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uh our guests today are Howard krather Robert Meyer and irwan Michelle kjan and we're going to talk to them about 30
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years of the Wharton risk Center gentlemen thank you very much for joining me today on the knowledge at
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Wharton show to be here be here uh so uh to begin with I i' wonder if we can
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start with you Howard uh what led to the starting of the risk Center 30 years ago
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well mul it's interesting that our Cent has always focused on low probability
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High consequence events and it was a low probability High consequence event that
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actually got the center started uh I was in the office of the CEO with my colleague uh Ned Bowman we were looking
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at uh this is the CEO of Roman hos and we were looking at the challenges that the company was facing in dealing with
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environmental risks and when we arrived there we were told that there had been a
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large chemical accident in pal that actually the company was very concerned about it involved Union Carbide but
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every chem chemical company was involved and that really was the St of the center
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because we actually worked very closely with Roman hos and the Signa corporation
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that was also in Philadelphia to actually have a partnership to begin to look at issues like chemical accidents
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as a way of beginning to try to figure out how we would deal with these extreme events so if you were to think about the
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catastrophic risks that businesses faced 30 years ago what were some of the most
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important risks in addition to uh uh manufacturing accidents like Bal uh that you were concerned about
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well it was really the chemical accidents that got us started and I think technological accidents were
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clearly a very important uh part of how businesses had to think they weren't
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thinking as much about it as we would have liked them to think I think they were saying it wasn't going to happen to
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me uh but that was certainly on their agenda and anytime there was an accident like a BAL they then paid attention to
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it the other area that uh we focused on and that had been a lot of the research that a number of us had been doing and
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my colleague late colleague Paul kle offer was co-director of the center when we formed it were the natural hazards
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risks and natural disasters and those were risks again that were not predictable as to when they would occur
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but if there was a severe hurricane or flood or earthquake uh that actually might have an impact in terms of how the
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had to react and what were some of the research projects that you took on to to look into these risks well uh because of
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our start with uh the the chemical industry uh we had a very large project uh with uh the Environmental Protection
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Agency on chemical accidents how one dealt with that and technological accidents so we were certainly working
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on that we were also working on uh the natural hazards area and why uh individuals were not protecting
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themselves and and purchasing insurance that was something that um both Paul and
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I had been focusing on with others over a period of time and then the other area
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that uh emerged was the sighting of the high level radioactive waste facility in
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yucka Mountain there was a whole project that was formed and for 10 years there were a group of us who were working
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together in fact uh it was a it was very much of a a group that interdisciplinary
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group Paul slovic who was someone who we had work we worked with over the years was a part of that Roger casperson
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geographer a psychologist olist and then there were anthropologists and we were all working with the state of Nevada to
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try to figure out how one would site this facility and so the center played a role in that we had been looking at
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sighting of la liquefied natural gas facilities before the center had been formed and what would you say with some
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of the key findings of your earliest research projects well I think the key findings are findings we may want to
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talk about even today uh that really what was happening is it wasn't until a
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disaster occurred that there was really a lot of attention that was paid there was a tendency to say this is not going
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to happen to me and the firms were behaving that way certainly consumers and homeowners were behaving that way
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and as a result we as a center were trying to figure out ways that we could really focus on the issue that these
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were important things to think about beforehand and what kinds of programs and policies could be put forward to try
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to deal with them so we didn't have to be in a reactive mode after a disaster
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occurred well I I I know would love to turn to all of you and say I mean if you were to just look back over the past 30
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years uh how would you say the nature of risk has evolved and changed from Bob would you like to start us off well the
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N the risks have always been there and I think one of the things that we uh that
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sort of building on what what Howard was saying that I think that one of the things we've observed as a center is
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that that often when you talk to companies you talk to individuals what are the risks that they're most
