A Tree Grows in Birmingham
August 12th, 2023
Via Inside Climate News, a report on how one Southern community aims to plant its way into the Alabama shade: Sometimes Thomasine Jackson can’t get to work. Jackson, 65, said if there’s been a hard rain, water covers her entire street, leaving her no choice but to call her supervisor at Drummond Coal and tell […]
Read more »On the Highway to Climate Hell
August 11th, 2023
Via Foreign Policy, a look at how the world’s infrastructure was built for a climate that no longer exists: Countries have spent decades building critical infrastructure that is now buckling under extreme heat, wildfires, and floods, laying bare just how unprepared the world’s energy and transportation systems are to withstand the volatility of climate change. […]
Read more »How to Upgrade and Electrify Millions of US Homes and Buildings
August 11th, 2023
Via RMI, a look at three ways that states can scale the impact of the IRA’s historic $8.5 billion home energy rebates investment: The White House and Department of Energy (DOE) recently laid the foundation for two monumental home energy upgrade initiatives: the Home Efficiency Rebates program, which offers up to $8,000 to households, and the Home […]
Read more »Swiss Re: ‘High Time to Invest in More Climate Adaption’
August 11th, 2023
Via BusinessGreen, commentary that insurers are now seeing the need for more adaptation investment: Severe thunderstorms, earthquakes, extensive flooding, and heatwaves have hit the global insurance industry for $50bn in the worst start to a year for the industry since 2011, according to a major new study that further highlights the intensifying impact of the […]
Read more »Converting Brown Offices to Green Apartments
August 10th, 2023
A detailed NBER report, that examines the conversion of brown office buildings to green apartments as a means of contributing towards a solution to three pressing issues: oversupply of office in a hybrid-and-remote-work world, shortage of housing, and excessive greenhouse gas emissions. The paper proposes a set of criteria to identify commercial office properties that […]
Read more »This Butterfly-Inspired Paint Could Keep Cars and Houses Cool
August 10th, 2023
Via Fast Company, a look at a nature-inspired cooling technology: Scientists have designed a thin film that mimics a butterfly’s wings to help keep surfaces cool. The vivid blue color of morpho butterflies doesn’t come from pigment but from tiny nanostructures on their wings that bend and reflect light. In a recent study, scientists designed […]
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.