US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day
March 2nd, 2024
Via Wired, a report on how – with better infrastructure and “spongy” green spaces – U.S. urban areas have made progress but should be soaking up way more free stormwater: YOUR CITY IS a scab on the landscape: sidewalks, roads, parking lots, rooftops—the built environment repels water into sewers and then into the environment. Urban planners have been […]
Read more »What Will It Take to Save Our Cities from a Scorching Future?
March 1st, 2024
Via Yale e360, an interview with Eleni Myrivili, the UN’s first-ever global chief heat officer based on her record as a city official in Athens, discussing why extreme heat is a health crisis and what cities must do to protect the most vulnerable from rising temperatures: In 2022, a year in which 70,000 Europeans died […]
Read more »Singapore’s System To Collect Rainwater, Treat Sewage, and Desalinate Seawater
March 1st, 2024
Via Fast Company, a look at Singapore’s cutting-edge system that collects rainwater, treats sewage, and desalinates seawater: A crack of thunder booms as dozens of screens in a locked office flash between live video of cars splashing through wet roads, drains sapping the streets dry, and reservoirs collecting the precious rainwater across the tropical island […]
Read more »The Colorado Community Already Living In An All-Electric Future
February 28th, 2024
Via Canary Media, a report on Colorado’s Geos net-zero community, offering a glimpse into what a decarbonized neighborhood can look like: (Alison F. Takemura/Canary Media) On a gray Saturday, I pull up to the curb of the Geos neighborhood during a snowstorm. Through the fat falling flakes, I can just make out the multicolored buildings that look modern, attractive […]
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 »'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.