Seattle To Add Electric Buses That Use Wireless Charging
February 21st, 2024
Via Smart Cities Dive, a report on Seattle’s deployment of in-ground inductive chargers to power double-decker buses along a new Sound Transit bus rapid transit route: Dive Brief: Seattle will become the first city in North America with double-decker electric transit buses using inductive wireless charging, the Pennsylvania-based wireless electric vehicle charging supplier InductEV announced Tuesday. […]
Read more »Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be
February 20th, 2024
Via Wired, a look at how – as relentless rains pounded LA – the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year: Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 […]
Read more »U.S. Just Bet Even Bigger on American-Made Heat Pumps
February 15th, 2024
Via Wired, an article on the U.S. government’s most recent support of American-made heat pumps: The US Department of Energy is announcing another $63 million to supercharge domestic manufacturing of the devices—in the name of national, energy, and climate security. While everyone’s been focused on accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles to cut carbon emissions, […]
Read more »Underwater: Exploring the Map of the World in 2100
February 15th, 2024
Courtesy of Hasan Jasim, an interesting set of maps that anticipates – and graphically shows – the impact of sea level rise in decades ahead: Alright, not of the entire world, but a large part of it. In this alarming future scenario drawn up by Jay Simons, the sea level has risen drastically and is […]
Read more »The Unloved L.A. River Just Prevented A Flood Disaster. Can More Of Its Water Be Saved?
February 14th, 2024
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, a look at the Los Angeles River and possibilities for more stormwater capture: As intense atmospheric rivers become more common in a warming world, so too do questions about stormwater capture in Los Angeles. Each year, when rain pours down and the L.A. River roars back to life, Angelenos want […]
Read more »Heat Pumps: Still Hot In The U.S.
February 12th, 2024
Via MIT Technology Review, a report on heat pumps, whose sales slowed in 2023, but are gaining ground on fossil fuels: Heat pumps are still a hot technology, though sales in the US, one of the world’s largest markets, fell in 2023. Even with the drop, the appliances beat out gas furnaces for the second […]
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.