If These Walls Could Cool
June 11th, 2025
As summer begins here in the Northern Hemisphere, staying cool is on everyone’s mind. And with cities around the world getting warmer each year, specialized paints that keep buildings cool have become a hot topic. These paints generally reduce temperatures using radiative cooling, which works by reflecting sunlight to radiate heat into the air. […]
Read more »High-Rise Forests: ‘A Home For Trees and Birds, and Also Humans”
June 10th, 2025
Via BBC, a look at how high-rise forests can transform city life: It’s been 10 years since the creation of the first vertical forest, Milan’s Bosco Verticale. How has it inspired other buildings – and affected their residents’ happiness and health? In 2007, Italian architect Stefano Boeri witnessed the frantic construction of a city in […]
Read more »Power-Hungry Data Centers Are Warming Homes in the Nordics
May 15th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, a look at how – by pairing computer processing facilities with district heating systems – countries like Finland and Sweden are trying to limit their environmental downsides: When Finnish engineer Ari Kurvi takes a hot shower or turns up the thermostat in his apartment, he’s tapping into waste heat generated by a 75-megawatt […]
Read more »Private Equity Eyes Up US$1.3 trillion Climate Adaptation Market by 2030
May 15th, 2025
Via EcoBusiness, a report on a new study that – while the public sector is expected to account for the bulk of adaptation funding – identifies six investable segments for private investors, from climate risk data providers to flood defense infrastructure: As the climate crisis intensifies, adaptation and resilience are emerging as the next frontier for […]
Read more »Balcony Solar Took Off in Germany. Why Not the US?
April 25th, 2025
Via Grist, commentary on how – from breaker-masking to voltage mismatches – America’s grid isn’t ready for balcony solar — yet: Raymond Ward wants to see solar panels draped over every balcony in the United States and doesn’t understand why that isn’t happening. The technology couldn’t be easier to use — simply hang one or […]
Read more »Reforesting the Elm City
April 21st, 2025
Via Yale Alumni Magazine, a report on the Urban Resources Initiative is planting thousands of trees to make New Haven a cooler city: At first, planting street trees in New Haven was nothing more than a job for William “The Muscle” Tisdale. “I never paid too much attention to trees,” he says. He appreciated steady work […]
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.