People do not think well about global risk issues. Concern about global risk is not part of our evolution. Cave men had more pressing problems.

We call this the "Dharmasaroja effect." In 1998 Smith Dharmasaroja, a Thai meteorologist, predicted an Indian ocean earthquake and tsunami. He advocated tsunami warning systems, but was not taken seriously. The warning systems he advocated could have saved thousands of lives in the tsunami of December 2004.

Our coordinator can relate a similar experience. He came upon reasons to be concerned about black hole creation at colliders. He started a website, http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org, to encourage discussion of this issue. He sent a news release about this website to 70 news organizations. Search engines had not yet discovered the website, so the number of hits on the website over the next two weeks gave a precise indication of news organization interest. There were exactly zero.

Yes, you can make a difference. The world does not think enough about these issues. A single voice is not heard, but several voices validate each other. The environmental movement provides surveillance for their issues and provides a voice that keeps folks thinking about them. Environmentalists rarely think about global risk. (We have tried to interest them.) We need an intellectual constituency for this issue.

There is a tendency to defer to authorities, to assume that smart people will take care of these problems. Sometimes they do, too often they do not. Mensa members are the "smart people." So get busy.

Things you can do

1) Consider yourself an independent intellectual. Think about this issue, learn about it, think of good approaches, then publish and advocate them.

2) Contact us. Learn of our current projects. Help with projects that appeal to you.