One of the weird but predictable results of momentum in climate change advocacy is that every study that can somehow be linked to it, however implausibly, now contains speculation of climate impacts. But now there is something newer if not better: financial disaster.

The increased concentration among banks seems to have the effect of making financial crisis less likely, but when they happen they are more global in scale and hit us very hard. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we have fewer failures, but when they occur … [no deletion here] I shiver at the thought. I rephrase here: we will have fewer but more severe crises. The rarer the event, the less we know about its odds. It mean[s] that we know less and less about the possibility of a crisis. . .

What has this to do with ecology?

Buzz Holling has been talking for years about “surprise”, which is just another name for Black Swans. Anyone who has ever looked at ecological data knows that deviations are not Gaussian. Of course, if we drop the Gaussian or some similar assumption, we lose most of statistics, and we lose all of “risk analysis”. So we lose just about all theory. Experts can’t function without theory, so they make unrealistic assumptions, and come up with the wrong answers in Black Swan situations.

Since Black Swans are rare, ordinary experience doesn’t show any, and the experts are confirmed in their misleading assumptions, until the next time. . .

Managing for resilience involves guarding against collapses, even though they might be rare: it implies a precautionary principle. In light of the recent financial collapse, this latter point might finally be accepted for ecological management.

What is "a precautionary principle"? Does it counsel us to do something or not do something? How can one decide with no reliable theories?

The profound misconception here is the assumption that there are not a flock of black swans already on the wing headed for a pond near you. The reality is that we don't know where we are or what will happen next. The intelligent posture for this situation is not precaution, it is alertness. Things will happen. And, as with our financial troubles, the important bit is how you deal with trouble. Do you make things worse, as happened with past financial troubles and seems to be happening again? "A precautionary principle" is just that, a recipe for bungling when the inevitable occurs.

Be prepared. Expect trouble, not safety. Be alert, not just cautious. "If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will," as the man said. Knowing that things will go wrong no matter how timid and cautious you are means that the rational stance is to keep your head up and invest in skills.

Experts have a lot of crimes to answer for, and their theories are only valid when they don't much matter, but we do not have anything better. It is enough to know they can give only fair weather advice, and that we are on our own during storms. It is the pretence that risk can be avoided that causes so much loss. "A precautionary principle" is just another empty risk avoidance scheme from a different group of experts. Buyer beware.