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concerned about uh typically they're the things that just happened yesterday so
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people tend to focus on the disaster that just happened and often and and so one of the things we try to do as a as a
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center is to get uh people and organizations to focus not just on the event that just happened but kind of
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refocus their their interest on on unseen risks the ones that they're not currently focusing on now um that just
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kind of give you an example the um uh what we work with the world economic Forum um and uh and every year they come
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out with a a very very large stud survey of about 900 uh CEOs and and academics to ask them what are the risks that
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they're most concerned about um and typically what you find is an awful lot of great year-to-year variability in
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what is hitting the radar screen uh so for example what's an interesting result
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was that uh last year the the number one thing that that um uh that came up was uh State unrest and and particularly in
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Europe and and if you think about it that makes sense because what what are the big news items and for that would be
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concerned to people in Europe last year here while unrest in the Ukraine and so forth and what's interesting is so that
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sort of makes sense but what's interesting is uh a risk which was very important two or three years ago cyber
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terrorism suddenly dropped to number 10 on the list and so in some sense I I I I
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think that one of the things that we're one of our challenges as a center is to
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get people in organizations to think about not just focus on the thing that just most happened most recently but get
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a real good long-term view of of what are real risks and and often the things you have to worry about are the things
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that you're not currently thinking about nowan what do you think uh no I think
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both Howard and how and Bob say it right uh I think what has made the center unique is really two things one is uh we
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all of us conduct very good research so uh it's not just a series of conference
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going on it's uh we publish interp reviews and we have the expertise uh you know some of us Teach as well and
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obviously the third pillar is that Outreach activities that both uh Bob and Har mentioned which is that instead of
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just doing the research internally we have collaboration with uh World economic Forum the oecd the world Banks
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United Nation many industry many government around around the world so we remain relevant as well and the
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challenge has been said I think the nature of risk management has changed a lot uh over the past 30 years from
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something that that was and exclusively almost technical to something that remained technical of course but becomes
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more more strategic today uh whether it's a world econic for or whether uh board of directors around the world more
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risk committees are being formed as we speak in many Industries across the world so the topic the topic itself
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changed which means that as researcher we need to change the way we approach these issues um as well so whether it's
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natural disasters cyber risk uh inter dependencies between these risks so maybe you look at what's happening now
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in Syria thinking well that was just a geopolitical issue and then three months later that becomes a immigration issue
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an economic issue uh in Europe and then maybe in two months that become a big issue in the US so uh the world is
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becoming more and more interdependent somewhat of a cliche people talk about it but I think we're living it um every
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every day an earthquake in China 30 years ago would have been an earthquake in in China well an earthquake in China
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has massive impact on Global Supply Chain worldwide uh from uh frankurt to Detroit today I wonder if I could turn
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to each of you and ask you to speak about a current research initiative that you're involved in and and why it is so
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important uh to business practitioners Howard could we start with let me let me just
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add one comment to what Bob and aan has said about sort of where the center was focused I think one of the things that
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uh the center was focused on has the decision processes and we have it in the title we always are thinking about
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essentially how uh people are whether it's an in a consumer a homeowner whether it's a manager in a firm or
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whether it's the government and the public sector how they're behaving so
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that we can develop strategies for dealing with that and I think think in that sense the center is somewhat unique
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in that we are really trying to tie together the risk assessment part which we' which Bob and everyone were
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emphasizing but also the risk perception along with risk management and it's that
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theme coming together and then to talk about uh a current project related really to some of the points that uh
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were just made uh we have been interviewing uh the CEOs of uh 100 of the S&P 500 firms and a a large project
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that had been f really uh funded by The Travelers Foundation uh and that involves also the leadership Center and
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we do like to work with other centers and the leadership Center that Mike eim co-directs is a is a part of that
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project and what we've been asking these uh uh managers of firms is what is the
