大象传媒

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鈥檝e 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鈥檚 understood, perceived and managed, and to ask how we can become more resilient as individuals, as a society and as a planet.

Every few years, the government publishes the National Risk Register, a long list of the most serious short-term hazards that we face as a society.

But what happens when these acute risks are themselves the product of chronic risks? How do we deal with these long-term risks within the short-term cycle of politics? And why do we always wait until there is a disaster before we do anything?

As Lucy Easthope discovers, not acting is the same as acting - and when it comes to the prevention of a disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic or the Grenfell Tower fire, the consequences of not acting can be catastrophic.

Presenter: Lucy Easthope
Producer: Patrick Bernard
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for 大象传媒 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 鈥淲hen The Dust Settles鈥�.