Congratulations, fellow 2026 survivors! We’ve made it to Leo season—a time also known as Madonna’s birthday (all hail Confessions II)—and to late summer, when questions like “Do you want another beer?” and “What’s the water level at Rooster?” tend to be replaced by “Do you smell smoke?” or “Is that my house burning down?” As the scorching summer wears on and I wonder whether I have some kind of genetic resistance to ever purchasing a box fan before they sell out at Fred Meyer, I can’t help but also ask what the climate crisis will look like years from now: What role will each of the signs play in the coming cannibalistic battle for water, shelter, and a generator, or some kind of electricity source so I can charge my phone and look at Dirty Twitter? Obviously we’ve nothing to worry about just yet, and I’m sure the hardworking folks at the EPA are doing everything in their power to prevent outright calamity—because individuals and government organizations can and do enact effective change, at least of the catastrophic climate variety. But more importantly than that, let’s gaze at what the stars will have in store for you, personally:
Aries (March 21-April 19)
In the coming climate war, you’re a one-person Master Blaster: Sometimes you’re a big, gruff, fearless combatant, but more often than not, you’re just a tiny little helpless guy, hiding and hoping for the best. You tend to bite off more than you can chew, leaving you cowering and shaking like a small, purse-bound dog rather than a victor in the Thunderdome. Luckily, you’re always only one bout of road rage (or a misunderstanding, or mental break) away from going all Bane and ripping your opponent’s spine from their body—and then crying when you stub your toe on their corpse.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Move over, Aunty Entity and Immortan Joe—lest they be bucked into the air by their new ruler, Bitchy Bull. Taurus is the true apocalyptic tyrant, and given the Taurean tendency for all things ornate and dramatic, you’re going to look hot, glammed out, and scary as hell as Lord of the Oil Barrels. You’ve got a cutting-edge approach to ruling structures: It mostly consists of cutting off the heads of any and all naysayers, nonbelievers, invaders, infidels, and well-meaning friends and family who feel brash enough to offer a whisper of constructive criticism. To the tar pits with them! To the tar pits with all!
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Finally, a job Gemini was born for: Sitting alone in a dark room, all by your lonesome, and playing the ultimate mix tape when not pontificating to your heart’s content. That’s right—you’re the wasteland DJ, offering vault dwellers and above-ground wanderers company via Radio Free Radiation. Curating playlists for the apocalypse is a crucial task for maintaining collective wellbeing, but, most important of all, it spares the rest of us from having to talk to you—and listening to your Andy Rooney-like ravings is, finally, entirely optional.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Cancers are loyal, empathetic, and—thanks to the coziness of that shell—a bit of a homebody. But in the apocalypse, your love of nurturing and home-cooked meals ironically means you’ll be eaten first. If you’re really the caretaker of the Zodiac, you’d want the rest of us to eat, wouldn’t you? It’s not our fault that you drew the shortest straw, and we 100 percent didn’t design it that way after your passive aggressive meltdown the other night—we swear! It’s all for the greater good, but goodbyes are still hard, especially when I can barely hear over my stomach growling. So. Um. This is awkward.
Leo (July 23-August 22)
There’s gotta be entertainment during the Nestlé Water Wars, and baby, you’re a one-person USO show. You might not feel much creative freedom in your new endeavor—blindfolded and bound to an 18-wheeler as you wail hard on a flamethrower guitar—but what other sign has the stage presence to announce Tyrant Taurus’s incoming war caravan across the Bloody Dunes? (And if you don’t play the guitar or flamethrower, but DO bear radiation-induced mutations, there’s always room for more three-breasted dancers in the Kill-Plex!)
Virgo (August 23-September 22)
You tried your hand as a paint-huffing War Boy during the Great Gasoline Famine of 2037, but the Virgin proved far too fussy, fickle, and finicky for the gig. That said, your anal-retentiveness didn’t go unnoticed when you were up for review, and thanks to it, you’ve been promoted to camp gimp. We agree that it’s a bit hot out for the rubber suit, but remember—community morale is important, and we each have an important role to play in the End Times. Yours just happens to suck, and mostly on a ball gag. But if it really matters, I’m sure Cancer would trade jobs with you in a heartbeat.
Libra (September 23-October 22)
As the embodiment of the Scales, Libra is the Justiciar of the Wastes: You’re judge, jury, and executioner, dispensing justice wherever you roam. Just don’t let on that you’re hopelessly devoted to harmony and hampered by indecision, meaning you may have let one, or two, or 20 (!!) subterranean mutants go free because you didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings in the process of executing them. But nobody back home in Shanty Town needs to know—and judging by the mutant screams and mushroom clouds coming from that way, it’s probably time to try settling somewhere new.
Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
We’ll have to start repopulating the heat-scorched earth eventually, and everyone’s looking at you, Scorpio. Yeah, you’re scary, and domineering, and we’ve rightfully kept you in a cage ever since you showed up to the encampment singing sea shanties and picking parts of your last camp’s Cancer out of your teeth. But we’re gonna need more babies to subject to an unliveable world (or at the least, another food source), and you look like you’ve got the best genes out of all of us. Hey, being a murderer isn’t genetic, right?
Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
Sagittarius, I wish you had it better, because you bring joy, energy, and fearless spirit wherever you go. You run ahead without thinking and quite literally pave the way forward… with your blood and viscera. Because of this, you’re all too often the canary in our collective coal mine. Or the Wile E. Coyote under an ACME anvil. Or, more accurately, the vastly exploded Sagittarius in that field of landmines over there. Thanks for looking out—er, or not.
Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
You, Sea Goat, have sea legs—just like Greta Thunberg, who fearlessly sailed for justice with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Like Greta, you’re also extremely practical, impossibly disciplined, and undeniably autistic, girlbossing your way across the globe and the spectrum. In our future Waterworld, you’ll captain a brig across the high seas with a fierce commitment to routines and avoiding eye contact freedom, just like the climate activist wunderkind. (And like Greta, you also have a popstar sister with a kaiju-sized bust—no, seriously, look up Beata MonaLisa. What the hell does Sweden put in its breakfast cereals?)
Aquarius (January 20-February 18)
As the inventive, logic-minded humanitarian of the signs, you feel destined to be a rare and much-needed doctor serving the greater wasteland; unfortunately, your tendency for emotional detachment and unpredictability makes you more of a mad scientist. After all, you tend to prize facts over feelings, and what kind of wasteland survivor wouldn’t want the gift of grafted, giant irradiated crab legs anyway? An ingrate, that’s what! Sidebar: Where’d you come by all that unsanctioned, non-Nestlé water?
Pisces (February 19-March 20)
What climate-ravaged quest would be complete without the acid visions of a Blind Oracle? While the Oracles of classical antiquity inhaled underground vapors to attain their prophecies and declarations, you, Pisces, get along just fine with some battery acid and adrenachrome. And it was likely the very same mixture—or poppers, or snake venom, or those baked banana peels your friends used to smoke in seventh grade—that made you go blind, and surely not a wasteland wanderer who quickly tired of hearing about lucid dreams and the benefits of homebrewed kombucha.
Anthony Hudson is a Grand Ronde and Siletz artist, writer, and former clown. His first book, Lamp Back: Plays and Other Grievances—collecting nearly a decade of Carla Rossi performances and more—is being published this fall by Northwestern University Press.