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most important risk that they are concerned about that would that have been concerned about not just
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necessarily yesterday but where they've been concerned about in terms of an adverse or that might have adverse or
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catastrophic consequences to them and you get a whole variety of different answers from them and as Bob had
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indicated often it is a more recent disaster and just to illustrate one example the Fukushima earthquake was one
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that you do hear from these firms uh as something that was important it highlighted the points that aan was ma
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raising on interdependencies uh these firms are very concerned uh the automobile industry was really hurt very
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hard by the supply chain problem with respect to that and so we've been interested in that and the reason for
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doing that project is to try to develop some benchmarks with respect to how they
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firms could behave differently in the future so that's one project that is currently underway we're finishing that
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up now and we hope to publish our results over the course of the next year or so thank you Howard Bob and yeah um
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one project I've been involved in recently that was actually ongoing that we're I'm pretty excited about is one of
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the things I've I've discovered and we've discovered in the course of
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research is that often one of the reasons that people have a difficult time um making good decision to prepare
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for rare events uh is the fact that people have very poor mental models of how these events are going to unfold uh
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a great example is um in Hurricane Sandy uh one of the the real surprising results is even though this is a an
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event which everyone in the world knew about uh and there was a front page Banner headlines telling people that
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this huge storm was coming in uh and there was no shortage of warnings what was really surprising is is that um uh
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that that there's an awful lot of uh of deaths and uh and damage that were primarily due to flooding and one of the
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things we did was uh uh just as the storm was approaching was we ask people uh what is this is before the storm
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actually hit what is the threat that you think is going to you're most worried
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about and even though the main threat actual threat that they faced with flooding what people tended to say was
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we were mainly worried about wind okay and that is a fundamental mistake because in some sense they the storm is
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coming in it's a flood threat but they are going out boarding up their Windows
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when and at the same time leaving their car on the street and the next day they wake up and of course their car is
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ruined or or they don't evacuate and they don't understand why they've been
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asked to evacuate so one of the things we're involved in doing is is developing
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uh virtual web-based simulations that allow people to eventually experience um uh events like uh a very severe storms
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and so forth which they otherwise wouldn't be able to and in these environments people are are for example
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uh put into a virtual living room and they're told that uh there's a storm out
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in the in the distant uh in the distant Horizon and they have the opportunity to
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gather information as they normally would and they basically get to experience what it would actually be
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like to go through one of these events uh for people who who normally would not have that opportunity so we see that as
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a kind of a great vehicle for as a teaching vehicle and also as a research vehicle um uh for studying very very
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rare rare events which uh and and these are things which you you want people to know about this before they occur not
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learn from unfortunate experience after they occur absolutely and you want something that can be used anywhere in
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the world which is what building which is pretty cool uh the other I mean we have many project as you know M but
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another one is related to which is which one is your favorite uh we have two briefly uh when you look at natural
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disasters around the world flood is by order of magnitude the largest of of all in term of number of people affected
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economy cost and that's true in the in the world that's true in the US as well
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so uh the center is doing a lot of work on flood related risk both on the assessment of the flood coastal flooding
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Inland flooding trying to better understand the the risk a lot of work on flood insurance as well touching on some
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of the appoint that Howard and mentioned as well uh for instance we have access to uh s collaboration with fima and DHS
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through their entire portfolio of data so we can actually crunch the data and trying to better understand through uh a
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few million data points for the national flood insurance program and then publish
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the work and then work with the industry and all so the um the public sector federal government trying to improve
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that program related to that project we um there is a bir word out there called resilience um you know everybody talks
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about resilience I'm still uh having a hard time finding one person who's
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against resilience which tells me that maybe we have an issue here but jok aside we uh we decided as a group to
