Art, Artisans and Ancient AC: CoolAnt’s Solutions for India’s Heat Crisis
October 15th, 2026
Via ImpactAlpha, a look at one individual’s efforts to wean people off air conditioners using natural materials: When architect Monish Siripurapu was growing up in southern India, air-conditioning was a rarity in middle-class homes. He recalls sprinkling water on the floor or on the roof to cool the house. Now Siripurapu, now 39 years old, […]
Read more »No Shade: An Old Solution to Heat Is New Again
October 8th, 2026
Via the Los Angeles Times’ Boiling Point series, a look at role that shade may play in urban heat adaptation: A bicyclist makes his way through the Hoover Recreation Center in Los Angeles, where the playground is draped with canopies for shade, on Oct. 7, 2026. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) It didn’t look […]
Read more »Can a Network of Miniature Sponge Cities Help Central Asia Curb Climate Change?
September 25th, 2026
Via The Diplomat, a look at how – in lieu of decisive regulatory action and funding – much of the work of adapting to new climate realities falls on individual gardeners and cooperatives. Can gardens act as a network of miniature sponge cities to have a positive impact on climate change in Central Asia? A […]
Read more »Comeback Cities: Part of Future Proofing
September 5th, 2026
Via Chris Taylor’s Futureproofing Us, an interesting look at how a a dead river comes back, how a highway can be unbuilt without exiling the neighborhood beneath it, and how an old city can become new without ceasing to be itself: By the 1960s, the lower river was an open sewer: no oxygen, no fish, […]
Read more »Urban Heat’s Overlooked Fix: Greening the Land Upwind of Cities
September 1st, 2026
Via Anthropocene Magazine, a look at a recent study published in Nature Cities which suggests that forests placed strategically outside urban cores can lower temperatures across much of a city: Strategically placed greenbelts in the suburbs could cool some of the world’s biggest cities by almost half a degree across at least half their area, […]
Read more »Excessive Air Conditioning Use May Cause Cities to Heat Up — and Passive Cooling Techniques Could Be the Future
August 20th, 2026
Via Discover, a report on new research that reveals how passive cooling techniques are going to be increasingly important to reduce energy use and cool urban areas. Learn more about them. In a burning hot city in the middle of the summer, when you can practically see the heat rising off the asphalt roads, an […]
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.