An increasing number of "global" risk assessments are being promulgated, many through somewhat dense ideological filters. Most of these filters are applied with selfish interests in mind. The large chemical company is concerned about global market demand risks, while ignoring (or at least downplaying) the risk of production-related pollution. This lopsided endeavor is codified in the rise of so-called enterprise risk management, or ERM, efforts. Built on a desire to view risk holisitically, such efforts usually result in a blind eye toward the propagation of external risks. Geared toward special interests, many global risk assessments tend to obscure the inconvenient.
Offered here is, if not a more accurate view of the risks we face, at least a more realistic one. We reduce the assessment to what we might call the "unlucky 7" risk types. The probability/ impact characteristics of each are plotted on a simple risk map, as shown below. While each is respresented by a point estimate, or "best guess", it is absolutely essential to recognize that considerable uncertainty surrounds these estimates. The only thing we know with a strong sense of confidence is that these risks present significant increases in risk above what we might call "natural" levels. Note also that this uncertainty means that it does not make sense to try to prioritize these risks based on their probability/ impact characterisitics. Each one may, or may not, be more potent than the others in this regard. Focusing on one or a few priorities, like the threat of human-induced pollution that promotes global warming, tends to take the focus away from all other, equally significant, risks. To the extent that such a risk mapping presents merely a prelude to some form of risk management based on prioritization, they are worthless. The true value of such assessments lies in making us aware of the enormity of our task.
These seven risks can't be all we face, can they? What is important to recognize here is that each specified risk represents various categories, or types, of risks. Taken together, they represent the universe of plausible global threats that is, arguably, expanding. The population risk for example, includes the risks posed by increased urbanization of that population, as well as the related stresses on infrastructure. Global political strife subsumes the threat of nuclear conflict. The pollution category includes a wide variety of environmental threats, including but not limited to global warming. And so on... The unifying factor among all of these, critical to potentially combating them, is that they all represent deviations from what we might consider a more natural world, or at least a more naturally safe world. This view need not engender a return to primitavism, as some critics would suggest. Likewise, it is not anti-progress. Instead, it suggests we measure progress by how far we can advance beyond subsistence safely.
Whether this universe of risk is growing, or in what direction it may be expanding, makes no difference beyond the fact that existential risks exist, and that these risks extend beyond the confines of what we might consider natural levels. Why not expand the list to natural calamities, such as a catastrophic asteroid strike, or even a global pandemic? Practically, if eveything becomes risky, then it makes no sense to do anything. This represents a particularly negative view of the world as simply "giving up". On the other hand, a reasoned fatalism can be made perfectly compatible with responsibility of living life in natural harmony. Therefore, drawing the line, as it were, at natural subsistence levels makes sense. On closer examination, natural risk levels have resulted in a rather remarkable streak of human evolution, roughly in balance with its non-human surroundings.
To the extent that such risk identification exercises present a true map, it must be a map that points the way to an exit from risks that present an unnatural threat to survival.
