Countdown to 2100

Why review a book on day-one?

Because Countdown to 2100: A Time of Grey Rhinos lands squarely on the questions we’re hired to answer:

What systemic threats are accelerating, how do they collide with strategy, and what’s the responsible play when the long-term inevitably becomes the short-term?

Neil Meyer (yes, the same Neil who Founded Beyond Countdown) has released the full e-book free of charge — a useful gesture when the subject-matter is existential and the audience is everyone. The paperback is on Amazon, but the digital version is pay-wall-free so the conversation can start quickly.

Countdown to 2100: A Time of Grey Rhino books

What you’ll read (and why it matters)

Section	Business relevance (in one breath)
The Grey Rhino Lens – predictable, high-impact risks we choose to ignore.	Re-frames “black swan” complacency and puts a probability score on tomorrow’s crises.
AI & Post-Human Economics	Moves the automation debate from “job losses” to “who controls value when consumers disappear”.
The Mutation of Capitalism	Charts the shift from middle-class consumption to enclave economics — a direct hit on demand forecasts and labour strategy.
Climate & Ecosystem Collapse	Links supply-chain fragility, migration pressure and regulatory over-correction in language CFOs understand.
Fractured Power & New Currencies (Water / Energy)	Explains why ESG is no longer reputation management but licence-to-operate.
12 ‘What Can You Do About It?’ Chapters	Each ends with concise actions — the raw material for enterprise risk registers and board away-days.

The narrative alternates between hard analysis and short fictional vignettes that follow ordinary people from 2030 to 2100. It’s a smart device: leaders feel abstract statistics, but they remember lived experience.

Tone check: not a doom scroll, not a sugar-high

The book is blunt (“hope is not a strategy; bullets are rarely dodged”) yet oddly energising. Think Ofsted report meets Black Mirror but with footnotes and no moral grand-standing. That balance resonates with senior teams who are tired of “either-or” futurology — apocalyptic hand-wringing or blind techno-optimism.

Why business readers should spend the train-ride

1. Board-room translation – complex macro forces rendered into board-pack English.

2. Scenario breadth – AI, climate, capital flows, social fracture … all in one model instead of five disconnected white-papers.

3. Action bias – every chapter closes with “What You Can Do Right Now” (a welcome pivot from horizon-2050 reports that finish with “more research is needed”).

4. Licence-free – cite, extract, share internally without wrangling legal; the author explicitly invites it.

A quick taste

“Capitalism isn’t dying – it’s mutating. A machine-tuned beast that no longer needs mass labour, nor mass consumption, to survive.”— Ch 2, ‘When Consumerism & Capitalism Eat Themselves’ 

That single paragraph has already sparked a healthy row in one client workshop: if the “consumer engine” is stalling, what happens to brands built on endless micro-upgrades? The book gives you a framing, the workshop gives you a roadmap.

Our verdict

For leaders in strategy, risk or sustainability who feel the weekly whiplash of AI hype, climate disclosure, social unrest and supply-chain spasms, Countdown to 2100 is a two-hour reality-check. It won’t give you comfortable answers; it will upgrade the questions you bring to the table.

Next step

Download the free e-book → https://www.neilsmeyer.com/countdown2100 and mark Chapter 1’s “What Can You Do About It?” list against your current risk register. If three or more items are missing, start a conversation with us.

Grey Rhinos rarely wait for perfect timing.