Centuries ago, people living along European rivers carved warnings into rocks exposed during severe drought.
One of the best known translates roughly as: If you see me, weep.
These “hunger stones” marked water levels associated with crop failures, food shortages and hardship.
Some became visible again during recent European droughts.
And I keep coming back to them.
Not because drought is new.
It isn't.
The more interesting question is this: After centuries of scientific, technological and economic progress, how much better have we become at absorbing the same old shocks?
Modern economies still depend on things we did not build.
Rivers.
Rainfall.
Groundwater.
Stable temperatures.
Soil.
We rarely describe those as infrastructure, but they sit underneath transport, agriculture, energy and industry.
A factory may quietly assume cooling water remains available.
A logistics network may assume river levels remain navigable.
A city may assume rainfall stays within the range its drainage system was designed for.
These assumptions often remain invisible until conditions change.
That is why climate resilience should not only ask: What hazards could affect us?
It should also ask: What does our current operating model require the physical environment to keep doing?
The hunger stones are more than warnings from the past.
They are a benchmark.
We have better technology, forecasting, engineering and data than the people who carved them.
So if the same old hazard appears again, what should a genuinely more resilient outcome look like?
