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Thank you, Ross Gittins
Nov. 17th, 2005 12:06 amObsessing over terrorism is more about politics than common sense
The whole article is good, but some choice parts:
FORGIVE me if I'm not shaking in my shoes over the risk of terrorism on our shores. There is a risk, of course, but it's being greatly exaggerated. My scepticism comes after 30 years in journalism, watching such scares from close quarters.
In that time I've learnt three things: how easy it is to scare the pants off a public looking for bad news stories to spice up humdrum lives; how many interest groups stand to benefit by manipulating the public's emotions; and how much more we'd be able to do to reduce risks to life and limb if only we'd assess those risks in a more cool-headed way.
There are plenty of things that offer a greater threat to our wellbeing than local terrorism, and they aren't getting nearly as much attention or money lavished on them. Getting overexcited about terrorism, in other words, has its opportunity cost.
...
The risk of being killed in a terrorist attack is very much lower than the risk of being killed on the road. Yet after the attacks of September 2001 in America, many people switched from travelling by air to travelling by road, presuming it to be safer.
A study by economists at Cornell University estimated that this switch led to an increase of 240 driving deaths a month during the rest of 2001.
...
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says the odds of an American dying in a terrorist attack are about one in 88,000. The odds of dying by falling off a ladder are one in 10,000. And, says an article in Foreign Policy magazine, even in 2001, car crashes killed 15 times more Americans than terrorism did.
...
I've been complaining for years that the majority of the population doesn't understand the concept of risk.
The whole article is good, but some choice parts:
FORGIVE me if I'm not shaking in my shoes over the risk of terrorism on our shores. There is a risk, of course, but it's being greatly exaggerated. My scepticism comes after 30 years in journalism, watching such scares from close quarters.
In that time I've learnt three things: how easy it is to scare the pants off a public looking for bad news stories to spice up humdrum lives; how many interest groups stand to benefit by manipulating the public's emotions; and how much more we'd be able to do to reduce risks to life and limb if only we'd assess those risks in a more cool-headed way.
There are plenty of things that offer a greater threat to our wellbeing than local terrorism, and they aren't getting nearly as much attention or money lavished on them. Getting overexcited about terrorism, in other words, has its opportunity cost.
...
The risk of being killed in a terrorist attack is very much lower than the risk of being killed on the road. Yet after the attacks of September 2001 in America, many people switched from travelling by air to travelling by road, presuming it to be safer.
A study by economists at Cornell University estimated that this switch led to an increase of 240 driving deaths a month during the rest of 2001.
...
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says the odds of an American dying in a terrorist attack are about one in 88,000. The odds of dying by falling off a ladder are one in 10,000. And, says an article in Foreign Policy magazine, even in 2001, car crashes killed 15 times more Americans than terrorism did.
...
I've been complaining for years that the majority of the population doesn't understand the concept of risk.
