Come for the Biking, Stay for the Otters
May 23rd, 2026
Via Bloomberg, a look at how – with tight budgets and political pushback – policymakers are pitching bike lanes that serve other green purposes like flood and habitat protection: Cardiff’s new cycle paths are designed to function as rain gardens, helping to prevent flooding and providing habitats for wildlife. The multi-purpose design of the bike […]
Read more »Taking On Water: Can Sponge Cities Save Us from the Coming Floods?
April 25th, 2026
Courtesy of The New Yorker, a look at how – as the planet gets warmer and the rains fall harder – the future of flood control is looking less like a wall and something more like a park: On October 29, 2025, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority released an update to its Climate Resilience Roadmap. In […]
Read more »Tennis Courts Serve Up An Unexpected Climate Solution
April 1st, 2026
Via Anthropocene Magazine, a look at how researchers have found that green clay tennis courts are able to absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide via enhanced rock weathering: It’s probably not what most tennis players are thinking about as they focus on the ball whizzing over the net towards them, but the court they are […]
Read more »Urban Forestry: Climate Infrastructure Hiding In Plain Sight
March 5th, 2026
Via Harvard’s Salata Institute, a report on how Boston and Cambridge treat trees as a public system, not decoration. Three contributors to these cities’ urban forest plans explain how heat and historic disinvestment are guiding where canopy goes next – amid pressure to add housing and density. On a hot July afternoon, the most effective […]
Read more »Growing Greenery: The Rise of Urban Green Space
February 9th, 2026
Via Triple Pundit, a look at how green space provides abundant advantages to urbanites, from cutting air pollution and managing heat islands to increasing physical activity. Planners in major cities like London, Singapore and Berlin are capitalizing on these benefits to improve quality of life for residents. In 1634, the first public park in the […]
Read more »Advancing Adaptation: Mapping Costs From Cooling To Coastal Defenses
January 7th, 2026
Via McKinsey, a new report on how the benefits of adaptation far outweigh its costs. Yet, the world today spends just one-third of the amount needed to protect everyone exposed to hazards to developed-economy standards. What would it cost to adapt as the Earth warms, and how much will get spent? At a glance Societies […]
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.