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HOW TO PREPARE FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE 125
Norway’s municipalities would have to implement measures in a much shorter time
perspective. This poses a challenge to the municipalities; when can they expect the
climate change to occur, and at what pace will it occur? These are questions to which
there are no obvious answers, and that makes it challenging to plan and prepare for
a slow-burning crisis. Because of the gradual development of this type of crisis, it
does not gain the same attention as a fast-burning crisis. Given the uncertainties of
when the crisis begins or if there is a crisis at all, these crises tend to be normalised,
which means the extraordinary becomes the ordinary. Although climate change itself
might be considered a severe risk, the lack of means to reduce the risks and mitigate
against the impacts, in addition to the ambiguity over when the crisis will occur,
means this type of risk might not be prioritised on a local level. Municipalities simply
lack the knowledge to meet such a challenge.
Challenges of including black swans in risk and vulnerability
analysis
The lack of proper means to meet the threat of more severe weather also applies to
the risk- analysis tools available to municipalities. Traditional risk analysis tools
estimate risk on the basis of probabilities and consequences – a perspective used to
estimate risks on the municipality level (Furevik, 2012). However, an increasing
number of researchers and risk analysts find the probability-based perspective on
risk too narrow, and believe it ignores and conceals important aspects of risk and
uncertainty. In recent years, several perspectives on risk have been developed where
probability is replaced by consequences and uncertainty in their definitions (Aven,
2015; Aven and Krohn, 2014; Aven, Renn and Rosa, 2011). These perspectives
regard probability as a tool to describe uncertainty, and suggest that the concept of
risk extends beyond this and its evaluation should therefore not be limited to this
tool. They also claim that more weight should be attached to the knowledge
dimension, the unforeseen and potential surprises, than is allowed for in traditional
perspectives. A key point is that the probabilities could be the same in two situations,
but the knowledge and strength of knowledge supporting the probabilities could be
completely different. These perspectives are proposed for use in the risk
management of “black swan” incidents (Aven, 2015) because traditional
perspectives to risk cannot capture the complexity of such risks, given the lack of
knowledge associated with these risks.
The metaphor and concept of the
black swan
has gained a lot of attention
recently and is a hot topic in many forums that discuss safety and risk. In the
scientific community, it has also come under scrutiny following the publication of
Nassib Taleb's book, “The Black Swan”. Taleb refers to a black swan as an event
that has the following three attributes: First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm
of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its
possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, despite its outlier status, in
hindsight, people come up with explanations for its occurrence after the event,
making it explainable and, importantly, predictable.