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take a serious look at at at flood of resilience maybe in a more quantitative manner than just talking about
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resilience and uh we have a few project related to flood resilience we have done
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some work in New York City we're doing some work with the Zur Foundation a Swiss company uh in five or
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six different countries uh and and in all of this project instead of having I think that's what makes the center
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somewhat unique as well one person or two people working on the paper which some of us tend to do we recognize we
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need expertise from a large number of individuals so uh most of our large projects tend to involve five six 10
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people with different backgrounds which obviously is much more interesting for us because you can really tackle large
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scale issue uh in a way that you couldn't if you were just writing your own paper by um by yourself right now
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let's let's turn from the present to maybe look three the next three to five
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years in the future uh given everything that we've discussed about the interdependence uh factor and and uh not
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just in the US but globally what do you think will be the biggest risks that uh people and companies around the world
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should be thinking about for the next three to five years well there's there's
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no doubt I think that a risk that we've all been thinking about but have a very
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hard time dealing with is climate change and that is something the sener has been
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paying attention to over the last few years more so than in the past uh it became really a very important theme in
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the 30th Anniversary that we just had for the risk Center uh there was a long discussion at the end of the of our
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conference uh related to a question that had been posed we did a little polling exercise over lunch and one of the
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questions that was asked in that exercise was how serious does one think the climate change problem was uh when
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this was done with MBA students entering a couple of years ago there were a number there were a significant number
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maybe 8% who actually coming in felt it was not a problem at all which was very surprising no one in the room felt that
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way and no one in the room felt that it was not serious but they were a group of
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people who felt that it was serious and not very serious and so we had a long discussion at the end that I think will
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be a focus on what we'll be doing over the next 3 to five years as a general
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question how do you instill the fact that there are these problems that may not happen for uh 50 uh years in terms
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of very serious impacts but we have to worry about now how do we deal with them and this is something that Bob and aan
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have both mentioned in the context of earlier research and I think Bob's the
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simulation project is an example of how do you get people to pay attention so we
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are really I think uh going to focus on that issue but I think other issues as well as to how do you stimulate concern
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today so that one needs to take protection and so we had a discussion at the end of our our meeting on what how
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we could make everyone feel this is a very serious problem in this country in order for people to for us to be able to
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take some steps now to deal with this because if you have enough people who feel it it it isn't very serious and
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this was a group of people who really should have felt that it was very serious and so we know there are a
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number of people who feel it isn't a problem at all and are convinced that it
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isn't a problem and so the the challenge I think we face with our Senator is how
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do we stimulate uh uh a long-term strategies uh and people to take protection organizations countries to
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take protection and then uh in but at the same time recognize that one has to address the short run concerns that
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people have if we're going to be successful and we may have to use new technologies and and videos and and and
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pictures rather than words to be able to sort of get that across yeah I think one
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of the things that climate change is is in fact it's a it's enormously difficult
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and it's a fascinating topic I think that one of the things that's involved
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in in dealing with it is I'm encouraging both communities individuals and uh and
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organizations to basically to develop a much more of an Adaptive mindset than has traditionally been the case in the
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past and it's sort of interesting that I think that that if you think kind of
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longterm historically that human civilization emerged at a time of very extreme rapid climate change uh that for
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example as recently as 7,000 years ago which is not you know not that really that long ago uh if you lived in the
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Netherlands you would walk to uh to Great Britain okay and and and so during that period sea level was coming up very
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rapidly after the the melting of the last glaciers uh and and so what would happen of course is is that we lived in
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uh in tents and we lived in we wandered around everywhere and if the water came up we just moved to a new place of
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course what sort of happened since then is suddenly going from this mindset of the world is constantly changing and
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we're very much part of that change kind of went to kind of a mo more modern view
