El Paso Is Going to Turn Wastewater Into Drinking Water. Other Cities Will Soon Follow
March 3rd, 2025
Via Inside Climate News, a report on El Paso breaking ground on the first U.S. facility that will treat wastewater for direct re-use in a city water supply, using a four-step process to transform wastewater into clean, potable drinking water. This desert city gets less than nine inches of rain a year and experienced the two […]
Read more »The Sea Is Swallowing An African Island
March 3rd, 2025
Via The Economist, a look at how Sierra Leone is finding that adjusting to a warmer climate is getting harder: Standing on the shores of Nyangai, a small island off the coast of Sierra Leone, Melvin Kargbo points to his old football field, now below an expanse of seawater. Never large, Nyangai has shrunk from around […]
Read more »Reforesting the Elm City
March 3rd, 2025
Via Yale Alumni Magazine, an article on an initiative planting thousands of trees to make New Haven a cooler city: At first, planting street trees in New Haven was nothing more than a job for William “The Muscle” Tisdale. “I never paid too much attention to trees,” he says. He appreciated steady work with Yale’s […]
Read more »Rehydrating the Los Angeles Heat Island
March 3rd, 2025
Via Californians for Energy and Water Abundance, commentary on the need to find ways to cool Los Angeles: Along with the fairly recent popularization of terms such as atmospheric river and bomb cyclone, we increasingly hear the term “vapor pressure deficit” (VPD). At any given temperature, the term refers to how much moisture is in […]
Read more »“Nature Is Helping Us”: Trees in LA Are Better Carbon Sinks Than Expected, Study Finds
March 1st, 2025
Trees are often called the “lungs of the Earth,” and a recent study backs that up. The research out of Los Angeles found that the city’s trees are even more generous when it comes to carbon dioxide storage than expected, absorbing 60% of daytime CO2 emissions in the spring and summer and about 30% annually […]
Read more »There Were Never Any Climate Havens: Floods In The Midwest, Hurricanes In Appalachia
February 28th, 2025
Via The Guardian, commentary on how analysts and investors have long trumpeted ‘climate-proof’ US communities, but recent disasters show the need for a different way of thinking: A few years ago, while visiting a tiny village, I toured a grand old community hall scheduled to be demolished after a historic flood. Across the street, a […]
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.