essay about luxurious life

A luxury lifestyle begins within.

Having a cadre of servants waiting on you hand and foot might be nice, but it would probably stale after awhile. When considering a lifestyle, you have to think beyond the moment and consider all possibilities. It’s more than just choosing a nice jacket to wear or springing for that flashy car. No, a true luxury lifestyle has little to do with the material things around you, and everything to do with your attitude. 

Therefore, the first ingredient to luxury is the sort of confidence that comes with being comfortable with yourself. Before you adorn yourself with the trappings of success and wealth, you need to know how to inhabit your own skin. Luckily, everything after this step is easy. 

How to Make Your Luxury Lifestyle Last:

Once in touch with not just the person you are, but also the person you hope to be, it's time to build your luxury lifestyle around you. Disabuse yourself of the idea that simply surrounding yourself with expensive finery will do the trick. Following the guidelines below can help you make the right choices to live the life of your dreams.

1. Set Your Goals.

Credit: Artichoke Ltd., Flickr

You could be living in a palatial estate on a cliff overlooking the ocean, but if you never wanted to be there in the first place it could feel like a prison. Just as you have to know who you are before building your luxury lifestyle, you have to know what it is you want from life.

Do you want to live in the heart of the city? Do you want a big house on land removed from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis? Do you want a fast, flashy car you can open up on empty highways? Or maybe a more sensible, dependable ride that prioritizes comfort and amenities over performance? The answers to these questions will determine your road map. 

Setting your goals is the hardest, yet most important step.

Think about what is important to you, and then go for it. You could be at the most exotic beach in the world and wanting for nothing, but if you hate the feel of sand on your skin, it’s not luxurious. The mistake people too often make when trying to build a luxury lifestyle is trying to impress others rather than pleasing themselves. Don’t do what your friends or media say is luxurious, especially if it conflicts with your own desires. Express yourself through your own tastes, and the people you hope will take notice probably will. Of course, don’t expect to get everything all at once. When you set your goals, think of them like a progression rather than a shopping list . Start with something small, like a bed or the most luxurious chair you can think of. Then, as you get one thing, start working towards the next. Your luxurious lifestyle will build up around you, it just requires a little patience.

2. Figure Out What You Want Most.

The next step to living a luxurious lifestyle is to prioritize your goals. This ensures that they are achievable and attainable with the practicalities of life. For example, if your goal is that flashy sports car, but you live in New York City and can’t afford parking, don’t get that first. Assessing your desires in terms of your current situations is essential for planning your strategy.

You should follow two guidelines when prioritizing these things. If you do, so you can not just eventually live in luxury, but enjoy it along the way:

1. Accept your budgetary limitations.

First, accept your budgetary limitations so that you can live comfortably -- the foundation of all luxury. Ensure you have an excellent financial plan in place, to prevent overzealous spending. Realizing your luxury lifestyle fantasy is an exciting time, and sometimes optimistic people forget that what goes up sometimes comes down. If you get a luxurious living room set but end up bouncing your rent check, that’s not very luxurious.

2. Learn to compromise.

Second, don’t be afraid to compromise with yourself. We’ve all been taught about the “devil” and the “angel” on our shoulders who represent the two sides to consequential choices. However, the choice is not binary -- at least not when it’s about manifesting the luxury lifestyle you want to live.

If your dream home has four bedrooms, don’t immediately discount a good deal on a dwelling with two bedrooms. You might even realize that two rooms works fine for you. You’ll be comfortable in that place and able to set your sights on the next goal, rather than living beyond your means.

3. Make wise investments.

Credit: Escapio: Flickr

Unless your idea of a luxury lifestyle is changing surroundings or recycling possessions every so often, you will want to invest in your dreams. We don’t use this word lightly. These are the items you will surround yourself with every day.

The place where you live, your vehicle, your wardrobe, and everything that’s yours represents some facet of your luxury lifestyle. Thus, you should treat these things like investments, because that’s what they are. They are investments in you.

​ Avoid the hype.

Along with flash, novelty is often overly associated with the idea of luxury. Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to have. However, sometimes it does. It all depends on what is new about the item in question. 

A classic Rolls Royce is, without question, one of the ultimate symbols of luxury across the globe. Even still, the people in the two-year-old Hyundai in the next lane have heated seats, parallel parking assist, and dozens of other modern amenities. So, when it comes to driving or riding around in luxury , newer might actually be better in this case. However, the opposite can be true.

When it comes to things as varied as architecture or furniture, or even the kinds of light bulbs you use, sometimes older may feel more luxurious than the hottest new thing. Luxury is style, and style is another form of personal expression. So, express yourself.

4. Treat Yourself!

Credit: Johnson Watch, Flickr

The tips so far focused on the more metaphysical aspects of constructing your luxurious lifestyle. However, sometimes you just have to treat yourself! Again, luxury means different things to different people. Still, pretty much everyone agrees that going out and getting something you want the moment you want it is as luxurious as it gets.

Whether you like to engage in occasional retail therapy or enjoy a spontaneous splurge, it's prudent to enjoy the fruits of your labor. As much as luxury and lifestyle are a mentality, sometimes you just have to treat yourself, like the character from the comedy Parks and Rec .

As much as the video is a joke, the idea behind it isn’t so bad. It’s all well and good to work diligently on a lifestyle plan to achieve your goals. Yet this doesn’t mean you can’t splurge once in a while, especially if it makes you happy.

Want that cool new electronic device or a hot new outfit? Do it. Want to indulge the foodie in you with a meal at a gourmet restaurant? Go for it. Want to spend all your savings on a luxury yacht? Wait, hold up. Don’t do that.

5. Don't Treat Yourself All the Time.

Credit: UggBoy UggGirl, Flickr

There is a difference between a luxury lifestyle and living a materialistic life of pure indulgence. But it’s not as far apart as you might think. Treating yourself every so often is good for the soul. Constantly doing it will not only wreck your plan to achieve the luxury lifestyle of your dreams, but it will also make it less fulfilling. 

Imagine your favorite dessert. When you have the chance to enjoy a portion of it after a meal, it’s a wonderful surprise. But, if you eat it after every single meal, you’ll grow to hate it in months. Much the same can be applied to creating a luxury lifestyle. 

Indulging is fine -- in moderation.

While indulging your every whim is not exactly like eating the same food item every meal, the ultimate effect is the same. The joy you feel when indulging yourself in something special becomes less, well, special. So, as you treat yourself more and more, it becomes less satisfying.

Stick to your plan, and everything might work out for the best. Spend most of your money on nonsense whims, and you won’t live a life of luxury, but rather feel buried under a bunch of useless stuff. By avoiding useless buys now, you save money for larger purchases to epitomize a luxury lifestyle.

6. Forget About What the World Thinks.

So much of our ideas about a luxury lifestyle have arisen from social media. Social media influencers share pictures, videos, and the likes of their cars, mansions, private planes, and so on. Consumers, in turn, offer validation by sharing, commenting on, and liking these posts.

Their luxury lifestyle isn’t about what they find luxurious, but rather what they think the world does. They boast their possessions, which can be fun to look at, but doesn’t mean they are happy. Therefore, when it comes to your personal luxury lifestyle, don’t try to emulate others. 

Embrace a luxurious lifestyle that works for you .

This is not to say that you have to cut all ties from social media like a luxury Luddite (otherwise how would you share our helpful tips with your friends and loved ones!). No, what we’re suggesting is that instead of worrying about the message your stuff sends, think about the message you are sending. Share expressions of yourself that make you happy and confident -- think of it like art . Social media is yet another way we can express ourselves in today’s world. So, cultivate these expressions like you would something creative. If you want to share a picture of your gourmet dinner, take a great photo. But, when deciding what is worth sharing, make sure it feels like you rather than a commercial for whatever products you're rocking.

