He’s Got a Plan for Cities That Flood: Stop Fighting the Water
March 29th, 2024
Courtesy of the New York Times, an article on one Chinese landscape architect in China who has a surprising strategy to help manage surges of water from storms supercharged by climate change: Cities around the world face a daunting challenge in the era of climate change: Supercharged rainstorms are turning streets into rivers, flooding subway […]
Read more »How Women in Ahmedabad Slums Are Beating Back Climate’s Deadly Heatwave
March 29th, 2024
Via One World South Asia, a report on how women in Ahmedabad slums who work from home at tailoring, embroidery, kite-making, snack-making, or running grocery shops, micro-retailing vegetables and flowers, have been with little respite from the brutal heatwaves that have been steadily worsening. Until now… Seema Mali is desperate. She has no defences against […]
Read more »A Dutch Architect’s Vision of Cities That Float on Water
March 27th, 2024
Courtesy of The New Yorker, a look at if building on the water could be safer and sturdier than building on flood-prone land? In a corner of the Rijksmuseum hangs a seventeenth-century cityscape by the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerrit Berckheyde, “View of the Golden Bend in the Herengracht,” which depicts the construction of Baroque […]
Read more »High Heat Insurance
March 25th, 2024
Via Fast Company, an article on one start-up company’s efforts to insure against extreme weather: Legislators in Florida recently made headlines by proposing a ban on heat-related protections for workers—including breaks to hydrate and get out of the sun. While the merits of that bill are questionable, especially as it potentially puts millions of outdoor workers in […]
Read more »How One New Jersey Beach City Went From ‘Worst to First’ In Reducing Flood Risk
March 17th, 2024
Via Smart Cities Dive, a look at Sea Isle City’s success in reducing flood risk and building resilience: Sea Isle City, New Jersey, had a dismal flood management reputation for a long time — one so bad that the beach community almost got booted from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program in the […]
Read more »The Designer Who’s Trying to Transform Cities Into Sponges
March 15th, 2024
Via Wired, an article on Kongjian Yu who pioneered China’s “sponge city” concept—less concrete and more green spaces to exploit stormwater instead of fighting it. Metropolises all over the world are following suit: Your city isn’t prepared for what’s coming. The classical method for dealing with stormwater is to get it out of town as […]
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.