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of the world is static and that we put up cities uh right at sea level uh and and so forth and we have an enormous uh
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civilization which is built all on the premise that nothing ever changes number one and that the climate is invariant
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and number two is the fact that we somehow or another are independent of the climate that the actions that we
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take the things that we build the the things we put into the air isn't having
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any effect on climate and I think that what what should have happened is is in recent years there suddenly come this
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big Awakening that no uh in fact all of the that the world is constantly changing and and basically if we don't
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have this adaptive mindset we're going to be facing enormous trouble and and
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unfortunately the cost of getting from here to there suddenly uh is a significant one because now you're going
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to have to take large cities like Miami and New York and say well what are you going to do when the sea level comes up
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by another six feet you know what are you going to do with all these buildings and these are fundamental
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problems so quickly I think to answer your question in addition to that one which is kind of big one cutting across
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actually uh many others uh the list is pretty long from Cyber attack uh Big Data uh risk related to new technologies
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overregulation we hav been talking about that it's clearly something on the mind
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of of many people around the world even though overregulation is obviously um depends on on where you sit on the topic
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terrorism is not I mean given what Isis is doing in the Middle East we know it's
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not over so the list is long I think one big question we'll have in the future in
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addition to what has been done already is um who's paying for all of these catastrophes at the end what type of
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optimal res sharing Arrangement can you put together in a world where more and more uh governments are running very
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large public deficit where uh more people ask for their government to help them during disaster
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time but you know we don't have necessarily the money so reforming the uh our own mindset not only just in here
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in the US but around the world on uh who's supposed to pay for these disasters how do we incentivize people
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firms government cities as was mentioned before to actually start investing before a catastrophe happened and again
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we're not just talking about natural disasters here so that all mindset about
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reforming that disaster financing and also one one thing I would say we talked a lot about risks uh there are great
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opportunities coming with that as well um 80% of the world population by 2050 will be in cities so thinking about
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cities as small Pockets here and there is totally irrelevant so there are great things with concentrating people in
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asset in the same place but as B mentioned uh when something eat that very City whether it's a pandemics an
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earthquake a natural disaster terrorist attack uh that would be a catastrophe almost by definition so U and then we
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need the other 20% because the other 20% is basically agriculture so we need we need to feed as people as well so there
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are amazing amazing challenges and opportunities U ahead of us let let me add one point to what aan was just
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saying on the who should pay because I think it's a really critical issue that
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we have been struggling with and I want to sort of raise it as we have raised it
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in the center on issues of inequality which is now a real Challenge and it's
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not just the low income people as we all know the middle class is a part of that
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as well and I think that one of the areas uh we like to focus in the center on case studies and examples and
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concrete problems as I think you've already heard from all of us and you take the flood problem as an example
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which is obviously related to the climate change issue and what's going to happen to a city like Miami which is
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clearly uh with sea level rise and some of the things that are going occur and we have really a challenge here with
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related to the affordability issue we as a center have been focusing from almost
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the outset on the role that insurance can play as a way of getting people to take protection but if you but the way
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that insurance could play that role is the premiums have to reflect essentially the risk to let people know how serious
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the hazard is but at the same time essentially to help them to maybe take some steps to reduce that risk to
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elevate their house or to make their house FL flood proof in some fashion because they'll get a premium discount
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now the challenge that I think we see in this relates to the who is going to pay
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when you have a lot of lowincome and middle- inome people who are living in high Hazard areas who cannot afford that
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insurance when the premiums reflect risk and so the center has been focusing on that issue and we'll be doing a fair
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amount more in the in the coming years with the inequality issue in terms of are we going to in some fashion
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subsidize the lowincome people can should we do it through an insurance premium should we do it through other