7. Foster Good Relationships.

Credit: Skaja Lee, Flickr

As we mentioned above, one person’s luxury lifestyle can feel like a luxury cage to another. Still, no matter what you enjoy, if all you do is totter around your lavish home alone, it won’t feel very luxurious. That’s because, as the old song says, people really do need other people.

Of course, you don’t want to be like The Great Gatsby , and just surround yourself with people there to drink your booze, eat your food, and peek in your closets. No, what you need are real, meaningful relationships with other people.

Avoid spending all your time focusing on your plans, and remember to make time for people. Once you have achieved your luxurious lifestyle, these are likely the people you will with whom you will share the fruits of your labor.

8. Give Back to a Cause You Care About

Credit: Daniel M. Viero, Flickr

A luxury lifestyle worth living is not one that focuses solely on you all the time. In fact, what gives value to your accomplishment is doing your part to help others achieve their dreams.

Volunteer your time and money to charities and causes that are important to you. Help mentor youth to set their own plans for the future, using your example as a guide. Give of your time or money (or both) to those who weren’t so fortunate as to see their dreams for a luxury lifestyle realized.

Helping others helps you, too.

Of course, we all know we should do altruistic things for their own sake, but there is a benefit for you as well. It will help you continue to feel like you deserve the life you’ve built. This is key for sustaining your luxury lifestyle beyond the first time the direct deposit hits your account .

Seeing people at other stages of the journey can help you remember both how hard you fought to get where you are , and how far you still can go. But you will rest more comfortably in your own luxury lifestyle, in your own skin, if you remember to be of service whenever you can afford to be.

There is no guaranteed path to living a luxurious lifestyle, but you should go for it anyways!

Unfortunately, these tips can only help you create the outline of your journey towards the luxury lifestyle you know you deserve. Life is a strange, chaotic thing filled with constant marvels and distractions. But, with focus and hard work, you can not only build the luxury lifestyle you want, but also help others achieve their dreams. Still, knowing this, we hope you found these tips helpful in setting up your best plan to live the life of your dream.

Do you have any tips of your own or anything we missed? Share your comments and insights with us below!

Related Article:  Old Money and New Money: Breaking Down the Differences

Joshua Patton

Joshua M. Patton is a father, veteran, and storyteller living in Pittsburgh, PA. You can find his work on his social media feeds or on his website. His book "What I Learned: Stories, Essays, and More" is available from all major booksellers. He is the best star pilot in the galaxy, a cunning warrior, and a good friend.

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Self-Improvement

Everyday luxury: 33 masterful ways to live like a queen.

Let me tell you a secret…creating a life of everyday luxury has almost nothing to do with how much money you have access to. The small details of your everyday routines are what build a life that is full of luxury. It is your daily habits and thoughts that open up the world of everyday luxury to you.

What Does Everyday Luxury Mean?

If you are anything like us, you have always dreamt of living a luxury lifestyle. The ability to sip champagne whenever and where ever you want, unlimited shopping trips where you throw whatever your heart desires in the bag, lavish vacations, and a huge house with staff to maintain it all sound like paradise.

An opulent vacation to the Seychelles or Paris will absolutely add to your luxury lifestyle, but you have to come home at some point. You should not have to leave your house or your city to experience luxury. If you don’t have small luxuries as part of your daily life you are highly unlikely to keep living the luxurious life you have experienced on your vacation. Experiencing bursts of extreme luxury is still a thing to be cherished, but those are not the things that define everyday luxury.

If you want to live a life that has a luxury experience every day you have to start to cultivate feelings of abundance, beauty, divinity, and vigor today. This will start to shift how you are showing up and moving through the world to attract more luxurious experiences.

Living the Luxury Life

Sure, having a lot of money can make living a luxurious life easier, but appreciating the gift that it is might be overlooked. Luxury does not equate to large sums of money. Modern advertising entangles the two, but luxury is much more about the quality of the experience and the time spent. Buying luxury goods or experiences is just a bonus.

Daily luxurious living is a state of mind. It is a full embodiment of a way of living and that’s excellent news! Because living everyday luxury is a mindset and not an account balance, you can start living the luxury life right now.

Living a luxurious life is more about being able to control how you spend your time, who you spend it with, and being happy with yourself. When you start to practice gratitude for your health, meals, taking a walk, the smell of morning air, a laugh with a friend and anything else you have your life will start to feel a lot more luxurious.

When you shift your focus from what you think you don’t have to fully appreciate what you do have, your mindset about the level of luxury in your everyday life will change. Remember, not everyone has what you have and the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

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How to Create a Luxurious Everday Life

To create a luxurious everyday life you need to have gratitude for and focus on the things that you have. With a few updates and modifications to your daily habits , you can make sure every day has a little something special and feels indulgent. Here are some tips to get you started.

Stop saying, “I can’t afford that.”

If you think something is too lavish for you to have it will always be too expensive. Try saying, “That’s not currently in my budget,” instead. It leaves the door open to budgeting for it in the future.

Grab a Drink at a Luxurious Hotel Bar

It won’t cost you as much as a full meal at a luxury restaurant, but you’ll get a taste of a luxury vibe.

Go to an Open House for a Home You’d Love to Live in

It might be out of your budget at the moment, but you can take some ideas from how it was staged and replicate them in your own space.

Wear your Good Things Whenever you Want

Don’t save your best items for a special occasion. You are the occasion.

Wear Perfume

Fragrance helps set the mood and so wear a scent that makes you feel luxurious.

Get Dressed Every Day

It doesn’t matter if you’ll just be at home , get dressed every day. When you look good, you feel good.

Shop your Closet

Choose your outfits like you’re shopping at your favorite store. You might shock yourself with the combinations you come up with.

Cook a Meal from Scratch

A homemade meal tastes so much better than anything store-bought or from takeout. You’ll know exactly what is in it and be able to pour love into it. That’s why it tastes better.

Use Quality Sheets

This is worth the splurge . The quality of your sleep affects literally everything about your waking life. Do whatever it takes to get good sleep.

Have a Glass of Wine or Champagne

Dealers choice here, but there is something about having a glass of wine while winding down for the weekend that breathes opulence into your routine.

Celebrate your Wins

Big or small you should celebrate your accomplishments.

Use a Silk Pillowcase

A silk pillowcase is great for your skin and hair because it keeps them moisturized and won’t pull on them causing wrinkles. Do you need another reason?

Write Thank You Notes

Bonus points if they are on personalized stationery. Taking a moment to express gratitude for someone showing you kindness or service makes you appreciate it more.

Visit Museums and Art Galleries

This helps you get a feel for what kind of art you like and you can’t help but feel luxurious when you are surrounded by art.

Take a Walk

Fresh air and sunshine are good for you mentally and physically.

Use Lavender or Frankincense and Myrrh Pouches in your Drawers

You’ll get a whiff of a heavenly scent every time you open them.

Move your Body Daily

Your entire body will thank you for exercising in some capacity. You’ll be healthier and happier for it in the long run.

Drink Good Coffee or Tea

Having good coffee or tea at home makes a world of difference if you like them. Upgrading from drip coffee to an espresso maker or from bagged teas to loose-leaf is a game-changer.

Wear Nice Lingerie

I don’t know a single woman who doesn’t feel like a goddess in lingerie .

Have Nice Outfits to Wear at Home

You should not only look nice when you’re leaving the house. You see yourself at home so looking put together there helps your self-esteem.

Buy Fresh Flowers

Luxury hotels have them all the time. Why shouldn’t you have them on occasion?

Get your Nails Done

Having your nails look like perfection every day is an easy way to feel luxurious daily.

Use High-Quality Beauty Products

Though the drugstore products will usually work just fine, there is a dash of something special with luxury products. Plus you’re telling yourself that you are worth investing in.

