Taking On Water: Can Sponge Cities Save Us from the Coming Floods?
April 25th, 2026
Courtesy of The New Yorker, a look at how – as the planet gets warmer and the rains fall harder – the future of flood control is looking less like a wall and something more like a park: On October 29, 2025, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority released an update to its Climate Resilience Roadmap. In […]
Read more »Harvard professor: Climate is an Investment Opportunity, Regardless of Politics
April 20th, 2026
Via Harvard Business School, commentary on the attractiveness of climate related investments: Editor’s Note: Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Vikram S. Gandhi teaches about sustainable investing and climate-related opportunities and risks in a growth economy. We sat down with him to discuss advice for business leaders in today’s complicated context, when the U.S. is a leading producer of […]
Read more »Why Boston’s Biggest Institutions Should Co-Invest in Climate Protection
April 19th, 2026
Via the Commonwealth Beacon, commentary on why Boston’s biggest institutions should co-invest in climate protection: DURING THE BLIZZARD OF ’26 in late February, Boston narrowly escaped a costly reminder of its climate vulnerability – the storm surge arrived hours after high tide. Had the timing been different, flooding could have rivaled the winter storms of 2018, […]
Read more »Climate Migration Is Already Reshaping American Cities
April 13th, 2026
Via Harvard’s Salata Institute, a look at how climate migration is already reshaping American cities: The concept of the climate haven – a place seen as safer from extreme weather – has increasingly gotten a bad rap. After a supercharged Hurricane Helene devastated large swathes of Asheville, North Carolina, in 2024, the term became an easy […]
Read more »Weather Prediction Markets Are Booming. Can They Improve Forecasts?
April 11th, 2026
Via Bloomberg, a look at how – from Kalshi and Polymarket to niche scientific platforms – traders are predicting the weather — and climate experts are debating the results: A few days before Christmas, Howard Qin was scrutinizing weather forecasts on two laptops at home in Shanghai when he noticed prices of contracts for New […]
Read more »Rain Could Soon Help Power Your Home
April 11th, 2026
Via The Cool Down, a report on a new breakthrough which integrates a thin film into panels that not only protects the fragile solar cells but also captures mechanical energy from falling rain: Scientists have developed a new coating to capture the energy of rain falling on solar panels. While the impact of rain may […]
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.