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The World Needs to Prep for 'Black Swan Events'
Newser • • science
Key Points:
- Environmental scientist Florian Ulrich Jehn highlights the need for governments to prepare for low-probability but high-impact global threats like volcanic eruptions, solar storms, and nuclear conflict, which could severely disrupt the world's food supply.
- Current national risk assessments, such as those in the UK and Switzerland, often underestimate these extreme scenarios, stopping short of considering catastrophic outcomes like global famine or nuclear winter.
- Jehn recommends three key actions: incorporating these extreme risks into official risk registers, pre-negotiating emergency trade rules to avoid panic-driven export bans, and investing in resilient food projects that can thrive with minimal sunlight or fertilizer.
- He argues that historical data show global catastrophes are more plausible than commonly perceived, urging proactive planning to mitigate their potentially devastating impacts.
