Traditional Home Insurance Is Collapsing. Here’s What Could Fill the Gap
June 16th, 2026
Via Wired, a report on a new, AI-assisted model of insurance is quietly exploding in disaster-prone areas—and may be coming for FEMA too. Is it the answer to climate change, or a trap? In 2019, when the worst flooding in recorded history spread across the entire Mississippi River basin, Colin Wellenkamp’s phone rang for weeks. Wellenkamp runs a […]
Read more »The Tiny Solar Panel That Could Change America
June 14th, 2026
Courtesy of the New York Times, commentary on plug-in, balcony or garden solar: It’s not so easy to harvest the sunshine if you live in America. Homeowners can hire someone to install solar on their rooftops, but it can take many years for it to pay for itself. You might be able to buy a […]
Read more »No Shade, but Cities Aren’t Planting Enough Trees
June 7th, 2026
Via Grist, a look at how the solution to urban heat could be much, much simpler than many people think: Johnny Appleseed was ahead of his time. Not because he fed so many people by planting apple trees (really, he got them drunk instead, as his real goal was encouraging the production of cider), but because […]
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.