evidence: How do we act on this "low probability" risk? As a nation, we have not yet faced our current climate crisis, and had a bad record of acting early on the current COVID-19 pandemic. Imagine hearing that nobody could have predicted the coronavirus pandemic, if you wrote a book and gave talks warning about it 5 years ago. That happened to Bill Gates, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, and Michael T. Osterholm, epidemiologist and infectious disease expert. They both predicted a pandemic with a new or "novel" virus to which nobody would have immunity. Many infectious disease and public health doctors warned we were not prepared for it. Bill Gates told Donald Trump in December, 2016 that we needed to get ready for dealing with a pandemic.