Toward a More Holistic Definition of "RISK" | Risk: Reason and Reality | Big "Think"

We are sometimes more afraid, or less afraid, than the evidence suggests, and THAT – what in “How Risky Is It, Really?” (excerpts) I call The Perception Gap – is a risk in and of itself. When we are too afraid (of vaccines, or nuclear radiation, or genetically modified food), or not afraid enough (of climate change, or obesity, or using our mobile phones when we drive), The Perception Gap is the root cause of dangerous personal behaviors.

Australia carbon [dioxide scam] tax to cost 14,000 jobs: study

Australia’s proposed carbon tax would cost more than 14,000 jobs, a study commissioned by the coal industry said yesterday, warning that billions of dollars in exports would be lost.

RealClearPolitics - Energy 2011: Abundant, Not Scarce -- But Highly Politicized

Nothing about coal, in truth, is clean, but when futurists (and political candidates) discuss "clean coal," they are talking about constructing fired electricity plants that capture and store the carbon dioxide that is a byproduct of coal-fired plants. This would greatly improve air quality in the vicinity of a coal-burning plant; the only problem is what to do with the captured carbon dioxide.

Overconfidence in IPCC’s detection and attribution. Part IV | Climate Etc.

Over the course of the four IPCC assessments, the attribution statement has evolved in the following way:

FAR: “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability, alternatively this variability and other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced greenhouse warming. The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for a decade or more.”
SAR: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
TAR: “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”
AR4: “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”