The Gray Rhino Hiding In The Rising Sea
“The Gray Rhino” is a fascinating book by Michelle Wucker that I have just read. The subtitle tells the thesis: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore. Not only does it apply to climate change, she specifically uses it as a prime example.
The other prominent category for looming disaster is in the financial arena. She cites various financial crises, which were clearly headed for catastrophe. Despite “alarm bells” ringing and potential remedies being identified, they were allowed to proceed, causing problems far worse than needed to happen.
The rhinoceros is her metaphor for something that poses a clear danger, with high probability, yet may not stir us to action until it is too late to get to safety. It has applications in business, public policy, and our personal lives.
The Gray Rhino seems to complement “The Black Swan” a bestseller by Nassim Taleb, a decade earlier. Black Swans are highly improbable events with massive consequences that we seem to dismiss. Until now I had considered that rising sea level was a kind of black swan event, but now realize it is much more of a gray rhino situation.
Sea level will surely rise just as ice will surely melt as Earth gets warmer. The planet is already one degree Celsius warmer (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and headed for double or triple that. As Greenland and Antarctica melt, seas will rise many feet in the decades ahead. Shorelines will shift.
Real estate, infrastructure, and entire communities will go underwater. Yet the vast majority of people treat it as if the rising sea is a “theory” or at least a problem far enough in the future that we don’t need to worry about it ‘now.’ [Wrong.]
Quite to the contrary the best time to begin adapting to unstoppable rising sea level was “yesterday”; the next best time to begin is “today.” Infrastructure lasts a century or more. Whatever we build from now on should be designed so that it is durable and gets a full return on investment. Rising sea level is an obvious case where it makes sense to build with a margin of safety.
Wucker also tackles the question of how we can recognize and prepare for these highly probable, high-impact looming threats. There is a lot to ponder in this very accessible book and it’s directly relevant to the challenge of how we will adapt to rising sea level.
Like the proverbial elephant in the room, which is also overlooked, the gray rhino represents an even more dangerous situation that we ignore – at our peril.