The Precipice

Available for over a year

The modern world is full of risks, from natural hazards such as flooding to the existential threat of nuclear war, artificial intelligence and climate change. With the scientific and technological progress of the past few centuries, we’ve created new hazards that threaten our very survival and in this series, emergency planner and disaster recovery expert Lucy Easthope explores the history of risk to find out how it’s understood, perceived and managed, and to ask how we can become more resilient as individuals, as a society and as a planet. The atomic bomb which would go on to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - marked not just the end of the Second World War but also a turning point in history as for the first time we had the ability to destroy life on Earth. In this episode Lucy explores the subject of ‘existential risk’, from nuclear war to artificial intelligence, to discover how in the effort to liberate ourselves from the constraints of nature we have created new hazards that threaten not only society but the environment upon which we depend for survival. The greatest risk that faces us as a planet is undoubtedly climate change, but despite the overwhelming evidence of the human impact on the climate she finds out why we have done so little to mitigate this catastrophic threat. Presenter: Lucy Easthope Producer: Patrick Bernard Executive Producer: David Prest A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4. Lucy Easthope is the co-founder of the After Disaster Network in the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience at the University of Durham, Professor in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the University of Bath and the author of “When The Dust Settles”.