The Cement That Could Turn Buildings Into Giant Batteries
June 11th, 2024
Via BBC, a look at how an innovative cement could turn buildings into giant batteries: Concrete is perhaps the most commonly used building material in the world. With a bit of tweaking, it could help to power our homes too. On a laboratory bench in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a stack of polished cylinders of black-coloured concrete […]
Read more »Beyond the Yuck Factor: Cities Turn to ‘Extreme’ Water Recycling
June 10th, 2024
Via Yale e360, a look at how San Francisco is at the forefront of a movement to recycle wastewater from commercial buildings, homes, and neighborhoods and use it for toilets and landscaping. This decentralized approach, proponents say, will drive down demand in an era of increasing water scarcity: In downtown San Francisco, in a cavernous […]
Read more »Mexico City’s Thirst Is Causing It To Sink
June 9th, 2024
Via The Washington Post, a look at how the demand for water in Mexico’s capital is draining its underground aquifers — and fueling some of the fastest subsidence rates in the world: On a recent morning, visitors wandered around Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral, Latin America’s oldest — and one of its largest. Walking from chamber to […]
Read more »How Electric Car Batteries Might Aid the Grid (and Win Over Drivers)
June 9th, 2024
Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how automakers are exploring energy storage as a way to help utilities and save customers money, turning an expensive component into an industry asset: Electric cars are more expensive than gasoline models largely because batteries cost so much. But new technology could turn those pricey devices […]
Read more »The Uninsurable World: How The Insurance Industry Fell Behind On Climate Change
June 8th, 2024
Courtesy of the Financial Times, a report on how the insurance industry fell behind on climate change : Half a century ago, one of the world’s leading reinsurers published a paper on floods, referencing ancient diluvial stories such as the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, and urged better monitoring of “climatic variations”. The 1970s paper by […]
Read more »As Water Shortages Plague Bogotá and Other Cities, Nature-Based Solutions Can Help
June 7th, 2024
Via WRI, a look at how cities can take advantage of nature-based solutions to help combat drought: Bogotá, Colombia is in the throes of a water crisis. After several months of dry weather caused by El Niño, the Chingaza reservoir system, which provides 70% of Bogotá’s water, reached its lowest level in history. The city’s over 8 […]
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.