Europe’s Cities Should Prepare for Hotter, More Hazardous Days Ahead
November 27th, 2024
Via WRI, commentary on how European cities should prepare for hotter days ahead: Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent, which is severely impacting cities and leading to tens of thousands of deaths, rising hospitalizations, school closures and people adjusting their lives to avoid inhospitable outdoor conditions. The oppressive heat is being felt across the continent from […]
Read more »To Cope with Extreme Heat, Paris Will Swap Parking Spaces for Trees
November 19th, 2024
Via Yale e360, a report on Paris’s plan to swap parking spaces for trees: Paris aims to replace 60,000 parking spaces across the city with trees by the end of this decade, according to its newly released climate plan. The plan, which must still be approved by the Council of Paris, lays out steps to help […]
Read more »How Urban Planners Can Use Trees To Cool Entire Cities
November 5th, 2024
Via Terra Daily, a look at how urban planners can use trees to cool entire cities: Cities worldwide face rising temperatures, with urban areas particularly vulnerable due to heat absorption by concrete and asphalt. Tree-planting programs are a popular strategy to counteract urban heat, yet these initiatives often rely on estimates rather than precise science. […]
Read more »Urban Heat Stress Is Another Disparity in the World’s Most Unequal Nation
October 11th, 2024
Via Bloomberg, a look at how South African shantytowns are far hotter than wealthy city suburbs: Noluthando Geja isn’t looking forward to summer. The unemployed 44-year-old dreads the fast-approaching hottest months of the year, when the blistering sun beats down on the steel-sheet roof of the two-room house she shares with three children in Itireleng, […]
Read more »Too Hot By Day, Dubai’s Floodlit Beaches Are Packed At Night
October 6th, 2024
Via Al Monitor, a report on one way in which Dubai is adapting to extreme heat: Roasted by summer temperatures too hot for the beach, Dubai has turned to an innovative solution: opening them at night, complete with floodlights and lifeguards carrying night-vision binoculars. The idea, in one of the world’s hottest regions, with temperatures […]
Read more »How To Build An AC That Will Get The World Through Hotter Summers
October 6th, 2024
Via The Washington Post, a look at how – in order to combat stickier weather – air conditioners need to go from cooling machines to humidity gulpers: In this tropical city, where humidity levels oscillate between muggy and oppressive for most of the year, Santosh Naykar’s only defense against the stickiness is a 14-year-old window […]
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.