Green Concrete is Foundational to Building Climate Solutions at Scale
November 15th, 2023
Via Green Money, an article on the importance of green concrete to building climate solutions at scale: Climate heavy hitters in industry and finance are betting on clean concrete. Above image: Heirloom facility What if one of the world’s most carbon-intensive industries — cement production — could be a transformative climate solution? One that is […]
Read more »Climate Change Will Test Tokyo’s World-Class Flood Defenses
November 15th, 2023
Via Bloomberg, a look at how Japan has financed enormously expensive infrastructure projects to protect cities from catastrophe, but old adaptation plans may not be enough against increasingly heavy rains: Underneath a stretch of highway north of Tokyo lies an example of Japan’s prowess in engineering solutions to potentially destructive weather events: A network of […]
Read more »The Intersection of Buildings, Energy, and Emissions Reduction
November 15th, 2023
Via Green Money, commentary on the intersection of buildings, energy, and emissions reduction: Buildings use energy. Lots of energy. Buildings account for 30-50% of building energy use globally; in the US it’s 39%, more than industry and transportation. Figure 1 shows the US building sector energy consumption, courtesy of Sunproject. Source: World Economic Forum. (October […]
Read more »Parking Garages: Significant Potential Urban Heat Source
November 15th, 2023
Via Anthropocene Magazine, a look at how waste heat from over 5,000 underground parking lots in Berlin could meet the demand of of 14,660 average German households, scientists found, while helping improve groundwater quality and biodiversity: A large untapped source of energy could be right underneath our wheels, a new study shows. Cars parked in […]
Read more »After its Hottest Summer On Record, Phoenix’s Mayor Outlines the City’s Future
November 13th, 2023
Via Inside Climate News, an interview with Phoenix’s Mayor Kate Gallego, looking at how the city is looking to address extreme heat and drought to build a more sustainable city: The Phoenix summer of 2023 was one for the record books. For 54 days straight—36 more than the previous record—the hottest city in the country had […]
Read more »Heat Pump Installations Slow, Impeding Biden’s Climate Goals
November 9th, 2023
Via the New York Times, an article on heat pumps – devices which can heat and cool homes more efficiently than furnaces and air-conditioners – but their sales have slowed because of higher interest rates and a slow rollout of federal incentives: More Americans are buying heat pumps, an environmentally friendly alternative to furnaces and […]
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.