Chapter 9: Investing in underground space is all about value capture

There is a legend that is often used by consultants called the ‘boiling frog’ that, although it has been disproven by biologists, illustrates that people seem to have a natural inability or unwillingness to react to or be aware of threats that arise gradually and can have undesirable consequences. In case of the frog legend, the story goes that if you attempt to put a frog into a pan of hot water, it will immediately jump out, as the high temperature makes it aware of life-threatening danger. But if you place the frog in a pan of cold water and then gradually increase the temperature, the frog will sit in it until it’s too late to jump and it’s boiled. Schneider et al. (2013) observed this in the context of climate change, citing Anthony Giddens’s paradox: