Climate Change: Rewriting the Rules of Real Estate
November 5th, 2024
Courtesy of The Washington Post, a look at how climate change is rewriting the rules of real estate: Three years ago, Owen Woolcock was on Zoom trying to convince a real estate investor to swap some of his buildings in the New York City area for properties in cities around the Great Lakes. Climate change was overturning […]
Read more »The Passive Home Trend Is Booming
November 1st, 2024
Courtesy of The Washington Post, a look at passive homes, green homes designed to be as energy efficient as possible. New incentives aim to make them more budget-friendly. On the morning of June 7, 2023, New York City woke to a sky of orange haze as the smoke from Canadian wildfires blew in from hundreds […]
Read more »The AI Boom Rests on Billions of Tonnes of Concrete
October 31st, 2024
Via IEEE’s Spectrum Magazine, a look at the impact that concrete is having upon the climate challenge: Along the country road that leads to ATL4, a giant data center going up east of Atlanta, dozens of parked cars and pickups lean tenuously on the narrow dirt shoulders. The many out-of-state plates are typical of the phalanx […]
Read more »People Rebuilding Their Homes With Earth
October 25th, 2024
Via BBC, a report on efforts by some homeowners to prepare for/avoid wildfire damage: Melanie Glover rebuilt her home in Superior, Colorado, using earth bricks (Credit: Nick Aspinwall) These people are rebuilding homes lost to wildfires in the western US – only this time they are using a material that they hope won’t burn. Melanie […]
Read more »Here’s What the Sustainable Cities of Tomorrow Could Look Like
October 23rd, 2024
Via Wired, a look at how – around the world – seeds of regenerative cities have already been planted. As they grow, they will shape the metropolises of tomorrow: The Pan Pacific Orchard hotel in Singapore.PHOTOGRAPH: DARREN SOH Cities are never truly complete and done; instead they are always changing, always evolving. One positive change […]
Read more »Heat Pumps Were Supposed To Transform The World, But It’s Not Going As Planned
October 21st, 2024
Via The Washington Post, a look at why heat pump sales, critical to the transition to clean energy, have slowed in the U.S. and stalled in Europe: Sales of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles have soared over the last few years — helping to slow global warming and take dangerous pollutants out of the atmosphere. But […]
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.