Catastrophe

Risk and Response
Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-0-19-530647-7
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 547 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Posner, Richard A.

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Naturgewalten & Katastrophen
• Geowissenschaften Geologie Umweltgeologie, Geoökologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- What is catastrophe?

- The organization of this book

- Some useful disctinctions

- 1. What are the catastrohpic risks, and how catastrophic are they?

- Natural catastrophes

- Scientific 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

Über Autor(innen)

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.