Not only will this practice help you regulate your emotions, but it also helps you feel more in tune with what you want from life.

Journal Daily with your Morning Coffee

Journaling can help you set the tone for your day so settling in with a nice cup of coffee (or tea) can really get the self-inspired desires going.

Simplify your To-Do List

Having a long list of things to do every day creates stress. Spread your massive list out to help you not feel overwhelmed.

Go Out with Your Friends

A fun night out with your girls is always a good time.

Clean Your House

It doesn’t sound fun, but a clean space is a happy space.

Enjoy Watching the Sunrise or Sunset

Seeing these daily phenomena makes you really appreciate living. The Earth is a life-sustaining work of art.

Use Cloth Napkins

They are much classier than paper and you can wash and reuse them.

Use Nice Tableware

Glass, ceramic, and porcelain cups, plates, and drinking glasses feel chicer. Having properly weighted flatware feels super chic too.

Learn How to Have a Good Relationship with Money

Whether you have a little or a lot, know the role money is supposed to play in your life and help it do that.

Move One Step Closer to a Goal

Do one thing that gets you closer to a goal. Having a sense of accomplishment and knowing that you did your future self a favor is a great self-esteem booster.

Living a Luxurious Life Everyday

You don’t have to be at a luxury hotel or live in a $20 million house to experience everyday luxury. You can bring the luxuries of those places to you. If you love how clean hotel rooms are take a day to declutter your home and create a system to keep it clutter-free. You might not have the finest leathers, cashmere, and wool, but you can take care of what you do have like they are. To experience luxury living everyday work to surround yourself with things you find beautiful, comforting, and bring you pleasure. There is no way you can’t feel abundant when that is your lifestyle. Find ways to upgrade your daily habits and you’ll feel more luxurious in no time.

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2 thoughts on “everyday luxury: 33 masterful ways to live like a queen”.

Absolutely love the 33 suggestions you included to live luxuriously each day. I recommend so many of them myself and can attest to the fact that they work. It’s also true that they can elevate the environment and lift those around you as well. Great post!

Thank you! And thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. This means a lot to me!

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Just imagine, waking up with excitement, going through your day with clarity and unwinding in the evening with peace of mind and a dose of pleasure and extraordinary comfort.

In a very succinct way, this is what living a simply luxurious life is about each and every day.

But how does each of us reach this pinnacle? What do we need to do now to enjoy this state of being each and every day?

In a very broad sense, the how is always shared and examined here on TSLL blog and on The Simple Sophisticate podcast. We dive deep into the components of finding this peace of mind, of how to reach the clarity that will no doubt be different and unique just as we are different and unique individuals in this vast and amazing world, and finding what is pleasurable and lovely in our everyday routines, but today I would like to share with you the outline, the concepts of what a simply luxurious life entails, and thus how it will feel as you are living it day in and day out because trust me, while the descriptor above will be true, how you attain that feeling will be different on any given day.

A simply luxurious life involves:

1.Always learning and remaining curious

2. Maintaining and building a sturdy 3-legged stool of health: (1) a diet of moderation which involves real food, (2) physical soundness – daily, simple, enjoyable aerobic exercise, strength, and stretching, and (3) mastery of your mind – conscious decision making rather than reacting rashly, positive self-talk, meditation to let your mind rest and exercise your control and mastery of it and a good, regular night’s sleep.

3. Finding a purpose that correlates with your passions.  Then crafting a plan for success and working towards it in small steps daily.

4. Being clear about what you value and reassessing regularly. Eliminating responsibilities, activities and relationships that don’t support your primary values.

5. Allowing yourself to really feel what you’re feeling, not numbing yourself to what arises. In doing so, you come to understand and allow yourself the ability to move forward with more clarity, compassion and awareness.

6. Creating a sanctuary to wake up in each morning and fall asleep in every night. Keeping it decluttered, organized and stocked with your simple pleasures for your daily, weekly and monthly rituals so that it is simple to maintain and a pleasure to live in.

7. Successfully mastering a chic, stylish wardrobe while adhering to your budget and not letting the trends and media master you. 

8. Building and investing in a healthy social circle. Quality, not quantity.

9. Being compassionate, but having clear, firm boundaries in place. 

10. Establishing routines that enable moments of spontaneity.

11. Living within your means which involves spending to invest in yourself, both of which allow you to have your financial security in your complete control. Continuing to educate yourself so you can take risks, but also remain financially savvy.

12. Knowing what you value and being clear about your priorities so that your energy isn’t depleted for the things you care most deeply about. 

13. Being open to love. Taking your time, learning from past mistakes, knowing what you can and cannot compromise on.

14. Incorporating regular travel as we must continue to grow and evolve, making it luxurious as we venture with the attention to details and planning in preparation.

15. Allowing room for luxuries, both routine and unexpected, such as flowers, massages, facials, pedicures and manicures, excursions, entertainment, dining out, etc. Regularly planning special moments, no matter how small, at least one each day to celebrate or appreciate something that is going well.

16. Being productive in a career you love, but striving for balance with your personal life. 

17. Knowing thyself – what you need, what you know, and what you don’t know. Giving to yourself in the manner of self-respect, self-compassion, and finding your inner strength so that you can successfully attain your goals.

Discover what you will feel as you are living a simply luxurious life:

• contentment
• uncertainty which motivates you to seek answers and more knowledge, but also reminds you to trust yourself
• initial doubt followed by confidence
• inquisitive

The key to understanding why I can guarantee you will feel these emotions is because if you’ve built a strong foundation that involves the 8 pillars of a simply luxurious life , are actively cultivating and working toward achieving and making a reality each of the 17 concepts listed above which fall under the 8 pillars, and are always open to learning how to attain the skills necessary to effectively do each of these (which we talk about regularly on the blog and podcast), no matter where you are on your life’s journey, you will have the confidence to face any uncertainty, you will have the ability to appreciate where you are, what you have and how far you’ve come, you will be in touch with yourself so that you understand your emotions, and that is why the negative emotions don’t rise to the surface.

Yes, you may initially feel frustration or anger due to another’s actions or an outcome of a scenario that didn’t go your way, but you will know how to respond effectively, you will know what to let go of and you won’t burden yourself with unnecessary angst.

As the pioneer of this coined way of life “simply luxurious”, I know I am by no means the first to understand or try to better understand how to live a truly fulfilling life on my own terms so that my authentic self is able to reach its full potential, but perhaps no one was able to speak or write in such a way that I fully grasped and that is why I began this blog.

For example, while I was agog about living simply after reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s book of essays as a teenager, I knew he wasn’t going to be the guru to finding my personal style which I so unabashedly loved spending time trying to understand and shop for accordingly. Likewise, Mireille Guilano seemed to speak to me almost directly when I read her first book, and I began to breathe a breath of angst-free air when I realized I didn’t have to torture myself at the gym to stay in shape. However, I am not French (although in my dreams I sometimes become a femme a la française).

And so, how to live simply luxuriously as someone who isn’t French, but adores their cultural and aesthetic values, how to come to understand myself and the world around me in this twenty-first century as a woman who values her independence, intelligence and femininity, and most importantly, while reaching my full potential, how to savor each and everyday so as to infuse a rich appreciation for the life that I am living now, this is why the blog, then the podcast , the first book and then a second book written to share specific tools to tailor your life to your uniqueness, and then the third book that shares a daily entry for each day of the year exemplifying how to live simply luxuriously every day in your own way is something I want to share with you. Because as much as I am on the journey with you, sharing as I go, revealing the aha moments I experience, with each step, with each challenge I overcome, this life, this simply luxurious life, just becomes more exceptionally extraordinary beyond my wildest expectations and I want you to experience this as well because you absolutely can.

