Pacific Union College had to?be evacuated twice during California¡¯s record wildfire season of?2020.

The small liberal arts school prides itself on?maintaining much of?the forest that surrounds its campus, but as temperatures climb on?the US¡¯ west coast, this dry land is?now routinely at?risk of?bursting into flames. At?best, the college will face disruption for years to?come. At?worst, it?might one day be?destroyed.

¡°They¡¯ve done some elaborate work to protect themselves,¡± said Bryan Alexander, author of Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis, a new book that explores how environmental change will fundamentally reshape the sector over the remainder of the century.

¡°They¡¯ve cut a clear radius around their campus to make it harder for fire to leap on to their buildings. They cross-train their faculty on emergency response; they¡¯ve got a helicopter so they can fly out and deploy flame retardants.¡±

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Every campus should be planning for how climate change might affect them, said Dr Alexander, a futurist and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and this should have started ¡°yesterday¡±.

¡°If you are a campus on the Indian Ocean, and there are a ton of these, do you try to dig your heels in and preserve what you have got? Or do you leave and relocate to higher ground?

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¡°In the US the worst example is Miami, where there are a dozen campuses literally on the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. It¡¯s a lovely location, but they are going to have to decide: are they going to build a sea wall to protect themselves or are they going to relocate inland?

¡°The whole state of Florida is likely to go under with just a?3m?sea level rise, so how far do you have to go? If you are thinking about relocating a whole institution, all kinds of factors come into play. There are all kinds of questions you have to ask.¡±

Universities on Fire is, according to Dr Alexander, a very literal title but also a symbolic one.

¡°Fire for me is a metaphor for enlightenment and excitement. If you talk to people in Extinction Rebellion, metaphorically they are on fire to do something about this.¡±

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Any futurist worth their salt should give people a sense of ¡°multiple futures¡±, he said, adding that ¡°you have to give people a plurality of choices so they can feel some agency¡±.

The book therefore focuses both on the ¡°best-case¡± scenario, ¡°if we get our hands around it and if we get lucky¡±, and the worst, ¡°which is terrifying; the scariest chapter I¡¯ve ever written in my adult life¡±, he said.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com