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Macrae, Donald --- "Which Risk and Who Decides When There Are So Many Players?" [2011] ELECD 910; in Alemanno, Alberto (ed), "Governing Disasters" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Governing Disasters

Editor(s): Alemanno, Alberto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857935724

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Which Risk and Who Decides When There Are So Many Players?

Author(s): Macrae, Donald

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

2. Which risk and who decides when
there are so many players?
Donald Macrae

2.1 INTRODUCTION

There was a time that a voyage across the North Atlantic involved praying
to Thor and Odin for calm seas and favourable winds but these old
practices have fallen into disuse. For a few months in 2010, prayers may
have become appropriate again, for favourable winds to blow away the
cloud of volcanic ash that could prevent a flight to North America from
many places in Europe. Whether modern risk-management systems are
more effective than praying to the Norse gods is beyond the scope of this
chapter but we certainly saw a time when many of the advances of modern
life disappeared and Fate seemed to reassert itself in all its pre-Cartesian
power.
To have been a catastrophe, people would have had to have died and it is a
feature of this incident that nobody is know to have died as a direct result of
volcanic ash in jet engines. But the image of catastrophic engine failure that
captured imaginations in the first two days soon faded as millions of lesser
disasters and inconveniences surfaced across the globe. It was a remarkable
instance of the possibility of a severe loss being set against the certainty of
multiple lesser losses, a risk equation that is always difficult to manage.
It all seemed a bit of a mess as well. Could it have been handled better?
This chapter tries to analyze the situation ...


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