Why do we ignore catastrophic risk?
Covid-19 is showing up a general failure by governments to prepare for the worst
Business Daily · BBC World Service
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (open.live.bbc.co.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
Covid-19 is showing up a general failure by most of the world's governments to prepare for the worst.
Manuela Saragosa speaks to Dr Sylvie Briand at the World Health Organization, whose job is to get the world ready for new infectious outbreaks like coronavirus. What was it like for her exhortations to fall on deaf ears up until this year? How prepared was the WHO itself, and does she fear the consequences if the multilateral organisation is defunded?
Meanwhile, author and risk consultant David Ropeik explains why human nature makes us so bad at taking action to ward of disasters that happen once in a blue moon. And Jens Orback, head of the Global Challenges Foundation, says pandemics are only one of a host of terrifying cataclysms that we disregard at our peril.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Asteroid striking the Earth; Credit: puchan/Getty Images)