Cracks Starting To Show: Homeowners Battle Insurers Over $2.9 Trillion Climate Risk
June 14th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, a report on how subsidence is a worsening risk and insurers don’t want to pick up the tab. When Bernard Weisse first noticed a tiny crack in the outer wall of his house on the outskirts of Paris, he dismissed it as little more than a nuisance. But in the four years since, […]
Read more »America’s Sinking Cities
June 14th, 2025
Via Visual Capitalist, a look at subsidence in the U.S.: Across the U.S., major urban centers are experiencing significant land subsidence, a.k.a the sinking of land. This map visualizes the average vertical land movement within 28 of the largest U.S. cities from 2015 to 2021, measured in milimeters per year. Data comes from a 2025 […]
Read more »If These Walls Could Cool
June 11th, 2025
As summer begins here in the Northern Hemisphere, staying cool is on everyone’s mind. And with cities around the world getting warmer each year, specialized paints that keep buildings cool have become a hot topic. These paints generally reduce temperatures using radiative cooling, which works by reflecting sunlight to radiate heat into the air. […]
Read more »India Plans Air Conditioner Temperature Rules to Save Power
June 11th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, a report that India plans to establish air conditioner temperature rules to save power: India is working with appliance makers to standardize the cooling range of air conditioners to ensure that the minimum temperature is not set below 20C (68F), in an effort to cut the energy use of these power guzzlers. The […]
Read more »India Needs To Turn the Air Conditioning On
June 10th, 2025
Via The Economist, an article on India’s heat and air pollution issues: AT THE END of March the India Meteorological Department predicted a warmer-than-usual April, the first month of India’s hot season. The forecast was soon proved right: in the first week of April temperatures in big cities were 3°C above normal. By the second, Delhi […]
Read more »High-Rise Forests: ‘A Home For Trees and Birds, and Also Humans”
June 10th, 2025
Via BBC, a look at how high-rise forests can transform city life: It’s been 10 years since the creation of the first vertical forest, Milan’s Bosco Verticale. How has it inspired other buildings – and affected their residents’ happiness and health? In 2007, Italian architect Stefano Boeri witnessed the frantic construction of a city in […]
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.