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.

G20 report shows global pandemic resilience is within reach, but developed countries like New Zealand need to pay our fair share The G20 Independent Panel’s report ‘A Global Deal for Our Pandemic Age’ finds that US$15 billion per annum could provide some pandemic resilience through interconnected global measures. Our findings suggest another $31 billion is needed annually to support country-specific measures.

Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with proving the origin of Covid-19, pointing the finger, apportioning blame, reparations, or US-China relations.

Despite a WHO-led investigation, compelling evidence on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains inconclusive. The WHO investigation concluded in favour of a natural origin, being satisfied that ‘asking whatever questions we wanted’ and obtaining answers to these questions ruled out a laboratory leak.

Key Points Biological threats far worse than Covid-19 are possible, even likely.Governments should consider worst case scenarios and contingencies.Risks should be catalogued and published in a form that expresses expected utility loss (probability x impact).In an existence threatening scenario, Australia and New Zealand are the island refuges most suited to seal borders to safeguard humanity.Many practical steps can be taken to

New Zealand should up its game in risk identification, analysis, and prevention. This is the key message from former GNS principal scientist Kelvin Berryman when discussing a new risks report. He told the Listener , ‘New Zealand is still creating its own disasters waiting to happen.’ The risks report in question was published in April 2021 by former Chief Science Advisor Peter Gluckman and co-author Anne Bardsley.