A newly released study of deaths in the aftermath of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has called for precaution with regard to the much-touted Precautionary Principle. The study, by economists at the universities of Columbia (United States), Nagoya (Japan) and Verona (Italy), and published by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics,…
Little Moldova does not receive much media attention in the English-speaking world. It is fair to say that a large number of Australians, Britons and Americans have probably never heard of this sliver of a country. When the country does appear in the headlines, the articles usually employ the same less than flattering description of…
How well do we actually understand climate? Is climate data indicative of climate change or are we dealing rather with climate variability? To clarify that question, we will review an example of climate data – the summer mean temperature anomaly for Australia. Then will follow a brief theoretical analysis of climate risk and decision-making. We…
What does it mean to say that a people is “civilised”? It is rude today to consider any nation or ethnic group anything other than civilised, and yet for the term to have any real meaning it must be possible to be uncivilised. In common usage it is taken to mean mannerly, non-violent, and of…
