Aldo’s recently expressed view of my philosopher friend Howard’s prose is somewhat understandable. HA was a professor, after all. But I considered the comment to be a politely veiled invitation to pontificate about something philosophical. And so I thought I’d talk about grey swans.

There is nothing philosophical about a white swan and, if one reads Taleb, there is really nothing too radical about black ones (in the sense that they continue to happen). In effect, the black and white swan theory is just randomness meets Yin and Yang.

Ironically, the grey swan should also be an inevitability but it is never regarded that way…..

White swanning is, basically, how the flock flies – in unison, together, predictably. The great plan unfolding. White swan is normal. Black swans, on the other hand, are random, unexpected events that change the flight path of the flock. Black swans are a force majeure, acts of God, freak accidents or events. A flock of swans heading South for the winter is normal, a volcano erupting right in their long established annual flight path would be a black swan event for them (likely turning some white swans coal black in the process). The eruption was not expected, nor predicted and it created a major detour for the flock when it happened.

In human terms we might say the automobile, the airplane, TV, birth control, computers and Donald Trump were all black swan events. All major-change events that were unexpected and all put the status quo on its head.

Grey swans, on the other hand are those events that can be and are well foreseen, they can be predicted, can be planned for but, for some reason, are not. Why? Mostly because even though we can reasonably predict them, we also predict their occurrence as very rare. Winning the lottery might be a kind of grey swan event. We bought a ticket. We know the game. We hoped. We know that someone is gonna win. It is all predictable save for who the lucky grey swan will be. Ergo, a grey swan event.

And that brings us nicely to Climate Change. The biggest grey swan of all. There are, of course, a lot of dumb Bubbas who truly believed that climate change was a myth, fake news. So, for them, the planet broiling this summer is a total surprise (a black swan event). But, for those with more than a single digit of IQ, climate change was obviously coming down th epike but we (the white swans) thought that it’s impact would not be for some time….you know…? Like the turn of the next century?

But it is actually upon us much, much sooner than even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted. That’s makes it a grey swan event. Predictable but unpredictably so.

Grey swans are flying all around us. All the time. Throughout our lives. For example, I dated girls. I expected to kiss some, hang with some, maybe even marry one of them….but then Sal came along. WOW!! THAT should NOT have been but, well, it WAS a HUGE surprise! She’s my luckiest grey swan.

But that is on a personal level. On a socio-philosophical level we have all worked hard to eliminate grey swans from our life. Routine, religion, Laws, institutions, the Establishment…all sorts of white swan-type efforts to keep everything same ol’, same ol’. And, of course, it is the exception that seems to prove the rule so we occasionally get the depressions, wars, epidemics, Recent Republicans…you know…? Real black swan events. Surprises.

The point to all this (according to Taleb) is that all the swans are predictable but with varying accuracy. White swanning is mostly predictable and grey swans are, too, but they are quite rare. Black swans seem to show up unexpectedly and we are always totally surprised and all our white swanning goes out the window. That is when things really change.

To my mind, Climate Change is turning out to be a very dark grey swan. Really dark.