Serious, interconnected risks are closing in on the globalised community, from climate change to anarchy. Are we heeding the warnings?
AAP/EPA/Daniel Deme
In that world of peripheral vision, essential for business, social and political leaders, it is surprising that the World Economic Forum’s report, Global Risks 2012 has not received greater publicity or…
Derivatives can allow farmers to reduce their risk by guarding against changes in the weather.
Flickr
By Adam Clements, Queensland University of Technology
For some industries, the weather plays a significant role in determining revenue. Unexpected weather events can often cause significant financial losses. For instance, a drought can yield a severe impact…
If speaking up helps avoid devastating bushfires, scientists should take the risk.
AAP
Scientists are increasingly expected to engage with the media to communicate their findings. My research leads me to believe Hobart is at risk from a severe bushfire disaster – but what are my responsibilities…
We should decide how to act based on how risky something is, and how bad the consequences will be.
dybarber/Flickr
A popular misconception in the public mind is that science “proves” things by turning them from ideas and theories into absolute “facts”. This more or less confuses science with mathematics. Mathematical…
Our best efforts to gauge threats may be counter-productive.
bre pettiss
Assessing risk is something everyone must do every day. Yet few are very good at it, and there are significant consequences of the public’s collective inability to accurately assess risk.
As a first and…
Seventeen Australians have died this year from quad bike accidents, also known as all terrain vehicles or ATVs.
Flickr/sharkbait
The tragic quad-biking death of an 11-year-old boy from northwest Victoria on Monday takes the 2011 death toll from all terrain vehicle (ATV) accidents to 17.
The boy reportedly died after his ATV overturned…
UBS chief Oswald Gruebel has stepped down after a rogue trader cost the bank $US2.3 billion.
AAP
The chief executive of Swiss banking giant UBS, Oswald Gruebel, has quit following revelations of a $US2.3 billion fraud by “rogue trader” Kweku Adoboli. But the news will come as cold comfort for investors…