Very much so, Henry David Thoreau’s quote rings true:

If one advances confidently in the direction of [her] dreams, and endeavors to live the life which [she] has imagined, [she] will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

To the typical outsider, your life may not be extraordinarily different, odd or magnificent. But to you, the insider, you will know the transformation you have undergone. You will feel all of those feelings listed above, and you will, to return to the first sentence of this post,  wake up with excitement, go through your day with clarity and unwind in the evening with peace of mind and a dose of pleasure and extraordinary comfort every single day.

The simply luxurious life is worth living, and you hold all the power to make it so.

~If you are new to TSLL blog, start here to discover how to live simply luxuriously as I break down the blog and all of its components so you can best utilitize this destination as a resource to live your best life. 

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8 thoughts on “ What Does a Simply Luxurious Life Look & Feel Like? ”

Shannon you have no idea how much I needed this post today and how much I have gained from it. For some weeks I’ve been quite unwell (severe, never-before back pain), so getting through the days has been a task in itself.

Although I still have a way to go to regain full health I’m on the way, it will help me enormously to reassess each of these 17, perhaps one a day?

Thank you for always inspiring us my friend.

Rose, I am sorry to hear about your back pain. Hang in there and do what you’re no doubt doing to heal. I am thinking of you and hope you recover fully soon. 🙂

This is wonderful. The French like to say that things are “correct,” or done “correctly.” It means much more than accuracy. It’s attention to detail without being slavish about it. The whole moderation thing. So work is done correctly–you work hard and do a good job but you take your lunch break and go home on time. Clothing is correct–clean, pressed, stylish, without being overly revealing, sloppy, or in disrepair. People are correct–polite without being either hostile or gushing. Restaurant portions are correct–good value but not more than one can eat. The word correct applies to so many things. And it seems be to integral to the simply luxurious life.

Intriguing concept. Thank you for sharing.

Awesome read! Thank you, Shannon 🙂

Jessica, Thank you for stopping by. 🙂

Great read and I almost immediately go into relaxation mode reading this blog post. Putting each of these steps in place takes time but well worth the effort. Shannon, I have been following your blog for a few years now and have slowly been creating my sancutary, minding my money and buying flowers weekly to name a few and the creation of simple luxurious life all starting to add up. Simple steps, big improvements! In the spirit of the All-Star games, This post is a home run!!!!!!! Thank you.

Lynette, so happy to hear! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your journey.

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584 Words Short Essay on Luxury

It is not easy to define luxury. It is a word whose meaning shifts and changes like the shape of a mountain in a driving mist. To the political economist, luxuries are all things which are not necessary to life and efficiency, and therefore they include many things, not only innocent, but very desirable.

But to a Puritan preacher, luxury was of the devil, and a temptation to mortal sin. Moreover, luxury is not absolute idea; we cannot say of any particular thing that it is in itself a luxury.

For what is a luxury to one class of people, or in one country, or in one period, may be a necessary to another class, in another country, or another period. As the standards of living rise, things that were luxuries to the grandfathers become necessaries to their grandsons.

As the economists classify things as necessaries and luxuries, perhaps it will help us to a definition of the latter word, if we consider necessaries for a minute. Necessaries for life and effi­ciency are a sufficient quantity of wholesome food, warm cloth­ing, fuel and shelter.

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If a man has these, he cannot only maintain life, but keep physically fit. But can any man, except the poorest, be content with only such bare necessaries? The Bible says, “Man doth not live by bread alone.” Man is not a mere animal; he has a mind and a soul to feed as well as a body.

And for real living, as distinguished from mere existence, many other things than food and clothes and a house and fuel are necessary. And the higher the standard of life to which any particular man has be­come accustomed, the greater the number and variety of things that are necessary.

A child brought up in a poor working-man’s home is quite comfortable and happy with very few things; but a boy reared in a well-to-do family becomes so accustomed to a certain standard of house, furniture, meals, dress, servants, and various conveniences, that he would be absolutely miserable if he were compelled to live in a working-class family.

These things, which to the poorer man would be luxuries, are, therefore, to him real necessaries; for though he might exist without them, he could not live (in the fullest sense of the term) without them.

Again, the tastes of individual men differ widely. To an eager scholar, books (which to many men are luxuries and quite unnec­essary) are more necessary even than food and drink and shelter; and many a student would rather go without a fire on a cold night than deprive himself of his books.

Luxury, however, in colloquial speech, has always a shade of bad meaning. It is something to be condemned. It means living in ignoble ease, self-indulgence, and expensive pleasure. Such a life leads to moral deterioration, and often to vice.

The lover of luxury loses his capacity for work or sustained effort of any kind; his moral fiber is softened, the distinction between right and wrong is blurred, and the whole man becomes in time physically, mentally, and intellectually degenerate.

Luxury has ruined whole nations. When Rome was a small republic, the Romans were noted for their simplicity of life, self-control, courage, loyalty, honesty, and hardihood.

But when Rome became a wealthy empire, the Romans gave themselves up to luxury, and in time became so effeminate and pampered that they fell an easy prey to the hardy barbarian invaders from North, who overran and conquered their great Empire.

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Yale Climate Connections

When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?

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The words of explorer John Wesley Powell on the eve of his departure into the unexplored depths of the Grand Canyon in 1869 best describe how I see our path ahead as we brave the unknown rapids of climate change:

We are now ready to start our way down the Great Unknown. We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are bandied about freely this morning; but to me the cheer is somber and the jests are ghastly.

Powell’s expedition made it through the canyon, but the explorers endured great hardship, suffering near-drownings, the destruction of two of their four boats, and the loss of much of their supplies. In the end, only six of the nine men survived.

Likewise, we find ourselves in an ever-deepening chasm of climate change impacts, forced to run a perilous course through dangerous rapids of unknown ferocity. Our path will be fraught with great peril, and there will be tremendous suffering, great loss of life, and the destruction of much that is precious.

It is inevitable that climate change will stop being a hazy future concern and will someday turn everyday life upside down. Very hard times are coming. At the risk of causing counterproductive climate anxiety and doomism, I offer here some observations and speculations on how the planetary crisis may play out, using my 45 years of experience as a meteorologist, including four years of flying with the Hurricane Hunters and 20 years blogging about extreme weather and climate change. The scenarios that I depict as the most likely are much harsher than what other experts might choose, but I’ve seen repeatedly that uncertainty is not our friend when it comes to climate change. This will be a long and intense ride, but if you stick through the end, I promise there will be a rainbow.

By late this century, I am optimistic that we will have successfully ridden the rapids of the climate crisis, emerging into a new era of non-polluting energy with a stabilizing climate. There are too many talented and dedicated people who understand the problem and are working hard on solutions for us to fail.

Jump to a section of this essay

What is a dangerous level of climate change, climate change’s impacts will be highly asymmetric, an immediate u.s. climate change threat: an insurance crisis, a second potential immediate u.s. climate change threat: a global food shock, “black swan” and “gray swan” extreme weather events, a “new normal” of extreme weather has not yet arrived, longer-range concerns: global catastrophic risk events, devastating impacts from climate change are accelerating, paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology, hope for the future via ‘cathedral thinking’.

Although there is a major climate change hurricane approaching, we’re busy throwing a hurricane party , charging up our planetary credit card to pay for the expenses, with little regard to the approaching storm that is already cutting off our escape routes. This great storm will fundamentally rip at the fabric of society, creating chaos and a crisis likely to last for many decades.

The intensifying climate change storm will soon reach a threshold I think of as a category 1 hurricane for humanity — when long-term global warming surpasses 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, a value increasingly characterized over the last decade as “dangerous” climate change .

For humanity as a whole, this amount of warming is risky, but not devastating. Global warming is currently at about 1.2-1.3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures and is likely to cross the 1.5-degree threshold in the late 2020s or early 2030s .

