Tackling Mass Climate Migration by Enacting Global Change with Aaron Berger, Research Scientist for Global Catastrophic Risks and Geopolitical Spillover Events

This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Aaron Berger, a research scientist specializing in pattern recognition, domestic and foreign current events, and technology trends. He serves as a strategic advisor to individuals and organizations interested in finding important solutions to difficult problems.

Aaron’s experience includes government relations, high-level representation and negotiation, systems-thinking, scenario planning, learning transfer, and other research skills. He focuses on global catastrophic risks, national security, and geopolitical spillover events, with more of his recent work assisting in solving the climate crisis. Aaron serves the Rainey Center as special advisor, is Head of Research for Sharemeister, a co-chair for the NEXUS Working Group on Energy Innovation & Environment, and an international advisor for the Sunrise Movement.

In this episode, Aaron talks about his role in forecasting geopolitical outcomes, the worrying effects of mass climate migration causing internal displacement, and how he’s able to define and measure impact through systems-thinking in research.

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Guest Quote

“Shakespeare has this quote from one of his plays, I think it's Handler or something like that, there are three ways to achieve for greatness to happen. One is to be born great, and I think they were all born great. One is to achieve greatness, and I think we all have the potential to achieve greatness. And the third is to have greatness thrust upon us. I think that truly great people go through all of those stages, and the third one, of course, being a choice. If we are presented with a great opportunity, are we able to go and rise up to that? And I think that we can. So for me, I was taking stock of the meager amount of resources that I had and the big network that I had developed. I came to the realization that, if I did nothing, no one would do anything for me, and I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't look back and say, you know what, at the very least, I did everything that I could.” - Aaron Berger

Episode Timestamps

(02:11) Aaron’s role

(04:00) Forecasting geopolitical outcomes

(10:19) Climate change as a geopolitical challenge

(13:54) Mass climate migration

(19:40) Internal displacement

(23:47) Systems thinking

(33:16) Inspirational projects

(39:09) Defining and measuring impact

(45:58) Final thoughts

Links

Aaron Berger’s LinkedIn

Phil Dillard’s LinkedIn

Thruline Networks