Will New York City Make Landlords Provide Air Conditioning?
Via Smart Cities Dive, a report on whether New York City will make landlords provide air conditioning: Housing laws are really about public health, says New York City’s chief climate officer [...]
Oakland’s New School Buses Don’t Just Reduce Pollution — They Double as Giant Batteries
Courtesy of Grist, an updated report on Oakland’s new fleet of buses that can send power back to the grid, stabilizing it instead of straining it: Matt Simon The wheels on this bus do indeed go [...]
New Solution for Flood-Prone Cities: Concrete Made From Shellfish Waste
Via Grist, a report on a new type of concrete that uses discarded shells to trap water. It’s now combating floods and food waste in urban gardens and along cycling paths. This time of year, [...]
Resilient Urban Forests: How Tipuana Trees Could Revolutionize City Planning
Via Energy & Environment Leader, a look at how cities could utilize a specific tree species to revolutionize urban planning in an era of climate change: As cities across the globe grapple with [...]
Learning To Live With 50C Temperatures
Courtesy of The Financial Times, a report on how – from Dubai to Mumbai – cities are having to adapt to hotter summers, often exacerbating economic inequality in the process: Sitting [...]
How To Make Climate Risk Good Business
An interesting TEDx talk examining h0w – by leveraging massive data stores that can be parsed and used predictively in the same way investors rely on these insights for stocks and interest [...]

ABOUT
BLACK SWANS GREEN SHOOTS
Black Swans / Green Shoots examines the collision between urbanization and resource scarcity in a world affected by climate change, identifying opportunities to build sustainable cities and resilient infrastructure through the use of revolutionary capital, increased awareness, innovative technologies, and smart design to make a difference in the face of global and local climate perils.

'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.