Worst-Case Scenarios

That’s the new book by Cass Sunstein, and yes it works through how choice theory should approach disasters and irreversible events.  It is the most accessible presentation of this material to date and it is recommended to anyone who follows issues of global warming, pandemics, asteroid impacts, and the like. 

The concluding chapter opens with the old quotation:

"If you make a plan, God laughs.  If you make two plans, God smiles."

When it comes to this book, the worst case scenario is that you are out $24.95, you despair at mankind’s ability to actually address these problems, and you come away enlightened.  I would have wished for more material on public choice issues — how good a job can governments do with these problems? — but the more salient point is just how much Sunstein does cover.