Only then had the discussion become capable of producing a conclusion strong enough to survive not merely today’s debate, but the uncertainties of the decades ahead.… The emergency meeting room on the twenty-third floor of the research complex was designed for speed. The walls were covered with interactive displays. A real-time transcript scrolled across one screen. Another showed clusters of comments extracted from thousands of public submissions. A third displayed a constantly updating network graph linking scientific papers, policy documents, economic forecasts, and environmental impact assessments. At the center of the room sat a multidisciplinary task force. Climate scientists. Urban planners. AI researchers. Economists. Public health specialists. Their assignment was deceptively simple: Design a long-term adaptation strategy for coastal cities facing increasingly frequent compound climate events. The problem was t...