The World’s Next Tallest Building Could Be A 3,000-Feet High Battery
August 8th, 2024
Via CNN, an article on an interesting new idea around to merging urbanization with new gravity energy storage solutions: The buildings and construction sector is responsible for almost 40% of global emissions, but designers and engineers are coming up with creative ways to make skyscrapers better for the environment. This render shows SOM and Energy Vault’s proposed […]
Read more »Trees Are Not Enough: Shade Will Make or Break American Cities
August 7th, 2024
Via The Atlantic, a look at innovative solutions for urban shade: On a 92-degree Saturday afternoon in Portland, Oregon, I went looking for shade in Cully Park, which was built on top of an old landfill and opened in 2018. The city included plenty of trees in the design—I mean, this is Oregon. But those […]
Read more »AI Is Heating the Olympic Pool
August 6th, 2024
Via Wired, a look at how a data center in Paris has been hooked up to the energy system heating the Olympic pool. But critics say that projects recycling data centers’ excess heat are a distraction from the real environmental costs of AI. In the suburbs of northeast Paris, there is a giant terra-cotta-colored warehouse […]
Read more »Plants vs. Pipes: How Asia’s 5,000-Year-Old Rice Terraces Are Inspiring Modern Flood Control
August 6th, 2024
Via BBC, a look at how Asia’s 5,000-year-old rice terraces are inspiring modern flood control: Landprocess The green roof of Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand is designed to protect from flooding, cool temperatures and grow crops (Credit: Landprocess) Parks, roofs and riverbanks mimicking the long-used agricultural form are helping Asian cities absorb, hold and purify […]
Read more »What If Buildings Were Designed Like Trees?
August 6th, 2024
What if we designed buildings like trees? To emit oxygen, sequester carbon, fix nitrogen, create food, and distill water. Here is a recent presentation at the 15th Real Estate Development Summit—Europe which explored just that. Let’s use nature as a model and a tool so that our structures are as nurturing to the planet as […]
Read more »Your Future Air Conditioner Might Act Like A Battery
August 6th, 2024
Courtesy of MIT Technology Review, a report on new technologies that store cooling power for when it’s needed most: As temperatures climb on hot days, many of us are quick to crank up our fans or air conditioners. These cooling systems can be a major stress on electrical grids, which has inspired some inventors to […]
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.