| Next | Section menu | Main menu | Previous |

A black swan? No

Michele Wucker: analyst and author, “The Gray Rhino”

This was a “grey rhino”—a predictable crisis

We must replace black-swan fatalism with grey-rhino pragmatism

ONE OF THE biggest lessons from the covid-19 pandemic has been the folly of

ignoring warnings about highly likely, high-impact risks that are a matter of

when, not if. For years, many governments brushed off countless credible

warnings that the world was poorly prepared for a pandemic. When the novel

coronavirus emerged in China, too many nations were too slow to respond.

The pandemic should encourage policymakers to pay more attention to other known
but poorly managed risks. These include rising inequality, climate change and financial
imbalances such as dangerous corporate-debt levels and asset bubbles. Picture each of
these obvious dangers as a two-tonne grey rhinoceros with its horn pointed our way
and its massive weight bearing down on us: they are very visible and their impact can
be foreseen. The interactions among these rhinos heighten the danger. You could
appropriately call them a crash—the zoological term for a group—of grey rhinos.