Global Catastrophic Risks Conference
Date: 17-20 July 2008
What are the biggest threats to global civilization and human well-being? Will the human species survive the 21st century? The Future of Humanity Institute held a conference in July exploring these and other related questions, including how to mitigate risks with high stakes for humanity.
Speaker(s): various
Venue: Said Business School, University of Oxford
The conference provided delegates with an overview of the key risks, and the state of current thinking on each of them. It brought together scholars from many different disciplines to discuss the common problems and methodologies which affect the study of global catastrophic risks.
Topics treated included nuclear terrorism, cosmic threats such as supernova, comets and asteroids, the long term fate of the universe, pandemics, nanotechnology, ecological disasters which drastically reduce biodiversity, climate change, biotechnology and biosecurity, the cognitive biases associated with making judgments in the context of global catastrophic risk, social collapse, and the role of the insurance industry in mitigating and quantifying risk.
Resources: