Richard Clarke discusses his new book Warnings: Finding Modern Cassandras to stop Catastrophes

Policy makers may worry about so-called “Black Swan” events – low probability occurrences that ‘nobody saw coming.’ But is it ever the case that things happen that nobody saw coming? Our guest on this week’s podcast would say “no.” He is Richard Clarke, a former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism for the United States and a veteran of four administrations, from President Ronald Reagan through to President George W. Bush. In his new book, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes, Richard and co-author R.P. Eddy interview people who warned fruitlessly about pending disasters like 9/11 and the Fukashima nuclear power plant, as well as those who are warning us today about threats that elected officials, government experts and policy makers are ignoring.