This instalment of the Adapt Research Blog brings you a selection of Matt’s recent audio and video presentations. These appeared in podcast, radio and conference format through April–June 2022. Podcast with Ben Reid of Memia (6 June, 2022): Global Catastrophic and Existential Risks (66 min) – Covering: Risks, risk analysis, refuges, strategic planning. Full details in the show notes.
The CCCR 2022 was held as a hybrid in-person and online conference 19–21 April 2022. Opened by Lord Martin Rees, the conference attracted researchers and policymakers with an interest in global catastrophic risks such as biological threats, artificial intelligence, nuclear war, volcanic eruption and food shortages. Attendees engaged with keynote speakers, panel discussions, workshops and 7 minute lightning talks.
Dr Matt Boyd & Prof Nick Wilson* Efforts to prevent nuclear war should be greatly intensified – but we must also consider what happens if prevention fails. NZ is often cited as somewhere most likely to preserve a thriving society through a nuclear aftermath. However, our society is a complex adaptive system heavily dependent on trade.
(9 min read) Dr Matt Boyd & Prof Nick Wilson In this blog we briefly review the literature on the probability of nuclear war and what various models estimate to be the potential global climate impacts (eg, of nuclear winter). Although New Zealand is relatively well placed as a major food producer – a range of mitigation strategies could increase the probability of sustaining food security during a recovery period.
Dr Matt Boyd & Prof Nick Wilson* Summary This post covers the following: The recent United Nations report ‘Our Common Agenda’ which calls for solidarity, concern for future generations, and collaborative action on global risks including pandemics. The newly mandated Long-term Insights Briefings (LTIB) that Aotearoa NZ public sector organisations must prepare and some ideas … Continue reading "Current and future generations must flourish: Time for a long-term and global perspective on pandemic and other catastrophic risks"
In this post, I summarise and review the book What’s the worst that could happen?: Existential risks and extreme politics – by Australian politician Andrew Leigh (published 9 Nov 2021) TLDR the TLDR: Populism enhances x-risks TLDR: Andrew Leigh argues that the short-sighted politics of populism has enhanced existential risk.
“COVID-19 has shown that assumptions about disease emergence and transmission and capabilities to respond to infectious disease threats are not only incorrect but pose a risk to global health security.” A new article in the Lancet (8 November 2021) provides a peer-reviewed chronological analysis of crucial junctures and international obligations in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. What happened day by day, where, why, or why not?
Sometimes creative writing can be leveraged to trigger productive reflection on complex issues. This post includes the full-text of a short story on catastrophic risk, ‘The Sequence Matters’. It is an entry in the Effective Altruism Forum’s Creative Writing Contest. Effective Altruism is a community that addresses issues such as existential risks to humanity, how to do the most good possible, and what the most rational global priorities are.
In 1826 Mary Shelly crafted a vision of humanity’s end in ‘The Last Man’. Depicting a world that persists, indifferent to the demise of our species. The end came at the hands a pandemic, spread by the human technologies of trade and news. Since the construction of nuclear weapons in 1945 humanity has wielded technological power of extreme destruction, and expert consensus is that the greatest threat to humans are humans themselves.
Aotearoa/New Zealand needs structured foresight, but a well-resourced foresight and risk ecosystem must be funded to support public sector CEOs in producing newly mandated long-term insights briefings. Long-term insights briefings The Public Service Act 2020 requires every departmental chief executive to publish a long-term insights briefing (LTIB) independent of ministers every three years, starting in 2022.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, everybody now knows that: Warnings about pandemic disease had been touted for decadesMyriad organisations had called for increased health security fundingThe world ignored all these warningsSARS-CoV-2 emerged in 2019 with dire consequences The fact that all these warnings were known, yet action was scant, remains difficult to comprehend.