Climate change is the fattest tail risk of them all

Casting doubt on science is an unwise risk management strategy

Melting ice threatens to raise the sea level, scientists warn

Businesses have two ways of dealing with inconvenient scientific findings. They can accept them and begin to adapt industry practices accordingly; or they can reject the science, cast doubt on the validity of the research and fight tooth and nail to prevent the policy changes that the scientists recommend.

The former approach might make more sense in the long run but, all too often, companies choose the latter. As Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway describe in their book Merchants of Doubt,¹ the