The Origin and Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Expert Survey

Post Date February 02, 2024
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View the Main Report “The Origin and Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Expert Survey”

View the Methodological and Analytical Annex

Exactly how the COVID-19 pandemic began remains a topic of considerable scientific and political debate. However, the opinions expressed in the debate have thus far come from an ad hoc mix of experts and commentators who have spoken up. Therefore, a research team led by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI) and Nemesys Insights conducted a rigorous survey of global expert opinion. The anonymous survey included …

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June Newsletter: Call For Advisees And Collaborators

Post Date June 07, 2022
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Dear friends,

GCRI has recently put out an open call for participants in our 2022 Advising and Collaboration Program. The Program helps people get more involved in work on global catastrophic risk and focus their activities in more successful directions. We welcome people at all career points, from all geographic locations, and with any interest across the many aspects of global catastrophic risk. No significant time commitment is required; participation can range from a one-time call to get advice on how to get more involved to extended …

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Pandemic Refuges: Lessons from Two Years of COVID-19

Post Date May 06, 2022
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View the paper “Pandemic Refuges: Lessons from Two Years of COVID-19”

Refuges have been proposed as a means of ensuring that at least some people survive a global catastrophe. While it would be better to avoid the catastrophe in the first place, if a catastrophe is to occur, a refuge could be a real difference-maker in terms of the long-term effects on human civilization. Prior refuges research emphasizes highly isolated locations such as underground, underwater, or in outer space. These exotic concepts may seem far removed …

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June Newsletter: Racism and Global Catastrophic Risk

Post Date June 30, 2020
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Dear friends,

The ongoing wave of anti-racism protests are prompting long-overdue conversation and action to establish a more equitable society in the US and worldwide. We at GCRI are saddened by the tragic deaths that have sparked these protests and hopeful that something good can come out of it.

For our part, we have contributed to the conversation by publishing a statement on racism. To summarize: We see moral and practical links between the problems of racism and global catastrophic risk. They are both large-scale issues whose …

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May Newsletter: Pandemic and New Hire

Post Date May 08, 2020
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Dear friends,

We are amidst the most severe global event in decades. The COVID-19 pandemic is unfortunately showing all too clearly how certain threats can devastate human society and individual lives around the world. We at GCRI offer our condolences to those who have lost loved ones and stand with those working to pull through this tragic ordeal. We are not pandemics experts, but we are pursuing opportunities to apply our background in catastrophic risk to the ongoing pandemic response. For more on our perspective on …

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GCR News Summary April 2016

Post Date May 03, 2016
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Alpha Centauri and Southern Cross image courtesy of Claus Madsen/ESO, CC BY 4.0

John Kerry became the first US Secretary of State to visit the site of the US nuclear attack on Hiroshima. Kerry wrote in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial guest book that the site was “a stark, harsh, compelling reminder not only of our obligation to end the threat of nuclear weapons, but to rededicate all our effort to avoid war itself.” William J. Broad and David E. Sanger wrote in The New York Times …

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GCR News Summary February 2016

Post Date March 02, 2016
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Stop Trident demonstration in London image courtesy of David Holt under a Creative Commons license

Tens of thousands of people gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to protest the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine program. It was the largest anti-nuclear demonstration in England since 1983, when several hundred thousand people demonstrated against the deployment of cruise missiles at Greenham Common. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told the protesters they should not forget that a nuclear war would mean “absolute destruction on both sides” and said that he …

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GCR News Summary December 2015

Post Date January 05, 2016
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March on the Paris climate talks image courtesy of John Englart under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (the image has been cropped)

Nearly 200 countries agreed in Paris to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep the average global temperature “well below” 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement was intended to reduce human carbon emissions below the amount that can be absorbed by natural carbon sinks by the second half of the century. National targets under the agreement are not enough to keep the temperature increase below 2°C, …

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GCR News Summary November 2015

Post Date December 03, 2015
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Chinese power plant image courtesy of Tobias Brox under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (the image has been cropped)

Turkish F-16s shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter-bomber near the border between Turkey and Syria. Some reports indicate that the Russian plane’s pilots were shot and possibly killed as they parachuted from their damaged plane. It was the first time a NATO member shot down a Russian military plane since the end of the Cold War. Turkey claimed the Russian plane violated its airspace for five minutes and …

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GCR News Summary August 2015

Post Date September 02, 2015
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Korean Demilitarized Zone fence image courtesy of Sangmun Shin/Republic of Korea Ministry of National Defense under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (image has been cropped)

North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire after two South Korean soldiers were injured by land mines. South Korea claimed North Korea was responsible for placing the mines near a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries. South Korea responded by using loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda across the border. The Centre for North Korea-US Peace’s Kim Myong-chol, who some …

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