Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Watch out, there's a black elephant in the air

I think it would be more fitting to call them "flourescent orange elephants".

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627573.000-watch-out-theres-a-black-elephant-in-the-air.html

21 April 2010
Magazine issue 2757

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 "collapsonomics" have already coined one: "black elephants".

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