Assuming that we don’t work exceptionally hard to reduce emissions in the next 10 years, the world is expected to reach 2 degrees Celsius of warming between 2045 and 2051. In my estimation, that will be akin to a major category 3 hurricane for humanity — devastating, but not catastrophic.

Allowing global warming to exceed 2.5 degrees Celsius will cause category 4-level damage to civilization — approaching the catastrophic level. And warming in excess of 3 degrees Celsius will likely be a catastrophic category 5-level superstorm of destruction that will crash civilization.

We must take strong action rapidly to rein in our emissions of heat-trapping gases to avoid that outcome — and build great resilience to the extreme climate of the 21st century that we have so foolishly brought upon ourselves.

According to the Carbon Action Tracker (see tweet below), we are on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming; if the nations of the world meet their targets for reducing heat-trapping climate pollution, warming will be limited to 2.1 degrees. There’s a big difference between being hit by a Cat 4 versus a Cat 3, and every tenth of a degree of warming that we prevent will be critical.

Two years on from Glasgow and our warming estimates for government action have barely moved. Governments appear oblivious to the extreme events of the past year, somehow thinking treading water will deal with the flood of impacts? https://t.co/fbM4xY9OJe pic.twitter.com/MekGIeU1Z3 — ClimateActionTracker (@climateactiontr) December 5, 2023

As climate scientist Michael Mann explains in his latest book, “ Our Fragile Moment ,” great climate science communicator Stephen Schneider once said, “The ‘end of the world’ or ‘good for you’ are the two least likely among the spectrum of potential [climate] outcomes.” So forget sci-fi depictions of planetary apocalypse. That will not be our long-term climate change fate.

But the impacts of climate change will be apocalyptic for many nations and people — particularly those that are not rich and White. People and communities with the least resources tend to be the first and hardest hit by climate change , not only because poorer people and communities are inherently more vulnerable to the impacts of any disaster, but also because the extremes induced by climate change tend to be worse in the tropics and subtropics, home to many poor nations.

In the U.S., climate change has already turned life upside down for numerous communities. For example, in North Carolina, the financially strapped, Black-majority towns of Fair Bluff and Princeville are in danger of abandonment from hurricane-related flooding (from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, Matthew in 2016, and Florence in 2018). Seven Springs, North Carolina (population 207 in 1960, now just 55) is largely abandoned.

Climate change was a key contributor to these floods; a 2021 study found that about one-third of the cost of major U.S. flood events since 1988, totaling $79 billion, could be attributed to climate change. And for the town of Paradise, California — utterly destroyed by the devastating Camp Fire of 2018, which killed 85 and caused over $16 billion in damage — climate change has been apocalyptic.

In the U.S., the most likely major economic disruption from climate change over the next few years might well be a collapse of the housing market in flood-prone and wildfire-prone states. Billion-dollar weather disasters — which cause about 76% of all weather-related damages — have steadily increased in number and expense in recent years and would be even worse were it not for improved weather forecasts and better building codes. The recent increase in weather-disaster losses has brought on an insurance crisis — especially in Florida , Louisiana , California , and Texas — which threatens one of the bedrocks of the U.S. economy, the housing and real estate market.

In California, the insurer of last resort, the FAIR plan, had only about $250 million in cash on hand as of March 2024.

“One major fire near Lake Arrowhead, where the Plan holds $8 billion in policies, would plunge the whole scheme into insolvency,” observed Harvard’s Susan Crawford, author of “Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm.”

It is widely acknowledged that higher weather disaster losses result primarily from an increase in exposure : more people with more stuff moving into vulnerable places, including those at risk of floods. Martin Bertogg, Swiss Re’s head of catastrophic peril, said in a 2022 AP interview that two-thirds, perhaps more, of the recent rise in weather-related disaster losses is the result of more people and things in harm’s way.

But this balance will likely shift in the coming decades. Increased exposure will continue to drive increased weather disaster losses, but the fractional contribution of climate change to disaster losses — at least for wildfire, hurricane, and flood disasters — is likely to increase rapidly, making the insurance crisis accelerate.

A 2023 study (Fig. 2) drew attention to a massive real estate bubble in the U.S.: the vast number of properties whose purported value doesn’t account for the true costs of floods. The study estimated that across the U.S., residential properties are overvalued by a total of $121-$237 billion under current flood risks. This bubble will likely continue to grow as sea levels rise, storms dump heavier rains, and unwise risky development continues.

Likewise, U.S. properties at risk of wildfires are collectively overvalued by about $317 billion, according to David Burt , a financial guru who foresaw the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Insurers are already pulling out of the areas most at risk, threatening to make property ownership too expensive for millions and posing a serious threat to the economically critical real estate industry.

Climate futurist Alex Steffen has described the climate change-worsened real estate bubble this way:

As awareness of risk grows, the financial value of risky places drops. Where meeting that risk is more expensive than decision-makers think a place is worth, it simply won’t be defended. It will be unofficially abandoned. That will then create more problems. Bonds for big projects, loans, and mortgages, business investment, insurance, talented workers — all will grow more scarce. Then, value will crash, a phenomenon I call the Brittleness Bubble .

Something brittle is prone to a sudden, catastrophic failure and cannot easily be repaired once broken. The popping of the real estate Brittleness Bubble will potentially trigger panic selling and a housing market collapse like a miniature version of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 but focused on the 20% of American homes in wildfire and flood risk zones. In his 2023 Congressional testimony , Burt estimated that a wildfire and flood-induced repricing of risk of the U.S. housing market could have a quarter to half the impact of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.

However, the 2008 crisis was relatively short-lived, as fixes to the financial system and a massive federal bailout led to a rebound in property values after a few years. A climate change-induced housing crisis will likely be resistant to a similar fix because the underlying cause will worsen: Sea levels will continue to rise, flooding heavy rains will intensify, and wildfires will grow more severe, increasing risk.

Science writer Eugene Linden wrote in 2023, “as we saw in 2008, a housing crisis can quickly morph into a systemic financial crisis because banks own most of the value, and thus the risk, in housing and commercial real estate.”

Crawford of Harvard recently wrote : “Because insurance can help communities and households recover more quickly from disasters, and because so much of the U.S. economy is driven by spending on housing, the inaccessibility and unaffordability of insurance poses a threat to the stability of the entire economy.”

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse , a Democrat from Rhode Island, said earlier this year, “The thing about economic crises is that they come on slowly, until they come on fast.”

How the insurance crisis may play out: the “Wholly irrational and completely ad-hoc pirate capitalism” solution

In his blunt 2023 essay, “ Insurance Politics at the End of the World ,” journalist Hamilton Nolan offers these thoughts on the potential ways this climate change-induced insurance crisis could be addressed:

The rational capitalism solution here is: We accurately price your risk and that risk becomes unaffordable and people move away from areas that are stupid to live in and therefore climate adaptation is achieved. The rational socialism solution is: We collectively embrace the idea that we need to adapt to climate change and the federal government creates long-term programs that incentivize moving away from areas that are stupid to live in and disincentivize “build as much crap in South Florida flood zones as you can now to take advantage of the real estate bubble” and generally cushion the economic blow for all the people whose lives will have to change. The path we are on today, though — the path that our current political system makes likely — is the path of Wholly Irrational and Completely Ad-Hoc Pirate Capitalism: Increasing climate change-induced disasters cause panic among homeowners as a class; politicians rush to grab dollars to enable everyone to live the same as they are now for as long as possible; and eventually the whole thing crashes into the wall of reality in a way that causes uncontainable, national pain rather than just the specific, regional, temporary pain of the smarter solutions.

When will the Brittleness Bubble pop?

