Climate Catastrophes as a Sum of Known Risks

Francisco Estrada

Part of the SpringerBriefs in Climate Studies book series (BRIEFSCLIMATE)

Abstract

An ever-increasing body of research has warned for decades about the impacts of climate change on agriculture, health, flooding, economy, among many others and provided information about when and where these impacts could be larger. Are societies prepared for these expected ‘white-swans’, particularly in the context of a high degree of interconnectedness in Nature and in society? I borrow from the development of the Covid-19 pandemic to illustrate this view. Influenza pandemics have been foreseen decades before, but the characteristics of the virus and the socioeconomic links have made it into the global crisis that it had become in 2020.

Cite this chapter

Estrada F. (2022) Climate Catastrophes as a Sum of Known Risks. In: Siegmann A. (eds) Climate of the Middle. SpringerBriefs in Climate Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85322-8_4