risk

Know The Risks

- Adam Clare

Humans are really good at pattern recognition but really bad at figuring out which patterns actually matter. This impacts how we live as individuals and as a collective – be it a local neighbourhood or as a country. We look at patterns that threaten us and overreact to some (like removing our freedoms in the name of fighting terror) or under react to other threats like climate change.

“We don’t expect any of the events that we describe to happen in any 10-year period. They might—but, on balance, they probably won’t,” Sebastian Farquhar, the director of the Global Priorities Project, told me. “But there’s lots of events that we think are unlikely that we still prepare for.”

For instance, most people demand working airbags in their cars and they strap in their seat-belts whenever they go for a drive, he said. We may know that the risk of an accident on any individual car ride is low, but we still believe that it makes sense to reduce possible harm.

Read more.

Wind Turbines are not a Health Risk

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

A small group of people have complained and argued that wind turbines can cause health problems. A new study confirms that those people are wrong and in fact wind turbines are not a health risk at all.

The study acknowledges that a minority of people find the intermittent swooshing noise emitted by the turbines’ giant blades to be annoying, but it also concluded: “Annoyance is not a pathological entity.”

The study says there’s “nothing unique” about the noise or vibrations emitted by wind turbines and no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds have any direct adverse effect on health.

It suggests that those who are bothered by turbines simply have a lower tolerance for annoying sounds of all sorts.

“A major cause of concern about wind turbine sound is its fluctuating nature. Some may find this sound annoying, a reaction that depends primarily on personal characteristics as opposed to the intensity of the sound level.”

Keep reading at the CBC.

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