When might this “crash into the wall of reality” happen and the Brittleness Bubble pop? Politicians are working extremely hard to keep their jobs by delaying this day of reckoning, artificially limiting insurance rate rises and offering state-run insurance plans of last resort. This approach — the equivalent of giving a blood transfusion to the injured, without stopping the bleeding — does not fix the underlying problem and all but guarantees that the pain of the eventual national reckoning will be much larger. Insurance is designed to transfer risk, but risk is rising everywhere.

As the hurricane season is set to begin soon and wildfire risk gradually increasing, private insurers in some states are fleeing areas considered at high risk. It's leaving so-called "residual," or last resort plans, to pick up the tab. https://t.co/3sxv9m0FOS pic.twitter.com/YTkZ9OlJE3 — Axios (@axios) May 10, 2024

Crawford addressed the issue in a 2024 essay, “ Who ends up holding the bag when risky real estate markets collapse? ” Citing financial guru Burt, she concluded: “2025 or 2026 is when things give way and it becomes very difficult to offload houses and buildings in risky places where mortgages are suddenly hard to get, much less insurance.” When asked in an interview with Marketplace if the market is due for another correction, as homeowners in places with growing risk of flooding and wildfire have to pay more for insurance, Burt said:

This is actually happening right now and is probably going to happen over the next three to five years, like a full reckoning of these new costs for 15 or 20% of the homes in the U.S. … If all their equity is already gone [because of lowered property values], their costs are going up a ton, they can barely afford it, that’s when people walk away.

In the same Marketplace story, though, Ben Keys, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said, “The idea that we would expect there to be a huge wave of defaults or delinquencies feels relatively unlikely.”

But like Burt, climate change futurist Steffen predicts the real estate Brittleness Bubble will pop within five years (10 at the most).

I suspect we're less than 5 years away from a prolonged surge of value loss in real estate assets based on risk, insurability, economic brittleness and local capacities to ruggedize (or not). That kind of devaluation will echo through the whole economy. https://t.co/Qs0zyMS38g — Alex Steffen (@AlexSteffen) May 21, 2024

This reckoning could come sooner for Florida if another $100-billion hurricane hits. The Florida insurance and coastal property market did manage to withstand the $117-billion cost of Category 4 Hurricane Ian of 2022, but another blow like that might well cause a severe downward spiral in the Florida real estate market from which it might never fully recover. This vulnerability was underscored by Florida Gov. DeSantis during a 2023 radio interview with a Boston host, when DeSantis suggested homeowners should “ knock on wood ” and hope the state didn’t get hit by a hurricane in 2024.

But “knocking on wood” is not an effective climate adaptation strategy for Florida. Because of climate change, Mother Nature is now able to whip heavier bowling balls with more devastating impact down Hurricane Alley. It’s only a matter of time before she hurls a strike into a major Florida city, causing an intensified coastal real estate and insurance crisis. And the odds of such a strike are higher than average in 2024 because of record-warm ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, combined with a developing La Niña event.

Watch out for increased coastal flooding in the mid-2030s

We may manage to avoid a coastal real estate market crash in the next 10 years if we get lucky with hurricanes and if our politicians continue to pump huge amounts of money to bail out the failing system.

But it will become increasingly difficult to keep the coastal property market propped up beginning in the mid-2030s, because of accelerating sea level rise combined with an 18.6-year wobble in the moon’s orbit. Thus, I expect that the longest we might stave off the popping of the coastal real estate Brittleness Bubble is 15 years.

As I wrote in my 2023 post, 30 great tools to determine your flood risk in the U.S. , beginning in 2033, the moon will be in a position favorable for bringing higher tides to locations where one high tide and low tide per day dominate. This will bring a rapid increase in high tide flooding to the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, the Southeast, the West Coast, and Hawaii. This expected acceleration in the mid-2030s is obvious for St. Petersburg (Fig. 3), plotted using NASA’s Flooding Analysis Tool and Flooding Days Projection Tool . The rapid acceleration in coastal flooding simultaneously along a huge swathe of heavily developed U.S. coast in the mid-2030s will be sure to significantly stress the coastal housing market. And according to the Coastal Flood Resilience Project , the nation is flying blind on the possible impacts: There are no national assessments of the potential loss of major, critical infrastructure assets to coastal storms and rising seas.

Another immediate danger: a series of global extreme weather events affecting agriculture, causing global economic turmoil.

In my 2024 post, “ What are the odds that extreme weather will lead to a global food shock? ” I reviewed a 2023 report by insurance giant Lloyd’s, which modeled the odds of a globally disruptive extreme food shock event bringing simultaneous droughts in key global food-growing breadbaskets. The authors estimated that a “major” food shock scenario costing $3 trillion globally over a five-year period had a 2.3% chance of happening per year (Fig. 4). Over a 30-year period, those odds equate to about a 50% probability of occurrence — assuming the risks are not increasing each year, which, in fact, they are.

Yet another concern for the U.S. is the risk of wholly unanticipated “black swan” extreme weather events that scientists didn’t see coming. As Harvard climate scientists Paul Epstein and James McCarthy wrote in a 2004 paper, “Assessing Climate Instability”: “We are already observing signs of instability within the climate system. There is no assurance that the rate of greenhouse gas buildup will not force the system to oscillate erratically and yield significant and punishing surprises.”

One example of such a punishing surprise was Superstorm Sandy of 2012, that unholy hybrid spawn of a Caribbean hurricane/extratropical storm that became the largest hurricane ever observed and one of the most damaging, costing $88 billion. And who anticipated that a siege of climate-change-intensified wildfires in western North America beginning in 2017, causing multiple summers of horrific air quality that would significantly degrade the quality of life in the West? Or the jet stream experiencing a sudden increase in unusually extreme configurations over the past 20 years, leading to prolonged periods of intense extreme weather over multiple portions of the globe simultaneously? As the late climate scientist Wally Broecker once said, “Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking at it with sticks.”

Just as concerning might be future “gray swan” events — extreme weather events that climate models anticipate could happen but exceed anything in the historical record. (“Gray swan” is an expression first coined by hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel in his 2016 paper, “ Grey swan tropical cyclones .”) Several potential gray swan events I have written about include a $1 trillion California “ARkStorm” flood , the potential failure of the Old River Control Structure during an extreme flood that allows the Mississippi River to change course, or a storm like 2015’s Hurricane Patricia , with winds over 200 mph, hitting Miami, Galveston/Houston, Tampa, or New Orleans. The risk of gray swan events is steadily increasing.

I’m often asked if the absurdly extreme weather events we’ve been experiencing recently are the new normal. “No!” I reply. “Heat is energy, so the energy to fuel more intense extreme weather events will increase until we reach net-zero emissions. At that time, the climate will finally stabilize at a new normal with a highly dangerous level of extreme weather events.”

Barring a series of extraordinary volcanic eruptions or a major geoengineering effort, even under an optimistic “low” emissions climate scenario, the earliest the climate might stabilize is in the mid-2070s (Fig. 5); thus, the weather will grow more extreme, on average, for at least the next 50 years. Considering that CO2 emissions have not yet peaked and may be following the “Intermediate” pathway shown below, there is considerable danger that the weather will still be growing more extreme when today’s children are very old early next century. But even when net zero emissions are reached, sea level rise will continue to occur at a pace difficult to adapt to, and the climate crisis will continue to intensify.

