Playing the biggest game of Risk

Posted by jamie — 13 December 2009 at 5:56pm - Comments

With all the headlines about what the world will be like if we don't get a grip on climate change - how hot it will be by 2050, how high the sea levels will rise, that sort of thing - there's always an element of uncertainty. The top line figures you see in the press are usually only one of a range of figures calculated by climate modelling, producing a range of potential outcomes based on possible changes to our behaviour and the environment.

What's often neglected is a risk assessment: comparing the probability of a particular outcome against the effect it will have. Our perception of risk is very skewed - we'll panic about things like swine flu (which the chances of us dying from a very low) but we'll quite happily drive around in cars where the probability of dying in a road accident are comparatively higher.

A piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times yesterday provides an eloquent comparison between the risks of climate change and nuclear terrorism, which demonstrates just how warped our risk perception really is. He explains how Dick Cheney reportedly declared: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat: a “low-probability, high-impact event.”

As Friedman points out, even though climate change has a far higher probability of being extremely bad, there isn't such enthusiasm amongst politicians for mobilising against it as they are with perceived terrorist threats.

Which is a perfect way to revisit this fantastic video which is well worth spending 10 minutes of your life watching. And now there's a book, too.

About Jamie

I'm a forests campaigner working mainly on Indonesia. My personal mumblings can be found @shrinkydinky.

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