’s platforms is supported, wherever possible, by a wide range of scientific publications, because honesty and trust are the only sound foundations for meaningful decisions.
Publications
In a rapidly changing world, surface-level information rarely offers real guidance. Our selected publications guide aims to deepen understanding by exploring connections, processes, and consequences behind the polycrisis. They offer durable perspectives, practical context, and reflective insight for those seeking thoughtful, long-term responses, informed decisions, and responsible action in pursuit of a liveable future.
Prepare!
Prepare!
„Preparation for adaptation must begin without delay at organisational, community, and individual levels alike. This remains true even if the urgent necessity of doing so is still recognised by very few today.” – Jem Bendell
Present State
The resilience assessment functions as a practical indicator of preparedness, highlighting the strengths and vulnerabilities of your lifestyle and household. By investing time and attention in addressing the weaknesses it reveals, you can better understand the challenges ahead and follow a clear, actionable path to improve your chances. Few steps are wiser than this.
Next Steps
Once you can clearly assess your current level of preparedness, it is time to understand how to strengthen your resilience across eight key areas of life. This means developing your knowledge, resources, and practical capabilities so you can create a viable, liveable life for yourself and those close to you, even as circumstances change fundamentally.
Preparedness
Understanding and accepting the complex, disruptive changes unfolding within Earth’s systems – and recognising and processing their consequences for our lives – is both intellectually and emotionally demanding. Here you can read about individual and community adaptation, as well as preparing for emergencies, so that when the time comes, you know what needs to be done.
Connect!
Connect!
„Human beings evolved the capacities for compassion, commitment, and cooperation because our survival depends on them. We will need the very best of who we are, because challenges of this magnitude can only be faced together.” – Michael Dowd
Cassandra Community
This is a forum designed to help people orient themselves, organise, and find one another – both geographically and thematically, according to shared interests – throughout the process of preparedness and adaptation. Because this is the essence of it all: finding each other, those who think and feel in similar ways, and who, in reality, already live alongside one another.