Indonesia’s Coastal Erosion Crisis Triggers $80bn Seawall Bet
March 28th, 2026
Via Nikkei Asia, a report on Indonesia’s grand 500km wall plan; Java villages, businesses sink as waves encroach: On the northern coast of Java, fisherman Ahmad Sarif sees the sea steadily swallowing land at high tide every time he comes home from work in Bogorame village. Sarif, a village elder, told Nikkei Asia earlier this […]
Read more »How to Get Big Tech to Pay Your Energy Bills
March 24th, 2026
Via The Washington Post, a look at how the most overlooked U.S. power plant isn’t a gas turbine or solar farm. It’s your house (and thousands of others), and firms are paying to use them to power data centers: The tech industry needs massive amounts of electricity. The most overlooked power plant in the United […]
Read more »Urban Forestry: Climate Infrastructure Hiding In Plain Sight
March 5th, 2026
Via Harvard’s Salata Institute, a report on how Boston and Cambridge treat trees as a public system, not decoration. Three contributors to these cities’ urban forest plans explain how heat and historic disinvestment are guiding where canopy goes next – amid pressure to add housing and density. On a hot July afternoon, the most effective […]
Read more »'Black Swans' are highly improbable events that come as a surprise, have major disruptive effects, and that are often rationalized after the fact as if they had been predictable to begin with. In our rapidly warming world, such events are occurring ever more frequently and include wildfires, floods, extreme heat, and drought.
'Green Shoots' is a term used to describe signs of economic recovery or positive data during a downturn. It references a period of growth and recovery, when plants start to show signs of health and life, and, therefore, has been employed as a metaphor for a recovering economy.
It is my hope that Black Swans / Green Shoots will help readers understand both climate-activated risk and opportunity so that you may invest in, advise, or lead organizations in the context of increasing pressures of global urbanization, resource scarcity, and perils relating to climate change. I believe that the tools of business and finance can help individuals, businesses, and global society make informed choices about who and what to protect, and I hope that this blog provides some insight into the policy and private sector tools used to assess investments in resilient reinforcement, response, or recovery.