Natural Disaster Risk and Energy

DevelopmentJustin Pidot

Allen Chair SymposiumUniversity of Richmond Law

Review

October 18, 2013

CONTRASTING PERCEPTIONS OF RISK

“Without people there is no disaster.”

Phil O’Keefe et al., Taking the Naturalness Out of Natural Disasters, 260 NATURE 566 (1976)

Symbolic

CognitiveStructural

BARRIERS TO SOUND DISASTER POLICY

SYMBOLIC OBSTACLES

SYMBOLIC OBSTACLES – ENERGY SECURITY

COGNITIVE OBSTACLES

Low-Probability Neglect

Gambler’s Fallacy

COGNITION – LOW-PROBABILITY NEGLECT

“One of the bargains men make with one another in order to maintain their sanity is to share an illusion that they are safe, even when the physical evidence in the world around them does not seem to warrant that conclusion.”

- Kai Erikson, Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood (1976)

COGNITION – GAMBLER’S FALLACY

STRUCTURAL OBSTACLES

Costs of disasters and benefits of regulation are dispersed:

Vertically

Horizontally

PREVALENCE, COSTS, AND OVERCOMING OBSTACLES