The History of Heat Waves Reveals the Urgency of Adaptation
March 21st, 2025
Via Harvard’s Salata Institute, a report on the relationship between humans and heat continues to change. Heat waves, once simply a natural phenomenon, are now a symptom of urbanization and global warming. As the equinox approaches and the sun rises higher in the sky, people throughout the northern hemisphere wonder: How hot will it get? […]
Read more »Why Sizzling Cities Are Mapping Hot Spots Street-By-Street
March 6th, 2025
Via Knowable, a report on how – in metros like Reno, Nevada – citizen scientists hit the road to collect detailed temperature data — key to taming urban heat, saving lives and designing for a cooler future: The city of Reno, Nevada, is breaking records in ways it doesn’t like: A 2024 analysis of 241 […]
Read more »Reforesting the Elm City
March 3rd, 2025
Via Yale Alumni Magazine, an article on an initiative planting thousands of trees to make New Haven a cooler city: At first, planting street trees in New Haven was nothing more than a job for William “The Muscle” Tisdale. “I never paid too much attention to trees,” he says. He appreciated steady work with Yale’s […]
Read more »Rehydrating the Los Angeles Heat Island
March 3rd, 2025
Via Californians for Energy and Water Abundance, commentary on the need to find ways to cool Los Angeles: Along with the fairly recent popularization of terms such as atmospheric river and bomb cyclone, we increasingly hear the term “vapor pressure deficit” (VPD). At any given temperature, the term refers to how much moisture is in […]
Read more »Cooling People, Not Spaces: Surmounting the Risks of Air-Conditioning Over-Reliance
January 24th, 2025
Via UPENN’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, a look at ways to overcome the risks of air conditioning over-reliance: At A Glance Key Challenge Overreliance on AC worsens climate change through energy use and refrigerant leaks, also harming health in low-income homes. Sustainable cooling solutions like passive design and hybrids exist but face adoption barriers—both […]
Read more »The Ordinary Ceiling Fan May Be an Extraordinary Cooling Solution
January 8th, 2025
As global temperatures rise, ceiling fans are essential for millions who lack access to air conditioning. In India, for example, nearly 90% of households use ceiling fans. By 2038, an estimated 950 million fans will be installed across the country — more than double the number in 2017. Adopting super-efficient ceiling fans on a large […]
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.