Is Climate Change a Black Swan?
And what is a black swan anyway?
POSTED ON 14 JUN 23
BY JOHN RIDGWAYIN UNCATEGORIZED
When I ran risk assessment workshops during my days in software development, I was always keen to remind those participating that the risk that is most likely to dominate is the one that did not make it onto the risk register. This annoying detail is due to the novelty that often accompanies software development work, and therefore the extent to which epistemic uncertainty features. You can do as much Monte Carlo analysis as you want in order to model schedule risk, but the brute fact is that you cannot account for the impact of your ignorance, and so you are likely wasting your time. Another way of putting this is that the risk profile is dominated by black swans and not the logic of the gaming table.
The question I have posed in the title to this article is whether or not climate change is like that. When we look forward, are the risks primarily determined by the unknown unknowns? Is that where the greatest potential impact lies? And if so, does that justify the drastic approach currently proposed by advocates of an emergency transition to Net Zero? After all, in some important respects, we have never been here before and the placards tell me there is no planet B.
Before I attempt to answer that question, it is very important that we all have the right idea of what a black swan is and what it is not. Yes, they are rare events that have huge impact and were not predicted, but is that all there is to it?
In a word: No.
This is not roulette
https://cliscep.com/2023/06/14/is-climate-change-a-black-swan/
