Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction

Penultimate draft; published in Risk Analysis 2007; 27(5): 1335-1344.

Jason G. Matheny

Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health,
Johns Hopkins University, 624 N. Broadway, Room 493, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA;
tel: 202-486-1306; jmatheny@jhsph.edu.

Abstract

In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of
these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be
high, as it represents the value of all future human lives. We review the
challenges to studying human extinction risks and, by way of example, estimate
the cost effectiveness of preventing extinction-level asteroid impacts.

KEY WORDS: Asteroids; catastrophic risk; cost-effectiveness analysis;
discounting; existential risk; human extinction

It is in html format at:

http://www.jgmatheny.org/matheny_extinction_risk.htm