Film Review: Snowpiercer

Post Date December 17, 2014
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Popular fictional films can support sustainability education by bringing sustainability scenarios to life and appealing to wide audiences. One such film is Snowpiercer, a new film set in the aftermath of an environmental catastrophe. In this review, I cover a variety of themes in the film, discussing how they can be used for sustainability education. The themes include the geoengineering catastrophe that serves as the film’s backdrop and the survivor’s struggles to manage their limited resources. As a warning to the reader, …

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The Great Downside Dilemma For Risky Emerging Technologies

Post Date November 27, 2014
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A downside dilemma is any decision in which one option promises benefits but comes with a risk of significant harm. An example is the game of Russian roulette. The decision is whether to play. Choosing to play promises benefits but comes with the risk of death. This paper introduces the great downside dilemma as any decision in which one option promises great benefits to humanity but comes with a risk of human civilization being destroyed. …

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GCRI Welcomes Professional Assistant Steven Umbrello

Post Date November 20, 2014
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We’re pleased to announce our newest affiliate, Professional Assistant Steven Umbrello. Steven has been helping GCRI with a variety of projects for some time now and we’re delighted to recognize him for his contributions. Here’s his bio from the GCRI People page.

Steven is a B.A. student in philosophy of science at University of Toronto Mississauga. Steven is also Owner & Executive Editor of the Leather Library Blog, a website dedicated academic philosophy, psychology and literature. As a Professional Assistant, Steven contributes to GCRI’s overall research …

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November Newsletter: Visiting Colleagues

Post Date November 17, 2014
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Dear friends,

Over the last two months, I have had the good fortune to be able to visit three close groups of colleagues: the Centre for Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, and the Future of Life Institute in Boston, which has ties to MIT and Harvard. All three organizations are doing great work—work that nicely complements what we at GCRI have been doing. I think the foundations are being laid for a productive and successful community …

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Film Review: Transcendence

Post Date September 24, 2014
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Is it possible to create an artificial mind? Can a human or other biological mind be uploaded into computer hardware? Should these sorts of artificial intelligences be created, and under what circumstances? Would the AIs make the world better off? These and other deep but timely questions are raised by the recent film Transcendence(dir. Wally Pfister, 2014). In this review, I will discuss some of the questions raised by the film and show their importance to real-world decision making about AI and …

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Integrating the Planetary Boundaries and Global Catastrophic Risk Paradigms

Post Date August 24, 2014
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Planetary boundaries (PBs) and global catastrophic risk (GCR) are two paradigms that have emerged in recent years to study major global threats to humanity and nature. PBs focuses on threats that can push the global Earth system into fundamentally different states, with unacceptable consequences for humanity. GCR focuses on threats that can cause the permanent collapse of global human civilization or even human extinction, including environmental threats and other threats. PBs and GCR come …

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Summer Newsletter: New Publications

Post Date August 21, 2014
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Dear friends,

There have been a number of interesting new publications coming out of the GCR research community recently, both from GCRI and elsewhere. They cover a range of topics, from environmental risks to artificial intelligence to refuges for protecting against unknown threats. For your interest, I’m putting a summary of the publications down at the bottom of the newsletter. These are good times for GCR research, and they are about to get better next year when the Futures special issue comes out. That is, assuming …

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Book Review: Only One Chance

Post Date August 20, 2014
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Review of: Philippe Grandjean. Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development – and How to Protect the Brains of the Next Generation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Humans have lived with chemical pollution for thousands of years, but the recent proliferation of industrial chemicals poses novel threats. In the new book Only One Chance, distinguished environmental health researcher Philippe Grandjean argues for special attention to developmental neurotoxicology, i.e. to the effects of chemical pollution on the developing human brain …

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May Newsletter: Report From The United Nations

Post Date June 02, 2014
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This was sent via email on 13 May. Click here to subscribe to the email newsletter.

Dear friends,

Last month I gave two talks at the United Nations. The first was a small meeting of experts from the P5, i.e. the permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, UK, and USA. I presented new research on nuclear winter risk. The second was at the big annual meeting for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). I presented the paper Analyzing and reducing the risks of inadvertent …

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March-April 2014 Newsletter

Post Date April 23, 2014
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Dear friends,

I am pleased to announce the call for papers for a new special issue of the journal Futures titled Confronting Future Catastrophic Threats To Humanity. I will be co-editing this together with my colleague Bruce Tonn of the University of Tennessee. Over the years, Futures has probably published more research on global catastrophic risk than any other journal, including a special issue on human extinction that Tonn co-edited in 2009. It is an honor to be working with Tonn and Futures on a new …

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