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Why our fears don’t match the facts
The ground shook violently in L’Aquila, Italy, early in the morning of April 6, 2009, more violently than it had during the tremors the area had been experiencing for months. After the dust settled and the recovery effort was over, 308 people were dead. Now the local prosecutor is ...
A friend of mine posted a snarky comment on Facebook about how foolish FEMA sounds, announcing it’s preparing for the crash landing of a satellite somewhere this week. Somewhere on the entire planet…nobody can be sure where. But 7/10’s of the earth’s surface is ocean, and the fires ...
White-hot conservative and libertarian anger at the size and intrusiveness of government is getting a lot of attention these days. It seems so fierce, so single-minded; Let the federal government default. Let the uninsured die. But two recent events in Texas illustrate how another emotion ...
As the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 nears, many are looking back, tallying the toll of our response in lives lost and money spent, and asking “Are we any safer?” Here is a different question. Are we any wiser? What have we learned that we might apply if (many experts say when) we are ...
As many people as were harmed by Hurricane Irene, many - from the safety of looking back - were also disappointed that the storm didn't put on a more dramatic show. One New Yorker lamented, "LAMEST hurricane EVER." That reaction may be a bit naive, but the reaction to the storm that people and ...
A potentially serious hurricane bears down on tens of millions of people in the Northeast. How will they respond? The psychology of risk perception suggests that some might be at risk not just from the weather itself but also from “The Perception Gap”, the danger that arises when our fears don’t ...
As a resident of Concord Massachusetts, where American revolutionaries first shot back at their British oppressors, its impossible to watch what’s going on in Libya and Syria and Egypt and Yemen and not feel a connection with the people who have risked their lives to stand up for a ...
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has offered the world a lot of important lessons. We can only hope that one of the most important…a lesson that’s staring us all in the face…will be taken to heart by the culture of government officials, and business people, and scientists and engineers, who regulate ...
Four year-old Khafra was near death three days ago when he was brought to the refugee camp hospital. He was emaciated, his ribs showing through his taut dry skin. He panted for breath. His desperate eyes bulged. His mother Alyan could only sit at his side and watch, helpless, sad ...
I’ve had an interesting conversation with a colleague the past few days about an earlier piece I wrote here, Cool Dudes, Hot Temps: The Climate Change Battle Will Get Us Nowhere, in which I made the case that arguing over the facts about climate change is really a surrogate for an ...
What do Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, James Inhofe, and George Will have in common? Several things. They are influential members of society, ‘elites’ who have a big effect on policy. They adamantly deny that human-made climate change is happening. And they are all conservative white men ...
What if you could radically reduce how many people get sick from foodborne diseases like e.coli and salmonella and norovirus; one American in six (48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die, each year. Of course you’d want to reduce that threat to public ...
Funny thing about fear. By the time you feel it, your body is already quite busy keeping you safe. Your brain is first and foremost a survival machine, and at the slightest hint of danger, before the thinking conscious part of the brain even gets involved, it instinctively sets off a subconscious ...
Earlier this week I wrote a series of pieces (below, at Scientific American, Los Angeles Times) suggesting that society regulate (with lots of open and democratic discussion) the behavior of those who decline vaccination for themselves or their children. The idea provoked a great deal of reaction ...
What does society do when one person’s behavior puts the greater community at risk? That’s a no-brainer, right? We make them stop. We pass laws, or impose economic rules, or find other way to discourage individual behaviors that threaten the greater common good. You don’t get to drive drunk. You ...