We Can’t Air-Condition Our Way Out of Global Heating Problem
February 26th, 2024
Via The Hindustan Times, a look at extreme heat response and urban resilience: In 2022, the two organisations announced a collaboration and created this position to mainstream heat response and resilience-building actions in cities worldwide In 2023, atmospheric heat crossed some of its critical thresholds even as countries continued to grapple with fundamental questions about […]
Read more »Botanical Gardens ‘Most Effective’ Green Space at Cooling Streets in Heatwaves
February 26th, 2024
Courtesy of The Guardian, an article on new research that suggests that botanical gardens are the ‘most effective’ green space at cooling streets in heatwaves: Few things are as soothing on a hot summer’s day as a walk through a beautiful botanical garden, but they are not just oases of calm. As climate breakdown fuels […]
Read more »Freetown The Treetown
February 25th, 2024
Via Re-TV, a short video on ‘Freetown the Treetown,’ an ambitious and innovative ‘pay to grow’ scheme that is incentivising residents to plant and maintain indigenous trees and mangroves in the city to help address urban heat and urban flooding: Using technology to monitor Freetown’s tree-planting initiative In the Global South, urbanisation is driving an […]
Read more »Paris’s New Weapons in Climate Fight: Metro Turnstiles and the Seine
February 21st, 2024
Courtesy of Bloomberg, a report on Paris’s innovative approaches to tackle climate change: When it comes to fighting climate change, every bit counts. At least, that was the thinking behind a small test project last summer at a metro station in Paris, the city where the world’s first legally binding climate accord was signed. Commuters who went […]
Read more »Seattle To Add Electric Buses That Use Wireless Charging
February 21st, 2024
Via Smart Cities Dive, a report on Seattle’s deployment of in-ground inductive chargers to power double-decker buses along a new Sound Transit bus rapid transit route: Dive Brief: Seattle will become the first city in North America with double-decker electric transit buses using inductive wireless charging, the Pennsylvania-based wireless electric vehicle charging supplier InductEV announced Tuesday. […]
Read more »Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be
February 20th, 2024
Via Wired, a look at how – as relentless rains pounded LA – the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year: Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 […]
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.