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mechanisms such as vouchers or other ways that are not tied to insurance and that issue is going to be a central part
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of the issue and at the end of the day the who should pay is going to come on the table which is what we know Congress
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is facing today when they are actually making decisions on what programs they're going to support exactly and we
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also know that the answer will depend on where you are I mean us may have different view on the matter that um the
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British or German or in China exactly yeah and I think one thing that makes the whole thing kind of complicated uh
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Howard was talking about the importance of decision processes in all of this and
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and I think at the end of the day uh that that a lot of decisions that people all the decisions that people make about
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whether or not they want to buy insurance or undertake protection uh is rooted very much in kind of what they
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believe the risks are that they're facing and so in some sense in addition to the the affordability issue that you
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have one thing that's compounding with it is the fact that an insurer may come
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in and say uh this is what we think or we've calculated objectively your risk
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to be and So based on that here is the price of this coverage but then of course the people who are who are living
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in a in the home look at that and they say well not at all my risk okay and in fact I don't have anything near the risk
00:25:02
that you think I face and so therefore it's grossly overpriced and so therefore
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they don't buy the coverage and so in some sense you could do risk-based prates but basically if people sort to
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feel that it's mispriced and they don't buy the coverage then you still have
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then insurance doesn't work okay and then essentially then you still have to
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ask the question then when the disaster comes in and uh and you have all these people that are uninsured who sort of
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pays for that at that point and that's a that's that's a major problem and that
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problem is compounded when you have a highly subsidized premium because then people think that they're safer than
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they actually are so you have a combination of saying here's a premium that has a risk and they say that isn't
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really my risk but then you also have the reverse problem and which is true in the flood case where the premium is very
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low for many individuals and they say well I'm really a lot safer than I actually thought I was and they aren't
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really that safe correct so given all the risks that you identified that uh the world will be facing over the next 3
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to five years what advice would you give say Chief risk officers or security officers about how do you protect uh
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people and property against these risks well I want to just follow on Bob's comment on decision processes and the
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challenges which I think something that managers as well as in homeowners let's
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say and people face and I think the the biggest advi the advice that we have been trying to get across a piece of
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advice there's lots of advice in it you'll hear Bob and aan will have some
00:26:38
additional points I'm sure uh is how do you get people to think longterm how do
00:26:45
you get managers to think longterm but at the same same time recognize that there are all sorts of reasons why
00:26:52
they're going to want to think shortterm because their own tenur and they may
00:26:57
even feel as the short term and whatnot and they're not thinking 50 years or 20
00:27:02
years out and how do we develop the kinds of programs with incentives that will enable them to think longterm but
00:27:10
at the same time reward them or reward their company let's say if you're
00:27:15
talking about firms or reward the homeowner if you're talking about families to take some steps today so
00:27:20
that would be one question we have thoughts on that but it would be one area that we'd want to think about yeah
00:27:25
I'm in uh my actually my main position is in the marketing department and we're
00:27:30
kind of in the business of trying to think about how do you persuade people to buy products and undertake certain
00:27:35
sorts of actions and I think that one of the real challenges that exists in the area of protective Investments is the
00:27:40
fact that that there's probably no harder sell uh effectively what you're
00:27:44
asking people to do is to invest a large amount uh in different sorts of instruments such as insurance or
00:27:51
protective measures that uh that you hope they're never going to use at all okay and so in some sense you're you're
00:27:58
it's a very very difficult thing and you're having to convince them based on
00:28:02
Credence that somehow or another in the long run uh 5 years 10 years 50 years from now this investment that you're
00:28:10
making now will prove beneficial in helping you avoid a loss that you might otherwise face and and that's just such
00:28:17
a very difficult thing to do to try to get people to think of those terms of long-term benefits and uh so that's one
00:28:23
of the great challenges and we basically and and how do you get people to think to shift their mind set from focusing on
00:28:29
what's the best use of my money today which will almost never be to buy insurance will almost never be to to
00:28:36
build a stronger house and to say no no no no you can't think about today you
00:28:40
have to think about maximizing utility over a 50-year horizon right yeah know I mean all of that is is right and uh you
00:28:47
already talk about insurance at a dinner table except to complain about it rarely
00:28:52
oh my gosh I get a great insurance contract uh well I think your question depend very much on whether you talking
00:28:58
about individuals and we talked a lot versus Corporation especially large corporation I think the challenge with
00:29:03
individuals is that uh yeah there have been more floods there have been more natural disasters around the world but
00:29:09
still the likelihood of of you being hit by a flood today and the next 10 years uh hopefully it's not you know it's not
00:29:16
100% and it's not 20 times during 10 years so uh the the silent of the U of the event is important uh when you move
00:29:24
