Japan, Quake, Tsunami and Nuke Meltdown = A Global Black Swan?

Crisis is overtaking crisis in the stream of news coming out of northeastern Japan. First, the fourth or fifth largest earthquake in recorded history struck the region, literally moving the entire Japanese island chain approximately 8 feet to the west and shifting the earth’s axis 6.5 inches, according to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

The news of that was overshadowed by the tsunami that followed, smashing the already devastated earthquake zone with a wall of water up to 33 feet high, traveling at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. The evil force of the tsunami wave was captured by video clips as it crushed buildings like dried leaves, tossed ships and cars about like corks, and erased thousands of people from existence.

A stunned world could only watch as the power unleashed by the tsunami spread throughout the Pacific basin, traveling through the ocean at the speed of a jetliner, causing death and destruction thousands of miles from the earthquake site.

Then the third crisis began to unfold. As I write, three reactors in the Fukushima nuclear plant are possibly experiencing a meltdown. Two reactor buildings have exploded in the six-reactor complex, which supplied the nation with roughly 20 percent of its electrical power.

The greatest danger is a complete meltdown, in which the nuclear fuel rods break through the concrete and steel containment building, releasing radiation into the air or into the ground. Information available to the public is frustratingly contradictory, and it is unclear where things stand at the moment.

Black swan event

A “black swan event” refers to a completely unanticipated disastrous happening. The term relates to the fact that the old world once believed that all swans were white; that there was no such creature as a black swan. Then Australia with its black swan was discovered, delivering a shock to the world—something previously believed impossible.

A black swan event refers to an occurrence that has never happened before, for no prior experience allows one to anticipate it. It also carries the connotation of something delivering an extreme impact. Nassim Nicholas Taleb popularized the term in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007).

In the first chapter, his analysis includes another characteristic: that after the event, human nature causes us to come up with an explanation that makes the event both predictable and believable.

Said another way, we get used to the shock and feel less threatened because we believe we understand what occurred.

A black swan event within Fukushima

Japan is perhaps the most prepared nation in the world for earthquakes. It has the best tsunami warning system on earth. And yet neither could prevent disaster. One U.S.-based Japanese citizen encapsulated the reactions of all who saw these awesome scenes: “We are humbled by the power of nature.”

Japanese architecture is designed to withstand the magnitude of the largest likely earthquake in the region of the building being built. Of course, a “black swan magnitude” would change everything.  

The Fukushima nuclear plant includes a series of six General Electric nuclear reactors, built between 1971 and 1979. They were built not only to withstand the largest anticipated earthquake in the area, but also the largest anticipated tsunami.

However, Fukushima was not designed to withstand the worst anticipated earthquake and tsunami simultaneously, according to a BBC interview of a Japanese engineer. One might wonder today why this scenario wasn’t included, but hindsight is 20/20.

A black swan event—completely unforeseen—overtook the nuclear industry.

So far, the steel containment housing is holding in the reactors. But the event has changed the nuclear power industry worldwide, just as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl did. Both disasters challenged nuclear engineers and made an already nervous public even more reluctant to allow the construction of new nuclear facilities.

If there is a major radiation leak, the cloud that will form will travel via the prevailing winds to the west coast of the United States. Some suggest it might go as far as Wisconsin or Chicago.

A black swan event for the global economy?

Japan’s economy has encountered a black swan event, but what of the rest of the world? Surprisingly, oil prices that seem to go up on the slightest rumor of a disaster have actually fallen with the succeeding cavalcade of crises in Japan.

Japan is a wealthy country. Its people are resilient. A natural disaster can inspire a sense of camaraderie that will eventually energize the nation’s recovery.

Economic predictions are all over the map insofar as what the tragedy will cause elsewhere. Time will tell whether there is a worldwide economic cascade effect.

A black swan event that engulfs the globe

I think an apropos word for the collective reactions to the horrors we have been witnessing unfold in Japan is astonishment. Bible prophecy foretells a series of black swan events that will overwhelm the global economy, eventually swirling into a North-South war between European and Muslim forces.

The ultimate series of black swan events, the last in the age of humankind, is described in Revelation 16:

“Then the seventh [messenger of God] poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the sanctuary, from the throne [of God in heaven], saying, ‘It is done!’ There were lightnings, rumblings, and thunders.

“And a severe earthquake occurred like no other since man has been on the earth—so great was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the Great was remembered in God’s presence; He gave her the cup filled with the wine of His fierce anger.

“Every island fled, and the mountains disappeared. Enormous hailstones, each weighing about 100 pounds, fell from heaven on the people, and they blasphemed God for the plague of hail because that plague was extremely severe” (Revelation 16:17-21, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

There are black swans

I hope that the rest of the world doesn’t fulfill Taleb’s summation of a black swan event, absorbing and filing it away in its consciousness. I hope humanity doesn’t shrug this off, thinking, “The impossible happened; life goes on.”

I hope that people never forget the images of ultramodern buildings in a wealthy nation crumbling; of tons of seawater crushing cars, ships and neighborhoods—and people.

I hope we know that there are black swans.