The high probability that the weather will grow more extreme throughout the lifetime of everybody reading this essay means that we have to take seriously some very bad long-term threats. As I wrote in my 2022 post, “ The future of global catastrophic risk events from climate change ,” a global catastrophic risk event is defined as a catastrophe global in impact that kills over 10 million people or causes over $10 trillion (2022 USD) in damage. Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been only three such events: World War I, World War II, and the COVID-19 pandemic. But climate change is a threat multiplier, increasing the risk of five types of global catastrophic risk events:

• Coastal flooding from sea-level rise and land subsidence
• Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the powerful currents that circulate warm water in the tropical Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic and back (an August 2024 study gave a 59% chance of an AMOC collapse occurring before 2050)

The likeliest of these is a global catastrophic risk event from sea level rise, which is highly likely to occur by the end of the century. For example, a moderate global warming scenario will put $7.9-12.7 trillion dollars of global coastal assets at risk of flooding from sea level rise by 2100, according to a 2020 study, “ Projections of global-scale extreme sea levels and resulting episodic coastal flooding over the 21st century .” Although this study did not take into account assets that inevitably will be protected by new coastal defenses, neither did it consider the indirect costs of sea level rise from increased storm surge damage, mass migration away from the coast, increased saltiness of fresh water supplies, and many other factors. A 2019 report by the Global Commission on Adaptation estimated that sea level rise will lead to damages of more than $1 trillion per year globally by 2050.

Furthermore, sea level rise, combined with other stressors, might bring about megacity collapse — a frightening possibility when infrastructure destruction, salinification of freshwater resources, and a real estate collapse potentially combine to create a mass exodus of people from a major city, reducing its tax base to the point that it can no longer provide basic services. The collapse of even one megacity might have severe impacts on the global economy, creating increased chances of a cascade of global catastrophic risk events. One megacity potentially at risk of this fate is the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, with a population of 10 million. Land subsidence of up to two inches per year and sea level rise of about an eighth of an inch per year are causing so much flooding in Jakarta that Indonesia is constructing a new capital city in Borneo.

Is the #AMOC approaching a tipping point? Here's my take after researching this topic for over 30 years. Open access, peer-reviewed, in full colour & understandable for non-experts. https://t.co/gMu6Zw5mR7 pic.twitter.com/mrgzO9NMxR — Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 🌏 🦣 (@rahmstorf) April 11, 2024

I also expect one or more climate change-amplified global catastrophic risk events from drought will occur this century. Mexico City, with a metro area population of 22 million, has suffered record heat over the past year, is in danger of its reservoirs running dry, and is drilling ever-deeper wells to tap an overtaxed aquifer. Though the city will muddle through the crisis now that the summer rains have come this year, what is the plan for 30 years from now, when the climate is expected to be drier and much, much hotter? Although Mexico City can greatly improve its water situation by fixing a poorly maintained system that has a 40% loss rate , it is unclear how the city will be able to survive the much hotter and drier climate of 30 years from now. And at least 10 other major cities are in a similar bind.

Technology can help us adapt to a hotter climate by providing air conditioning (if you are rich enough), but technological solutions to create more water availability when the taps run dry are much more difficult to achieve. I believe water shortages will drive a partial collapse of and mass migration out of multiple major cities 20-40 years from now, significantly amplifying global political and economic turmoil. For example, a 2010 study, “ Linkages among climate change, crop yields and Mexico-US cross-border migration ,” found that a 10% reduction in crop yields in Mexico leads to an additional 2% of the population emigrating to the United States.

In his frightening 2019 book “ Food or War ,” science writer Julian Cribb documents 25 food conflicts that have led to famine, war, and the deaths of more than a million people — mostly caused by drought. Since 1960, Cribb says, 40-60% of armed conflicts have been linked to resource scarcity, and 80% of major armed conflicts occurred in vulnerable dry ecosystems. Hungry people are not peaceful people, Cribb argues.

Though climate change itself is not accelerating faster than what climate scientists and climate models predicted , devastating impacts from climate change do seem to be accelerating. That is because the new climate is crossing thresholds beyond which an infrastructure designed for the 20th century can withstand. These breaches are occurring in tandem with an increase in exposure — more people with more stuff living in harm’s way — which is the dominant cause of the sharp increase in weather-disaster losses in recent years. It’s sobering to realize that the current U.S. insurance crisis has primarily been driven by increased exposure and foolish insurance policies that promote development in risky places — not climate change — and that climate change’s relative contribution to the crisis is set to grow significantly.

Accelerating sea level rise alone is sure to cause a massive shock to the U.S. economy; according to a 2022 report from NOAA , sea level along the U.S. coastline is projected to rise, on average, 10-12 inches (0.25-0.30 meters) in the next 30 years (2020-2050), which will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920-2020). At this level, 13.6 million homes might be at risk of flooding by 2051 , triggering a mass migration of millions of people away from the coast.

If we add to sea-level-rise-induced migration the additional migration that will result from climate change-intensified wildfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes, we are forced to acknowledge the reality that a nation-challenging Hurricane Katrina-level climate change storm has already begun in the U.S., one which has the potential to cause catastrophic damage. As I wrote in my June post, The U.S. is finally making serious efforts to adapt to climate change , there have been some encouraging efforts to prepare for the coming mass migration. But, as I argued in my follow-up post, The U.S. is nowhere near ready for climate change , we remain woefully unprepared for what is coming.

And my subsequent post, Can a colossal extreme weather event galvanize action on the climate crisis? , argues that we should not expect that any future extreme weather event or breakdown of the climate system will galvanize the type of response needed — we’ve already had at least 13 events since 1988 that should have done so, yet have not. Even if such an event did prompt strong, transformative change, it’s too late to avoid having life turned upside-down by climate change. It’s like we’ve waited until our skin started getting red before seeking shade from the sun, and we’re only now taking our first stumbling steps toward shade. Well, it’s a long hike to shade, and a blistering sunburn is unavoidable.

Given the unprecedented nature and complexity of this planetary crisis, there is huge uncertainty on how this drama may unfold; there are climate scientists who offer a more optimistic outlook than I do (for example, Hannah Ritchie , author of “Not the End of the World”), and those who are more pessimistic ( James Hansen ).

I suggest that you make the most of the current “calm before the storm” and prepare for the chaotic times ahead, which could begin at any time. I will offer my recommendations on how to do this in my next post in this series, “What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm?”

The urgency to rapidly deal with the climate crisis was succinctly summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest summary report: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.”

But taking advantage of that window of opportunity is difficult because of human psychological and political realities. In climate scientist Peter Gleick’s 2023 book, “The Three Ages of Water,” he quotes Harvard’s E.O. Wilson, father of sociobiology, who perhaps said it best: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

The boat of civilization has already hit multiple rocks along the rapids of climate change and is taking on water. Perilous rapids with even more dangerous rocks and waterfalls lie before us, but the course of our boat cannot be so easily altered to avoid the rocks, because of our Paleolithic emotions and medieval institutions. As a result, we may have only a few more years — or perhaps as long as 15 years — of relative normalcy in our everyday lives here in the U.S. before the approaching climate change storm ends our golden age of prosperity. But this “golden age” was made of fool’s gold, paid for with wealth plundered from future generations.

Though this essay has dwelt on some grim realities, I am optimistic that we will prevent climate change from becoming a civilization-destroying category 5-level catastrophe. But we must fight extremely hard to correct the course of our boat and not allow its inertia to carry us into the rocks that stud the rapids of climate change. This is not a task that can be accomplished in our lifetimes.

Susan Joy Hassol, the climate communication veteran who served as a senior science writer on three National Climate Assessments, put it this way in an interview with Yale Climate Connections contributor Daisy Simmons: “This is the fight of our lives, and it’s a multigenerational task. We need what’s been called ‘cathedral thinking.’ That is, the people who started working on that stone foundation , they never saw the thing finished. It took generations to get these major works done. This is that kind of problem. And we have to all do our part. The more I act, the better I feel, because I know I’m part of the solution.”

Actions we take now will yield enormous future benefits, and the faster we undertake transformative actions to adapt to the new climate reality, the less suffering will occur. The Global Commission on Adaptation says that “every $1 invested in adaptation could yield up to $10 in net economic benefits, depending on the activity.” We should work to build our cathedral of the future with the thought that each action we take now will multiply by a factor of 10 in importance in the future.

