Richard A. Posner

Catastrophe (eBook, PDF)

Risk and Response

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

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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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 11. November 2004
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780195346398
• Artikelnr.: 38140354

Autorenporträt

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.

Inhaltsangabe

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

Rezensionen

...fascinating, disturbing. Short Book Reviews, Publication of the International Statistical Institute