Our Daily Bleg: How to Get People More Interested in Disaster Preparedness (Without Freaking Them Out)?
In response to our call for blegs, a reader named Lisa Klink writes to ask your advice:
I just started a job at the Red Cross teaching preparedness education. The tough part is convincing people to take action: make an emergency kit, have an evacuation plan, etc. My question for your readers is: You already know that you should be prepared in case of disaster. What would prompt you to actually do it?
Great question. And not so easy. People like me spend a lot of time telling people like you that so many “disasters” they worry about are extremely unlikely. On the other hand:
- 1. Disasters do happen
2. They are often very costly on a number of dimensions
3. That cost could presumably be curtailed by better preparedness, much of which is relatively cheap and easy
That said, you’re reading the words of a guy who lives in New York City, and who lived here during the 9/11 attack, and has two fairly young children, and still never thought it worthwhile to load up a “go bag” with Cipro and cash. Read More »
Did Princeton Prof’s “Wedges” Theory Oversimplify Cutting Carbon Emissions?
In 2004, Princeton professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala introduced a strategy that made the large-scale reduction of carbon emissions actually seem feasible. Rather than looking for one big fix, their process, called stabilization wedges, broke the solution down into incremental pieces (increasing alternative energy, reducing energy use, improving efficiencies) that together could prevent billions of tons of new emissions over the next 50 years.
But in a new National Geographic article, Socolow is quoted saying that the wedges approach oversimplified the problem in the minds of many: Read More »
What to Make of the Unabomber Auction? And What Should I Do With My Own Unabomber Artifacts?
It seems so coincidental that I wonder if indeed it’s a coincidence: the FBI requests a DNA sample from Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. Unabomber, just as the government’s court-ordered auction of Kaczynski’s possessions gets underway (it closes on June 2). The FBI is still trying to solve the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, and Kaczynski is presumably a person of interest.
If nothing else, the news has brought a lot more attention to the auction. It can use it. As of this writing, most of the 58 items could be had for a few hundred dollars. Exceptions are Kaczynski’s Smith-Corona typewriter ($8,025) and his hand-written Manifesto ($16,025). Read More »
FREAK-est Links
Econ profs rank Levitt as their fourth favorite economist under the age of 60, The New York Public Library’s brilliant new iPad app, and more.
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 