An excellent @nytimes article on rapid growth of wind, solar, & EVs, including factories, in the US. Costs are below fossil and nuclear (see graphs). Reasons why, graphs with how fast, pictures of it happening. https://t.co/uglQDnE97t pic.twitter.com/oIpLmlp28v — Willett Kempton (@WillettKempton) September 5, 2023

But some of the hardest work has been done: The cornerstone of this cathedral of the future has already been laid. The clean energy revolution is here and has progressed far more rapidly than I had dared hope. Passage of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 2023 Inflation Reduction Act has been instrumental in getting this cornerstone laid. Solar energy is now the cheapest source of energy in world history, and the costs of wind power and battery technology have also plummeted. Two recent reports were optimistic that climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions had finally peaked in 2023, and GDP growth has decoupled from carbon dioxide emissions in recent years, giving hope that economic growth can still occur without making the planet hotter.

At its heart, the root of the climate crisis is humanity’s spiritual inharmoniousness: We overvalue the pursuit of material wealth and we worship billionaires but undervalue growing more connected to our spiritual selves and acting to preserve and appreciate the natural systems that sustain us. Making yourself more peaceful and loving through quiet spiritual pursuits and time spent in nature will help counteract the anxiety and fear sparked by the climate crisis. But in tandem with your increased peace must come a righteous anger to “throw the money changers out of the temple” and topple the might of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.

So put your shoulder to an oar! Help us power the boat of civilization through the rapids of climate change. All of humanity shares the same boat, and you have the opportunity to make your own unique and valuable contribution to the effort.

This is a nice way to visualize the pathway to your unique climate action. https://t.co/cjlv5XXrak — Jeff Masters (@DrJeffMasters) May 15, 2024

As promised, here is the rainbow at the end. It’s the intro image from my first and last Weather Underground blog posts, “ The 360-degree Rainbow ,” and “ So long, wunderground! ” My unique and valuable contribution to building our new cathedral has not yet reached the end of the rainbow, for a rainbow has no end — it is a full circle. One just has to fly high in a rainstorm where the sun is shining to see it.

I will continue to make my voice heard as long as climate science-denying politicians, corporations, media pundits, and wealthy individuals continue to row the boat of civilization into the rocks of climate-change catastrophe. I encourage those of you who have learned about extreme weather and climate change from me to do the same. To get started, learn from one of the best communicators in the business, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe :

Recommended reading:

What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm.

• Can a colossal extreme weather event galvanize action on the climate crisis?
• The U.S. is nowhere near ready for climate change
• The U.S. is finally making serious efforts to adapt to climate change
• Book review: “On the Move” is a must-read account of U.S. climate migration
• Book review: “The Great Displacement” is a must-read
• Part one of my three-part sea level rise series: How fast are the seas rising?
• Part two of my three-part sea level rise series: Eight excellent books on sea level rise risk for U.S. cities
• Part three of my three-part sea level rise series: 30 great tools to determine your flood risk in the U.S.
• Bubble trouble: Climate change is creating a huge and growing U.S. real estate bubble
• Many coastal residents willing to relocate in the face of sea level rise
• Disasterology: a book review
• The future of global catastrophic risk events from climate change
• With global warming of just 1.2°C, why has the weather gotten so extreme?
• Recklessness defined: breaking 6 of 9 planetary boundaries of safety
• Retreat From a Rising Sea: A book review
• Quick facts on climate change, extreme weather-related events, and their impacts on society
• Susan Crawford’s Substack feed on climate adaptation policy, Moving Day
• Climate futurist Alex Steffen’s newsletter

Susan Joy Hassol ( @ClimateComms ) and Bob Henson ( @bhensonweather ) provided helpful edits for this post.

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Jeff Masters

Jeff Masters, Ph.D., worked as a hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990. After a near-fatal flight into category 5 Hurricane Hugo, he left the Hurricane Hunters to pursue a... More by Jeff Masters

College students are going viral on TikTok for luxury dorm room makeovers. You won't believe it.

Some of the rooms have custom artwork . Others, chandeliers . One even has a disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

No, these aren't houses that got revamped on HGTV . (Though, some of the creative transformations would fit right in on the channel.) They're college dorm rooms − and the jaw-dropping lengths to which some are going to make the tight student living quarters as luxurious as possible are going viral on TikTok .

Online, some parents seem to spare no expense to take their kids' dorm rooms from drab to chic, even employing professional interior designers and decorators for the task. But in some cases, students are the ones seeking out the design help or re-doing their dorms themselves, DIY-style.

Alethea Jay , an interior designer who went viral for revamping her sister's dorm room, says in a housing market where owning a home seems more and more out-of-reach , many Gen Zers want to make the most of what they already have, even if it's just a dorm room they'll be in for a year.

"l see so many people say, 'I can't wait to do this when I get my home,' or 'I am going to call you when I get to buy my first house,'" Jay says. "And I just keep reminding people you don't have to wait. There is a process. Give yourself the experience now in an affordable way. You don't have to wait until you get your forever home."

Who says a college dorm rooms can't be luxurious?

#DormTok − the corner of TikTok for all things college dorms − is replete with stunning designs in small quarters. In comments, users marvel at how much rugs, wall art, headboards and lighting can elevate a space.

Some dorm designs are more elaborate than others. In one video with 1.7 million views, a designer shows off a dorm room she decorated for two college students that includes a bar cart, a wall installation, custom art and a glass coffee table. "We’re talking about dorms they only stay in for one school year right?" asked one person in the comments. "Those types of dorms?"

It might seem like an unusual and unnecessary investment to some, but psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis encourages people not to underestimate how much décor can impact one's mental health. As long as students and families keep the designs within an affordable budget, she says #DormTok can be a healthy space for expressing creativity and sharing how to make a space your own.

"To see someone take something and transform it, I think, is an art," Sarkis says. "When we feel more at home, we're more likely to be productive, more likely to get good sleep. We're more likely to feel a home away from home."

Not every #DormTok design breaks the bank

According to Jay, a common misconception about #DormTok is that parents are breaking the bank for their kids' dorm rooms. That may be the case for some; however, she says she and other designers find creative ways to give rooms a luxury feel for a reasonable price.

Her sister's dorm room for instance, Jay says, cost $500 to decorate and took about three hours of work. The final product − which featured framed portraits of her sister, ceiling lights and glass decorations − has 13.2 million views on TikTok .

"It's so important to talk about the budget part of it," Jay says. "People feel like it's either they do nothing, they can't afford it, or they do the most and spend a really, really big amount of money. ... It isn't the longest amount of time, so you don't want to spend too much money, but you definitely want to spend enough to make it feel like home."

Jay worked as a nurse until her college dorm design videos started taking off online. Now, she does interior design full-time and gets numerous requests from students seeking to hire her for dorm rooms revamps. Jay says she'll decorate dorms in-person in the New York City-area as well as around the country virtually. For a virtual dorm design consultation, she charges $300.

Each dorm room, Jay says, presents its own creative obstacles and finding a style that caters to the personalities of her clients is a fulfilling challenge.

Still, not everyone's a fan of #DormTok, with many questioning the need for a luxury dorm room. "And next year there will be a new theme and all this goes where?" asked one user.

More: Parents are hiring 'concierge moms' to help their kids at college, but is it a bad idea?

Jay doesn't pay attention to the critics. In her view, they miss the point of what #DormTok is really about, which is self-expression and making the most of what you're given − even if it's just a tiny dorm room.

"I did the room for my sister for her to enjoy, and she loved it," Jay says. "I loved it. And I think for the people who it inspired, it inspired them to do either something with their rooms or to go out there and try for themselves to be creative in their own way. So I'm all for anything positive about it; but anyone who doesn't have anything positive to say, I just don't care."