POLICY-MAKERS have been much occupied with so-called “black swans” – rare, disruptive events that lie well beyond normal expectations. Is the current air-travel pandemonium across Europe such a bird (see “Blame the volcano trouble on sun and global warming “)?
No. We’ve long known that Iceland has active volcanoes and that ash and jet engines don’t mix. It seems we need a term for big, obvious threats that are sure to emerge – think asteroid impacts – but which few want to face. Handily, students of “” have already coined one: “black elephants”.
