Catastrophe
Risk and Response
1st Edition
Published on 11. November 2004
333 pages
978-0-19-534639-8 (ISBN)
Description
Catastrophic risks are much greater than is commonly appreciated. Collision with an asteroid, runaway global warming, voraciously replicating nanomachines, a pandemic of gene-spliced smallpox launched by bioterrorists, and a world-ending accident in a high-energy particle accelerator, are among the possible extinction events that are sufficiently likely to warrant careful study. How should we respond to events that, for a variety of psychological and cultural reasons, we find it hard to wrap our minds around? Posner argues that realism about science and scientists, innovative applications of cost-benefit analysis, a scientifically literate legal profession, unprecedented international cooperation, and a pragmatic attitude toward civil liberties are among the keys to coping effectively with the catastrophic risks.
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Person
Richard A. Posner is Judge of the U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author of numerous books, including Overcoming Law a New York Times Book Review editors' choices for best book of 1995 and An Affair of State, one of their choices for Best Book of the Year in 1999.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Introduction
- What is catastrophe?
- The organization of this book
- Some useful distinctions
- 1 What are the catastrophic risks, and how catastrophic are they?
- Natural catastrophes
- Scientifc accidents
- Other unintended man-made catastrophes
- Intentional catastrophes
- Catastrophic synergies and lesser-included catastrophes
- 2 Why so little is being done about the catastrophic risks
- Cultural factors
- Psychological factors
- Economic factors
- 3 How to evaluate the catastrophic risks and the possible responses to them
- The difference cost-benefit analysis can make: the case of RHIC
- A modest version of the precautionary principle
- Discounting to present value
- Taxes, subsidies, and options: the case of global warming
- Valuing human lives
- Risk versus uncertainty
- Coping with uncertainty
- Politics, expertise, and neutrality: RHIC revisited
- Summary
- 4 How to reduce the catastrophic risks
- Institutional reforms
- Fiscal tools: a recap
- Some hypothetical regulatory policies
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
- Z
