Managing catastrophic climate risk

A few snips from an interesting discussion from Ian T. Dunlop, a guest blogger on Barry Brook’s Brave New Climate.com: …[C]limate change, and its potential to trigger catastrophic failure, must be thought of differently from conventional economics, operational risk assessment and cost benefit analysis. The use of an Irreversible and Catastrophic Harm Precautionary Principle, and a Principle of Intergenerational Neutrality…, are particularly appropriate in developing solutions to the climate change tipping point scenarios now being articulated by leading scientists. …[W]e should recognise the following pertinent facts:

• Whilst quantitative analysis, in assessing costs, benefits and expected values of courses of action, can be helpful, the major factors inevitably have to be considered on a qualitative, moral and ethical basis. ...
• A catastrophe carries with it the potential for the social amplification of risk, in that the impact is often far wider than the immediate consequences. ...
• … A margin of safety can be “purchased” by the use of scenario and real option thinking to maintain flexibility…. For example sensible risk management, given climate change lag and the escalating probability of catastrophic impact, strongly suggests early and rapid action to curtail emissions, not the gradual incremental response now being advocated.
• In taking steps to reduce catastrophic risk, it should be borne in mind that those steps will impose risks of their own which must be anticipated and addressed where possible. The same applies to the lack of action.
• Irreversibility, particularly if occurring on a global scale as with climate change, suggests that special precautions should be taken that go well beyond those that might apply if irreversibility were not a problem….

The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened to traffic on July 1, 1940. It collapsed four months later on November 7, 1940, at 11:00 AM (Pacific time) due to a physical phenomenon known as aeroelastic flutter caused by a 67 kilometres per hour (42 mph) wind. The bridge collapse had lasting effects on science and engineering.