from individuals to which makes which make it complicated as as I was said before when you move from these
00:29:29
individuals to let's say the opposite or the other extreme large multinational
00:29:34
corporations doing business in one 100 countries what is the likelihood of that firm being eat by a th crisis next
00:29:40
months very close to one today so uh going back to Howard's starting the center 30 years ago where these issues
00:29:48
were discussed but maybe every 10 20 years you had a big event sounds like now every six month you have another one
00:29:54
I mean just about you know what's happening in Syria and the migrants uh a year ago it was all about U Ebola people
00:30:01
almost forget about ebola and then you have Volkswagen cheating the system so the nature of the crisis will be
00:30:08
different but every time there is a disaster I think that makes risk management and opportunities at better
00:30:14
managing the risk even more silent at the level of the uh of the firm which explain why so many companies have
00:30:20
created that that conductor position called the chief risk officer recognizing that we cannot just look at
00:30:26
these risk in silos we have to agregate them and uh more and more countries and or cities at least start thinking the
00:30:33
same way saying as a city as a mayor of the city I canot just about think about flood uh unemployment is a big risk for
00:30:39
me health is a big risk so having this integrated approach of risk management and there are tools new methodologies
00:30:46
obviously that some of that has been developed by our team but there are other teams around the world working on
00:30:50
these issues today it's very exciting time great and I have one last question
00:30:54
for each of you uh which is that any Research Center uh exists to do research but also to make an impact on the
00:31:01
practice of management uh so so if you were to think about the work uh being done at the risk and decision processes
00:31:09
Center uh what would you say has been the impact on the practice of management so far and what kind of impact would you
00:31:17
hope to have in the future well I think I'd come back as we all have been coming back to some of the
00:31:26
studies that we've done uh that actually are more optimistic than we would have
00:31:32
thought when we started 30 years ago and I think uh I'll just use the S&P 500
00:31:38
study that I mentioned earlier which is looking at how uh firms have behaved I think one of the major changes that have
00:31:45
occurred and aan alluded to it in his in his comments just now is that firms are
00:31:51
really seeing this issue as being important on the firm side maybe not the consumer at all as Bob was sort of
00:31:59
saying maybe they're still Facing The Challenge on how to deal with it but firms are really focusing on this now
00:32:05
and I think what we've heard in almost all of our interviews with uh Chief risk
00:32:09
officers CEOs or highlevel uh uh people in these firms is that now we are in a new era of catastrophes we've got to be
00:32:18
thinking about these issues it's an important issue for the board it's an
00:32:22
important issue for us to pay attention to and most important we're learning
00:32:26
from our past experience which is one of the decision processes that we always focus on there are a set of biases that
00:32:33
exist when you have a serious disaster then you pay attention and firms are now paying attention to it in a way that
00:32:39
they haven't paid attention before and I think that what we would like to see as
00:32:43
a challenge for the cater is that if we can somehow get that take advantage really of the fact that people are now
00:32:52
be serious about these issues to begin to suggest some policies and programs that are a lot harder to actually adopt
00:32:59
not only for these firms but for countries I think the interdependency the global issues are important for our
00:33:06
work uh not only on climate change but on a lot of other risks that take place and how do we actually take some steps
00:33:12
so that we are able to change a system that's not just for the for the corporations or for the individuals it's
00:33:19
for legislation it's for governments and for the public sector and we have played
00:33:22
a fair put a fair amount of attention into trying to work in the US with Congress and with other countries with
00:33:29
their leading with the governments to try to deal with that as as Bob and aan have said the world economic forum and
00:33:35
the oecd are groups that we are paying that we really have an integral uh working relationship with and and are
00:33:42
involved with in order to make this an international and Global problem and I think that's what we really have to do
00:33:48
is to try to figure out how we take advantage of where we are today to make some very important changes as we go
00:33:55
forward yeah I think in terms of impact uh how at the very beginning Howard indicated and try to emphasize the fact
00:34:00
that the center does have this name these two names it's uh risk management and decision processes and the idea that
00:34:06
this uh uh the synthesis of the two is sort of the thing that really made the center unique from its founding and one
00:34:12
of the things to me that's been really reassuring is to find out that the same
00:34:15
recognition of the importance of this synthesis has really spread out to the the the general treatment of risk
00:34:21
management like for example uh uh one major development we were just talking with uh people at Noah um uh the the
00:34:27
National Weather Service and so forth and in the development of warnings it's
00:34:31
become all of a sudden aware to them that in some sense if you want to develop effective warnings it's not just
00:34:37
simply a matter of having good computer models and having good meteorologists basically to say this is the objective
00:34:43
probability that something's going to happen but you have to find a way of communicating this to people so that
00:34:48
they really understand what the impact is going to be and then so and and how do you get that who are the who are the
00:34:55
people that you need to bring to the table to have that happen well it it's not just meteorologists but you
00:35:00
also need psychologists who understand how people understand messages and that Fusion I think is is one of the real
00:35:05
more positive steps that I've seen across the board in a wide variety of areas great yeah and just to compliment
00:35:13
I I think after 30 years of good work and not just the three of us but bunch of people here and across the school
00:35:18
across the university as well uh we are fairly visible as an entity which means that people come to us we have we have
00:35:24
remained neutral uh when we start a project we don't know what the output will be that's a beuty of research and
00:35:30
sometime we have uh we have been surprised in one way and other but when we work with cooporate Partners or
00:35:35
governments or a large International Organization we we start the collaboration with them saying okay what
00:35:41
are the question we're asking here and how can we help you make better decisions uh all of that being published
00:35:47
so we can work with one organization but you know all of that will be published and then Advance the knowledge and uh
00:35:53
you know that's our Moto knowledge for Action great gentlemen thank you so so
00:35:57
much for speaking with knowledge at Warton really appreciate you thank you m thank you
00:36:13
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