The Greenline Housing Foundation is helping Altadena residents recover, rebuild, and remain in the neighborhood following January's devastating fire. This profile of Greenline’s work examines how rebuilding with resiliency can drive a recovery that preserves wealth and gets residents back home.
Historically, strong federal environmental regulations drove government action to manage water resources -- that’s changing as more communities experience flooding and see the benefits of nature-based solutions to mitigate those impacts.
Many firms can play in the adaptation space both in terms of investments and solutions. Climate Disasters are catalyzing the deterioration of our U.S Bridges. And policy-makers are moving to hold largest emitters financially accountable in effort to raise capital for adaptation efforts.
Which insights or opportunities are most helpful to you? Have suggestions for better ways to package these ideas? We'd love to hear from you!
Curated insights
Many firms can play in the adaptation space both in terms of investments and solutions
🎙️ Climate Proofers: Jay Koh On The ‘Unavoidable Opportunity’ Of Adaptation This podcast with Jay Koh–who runs the first adaptation-focused investment firm, The Lightsmith Group–introduces potential challenges and opportunities to invest in climate adaptation. Adaptation is not just about philanthropic desire, but can be economically successful. Meanwhile, many adaptation solutions are not labeled as such. For example, AiDash focuses on vegetation management which ultimately helps with wildfire mitigation for utilities (as one use case). We suggest listening from timestamp 18:00-21:00 to hear in Jay’s words why allocation of capital to adaptation is beneficial.
Climate disasters are catalyzing the deterioration of our U.S bridges
📰 Climate Change Can Cause Bridges to 'Fall Apart like Tinkertoys' Extreme heat and flooding are accelerating the degradation of U.S. bridge infrastructure. With a quarter of bridge infrastructure built before 1960, extreme fluctuations in temperature and precipitation are creating rapid swelling, contraction, and erosion which compromises the steel/concrete connections to bridge foundations. One study found that one in four steel bridges will collapse by 2050. While the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocates $110B to repair U.S. infrastructure, including bridges, there is no standardization about what it means to build “climate resilient” bridges. Furthermore, building with resilience ultimately requires more capital. For example, Colorado state officials estimate that they need 5x the amount currently provided annually ($143B) to appropriately update all afflicted infrastructure.
Policy-makers are moving to hold largest emitters financially accountable in effort to raise capital for adaptation efforts
📰 New York Legislators Pass Climate Superfund Bill In June 2024, the New York Legislature passed the Climate Superfund Bill which is aimed at holding the largest emitters financially accountable for their role in the climate crisis. It is expected to raise $3B per year for 25 years for the state of New York. The funds would be utilized to pay for climate-related infrastructure upgrades like coastal wetlands restoration or stormwater drainage system projects with a third of the funds required to be invested in vulnerable communities. If signed into law. New York would be the second state to do so after Vermont, with similar bills being proposed in Maryland, California, and other states.
Low-income/disadvantaged communities are disproportionately impacted
📽️ How Climate Change Risks Impact People with Disabilities According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 70% of deaf evacuees in the U.S. lived in unsanitary conditions for a month post disaster (vs. 7% of hearing-abled evacuees). This 9-minute PBS video provides a comprehensive introduction to the impacts of living in a climate disaster prone state like Florida as a person with a disability. We often think of the disproportionate impacts of climate disasters by race and gender, but disabled people are hard hit and are often not included in discussions around disaster planning.
Surviving homes from the Lahaina, Hawaii fire demonstrate that building homes with available science and standards can reduce risk/costs from wildfires
📰 These houses survived one of the country's worst wildfires. Here’s how The August 2023 fire in Lahaina, Hawaii destroyed over 2,000 homes and buildings, but a study by IBHS found that homes with certain building materials and reduced flammable vegetation were more likely to survive. These homes might be the only homes left standing in a neighborhood of destroyed houses, a stark visual to the power of innovating for resilient home infrastructure. For example, a home with a concrete fence, instead of wooden, limited radiation from surrounding burning areas. Another home with a metal roof and a bed of river rocks around the home, instead of vegetation, likely mitigated the spread of fire via wind dispersion of embers.
With each issue of The Epicenter, we'll publish a list of useful resources ("curated insights") and resiliency opportunities. These insights and opportunities are curated based on recency and relevance for The Epicenter's audience overall, and aren't necessarily topically linked to that week's edition. We'll share these insights as a separate post, to manage info overload in our regular email newsletters.
