Earthquakes and the human weakness for taking action on risk

The terrible aftermath of the Japanese earthquake shows human capacity to fail to act on the basis of objective risk assessment truly knows no bounds.

We don't need an earthquake to illustrate this weakness in human psychology. It is a weakness that affects us all, equally, everywhere. People whose homes are situated over a granite rich geology are sometimes exposed to Radon gas. Years of statistical data has confirmed it is at least as bad for your health as smoking. There is a simple remedy, which involves fitting small silent extractor fans in the basement or in the wall under the floorboards to stop the gas (which is heavier than air) from collecting in your home. In the UK these extractor fans are given out for free, funded by government, and there have been awareness campaigns at various times in areas that suffer from this problem. Yet few people use the fans. Even if they have been installed, few bother to switch them on. Proportionately more people give up smoking, an addictive habit, than "Radon dwellers" use the fans. This flies straight in the face of the known consequences that come from exposure to Radon gas. Like smoking, it causes cancer and unfortunately it is all too often deadly. Death from Radon induced cancer is high amongst people who live in these areas. But the problem is, when a deaths occur it isn't possible to attribute that particular death with certainty to Radon. It seems we have a capacity to ignore risk all the time it is abstract, e.g. when we can't see the downside and causality right in front of our eyes.

Worse, our capacity to ignore risk goes up greatly when to do otherwise means we would have to go against the social current. Let me demonstrate the point with an imagined scenario. I'm now imagining myself freshly promoted as head of human resources in Oracle. I have a statistical background in risk analysis. In my first board meeting and I raise an issue. A major risk factor. Oracle's headquarters are built on reclaimed land by the edge of the Pacific ocean right next to one of the most active fault lines in the world. In the event of a major earthquake reclaimed land though a solid, has such feeble binding properties it can become liquid and buildings can sink into it in unpredictable ways. Also being reclaimed land, it is on what is basically a large flood plain. So an earthquake could entomb the car park exit just as inhabitants are seeking, in case a Tsunami is on it's way, to get to higher ground. But imagine what it would be like, any month before the Japan disaster, to sit before a board and seriously raise the question as to whether the headquarters should be moved? I can't speak for Oracle, but I imagine in most situations, at most companies, doing so would be career suicide.

I apologise to Oracle employees who may read this if, given current events, raising the question might seem to be in poor taste, but isn't that actually part of the problem? Isn't the fact the discussion is alarming a very part of the social mix which ensures the big questions are rarely raised and made a real factor in policy decisions? A toxic mix of social pressure and inability to relate to the abstract buries our capacity to act on risk and lives can be put in danger as a result. The proof is in the fact our skewed view of risk means there is insufficient appreciable negative affect on the value of properties in high-risk areas. High-risk properties tend to be worth just as much as property further up the hill out of the flood or Tsunami zone. Of course the added risk is reflected in the cost and terms you can get in your insurance policies though.

It's important to understand, though money is often a factor, the issue isn't at root about money. The same perversion of rationality exists in decisions made within government, where the individuals making the decisions have little to gain. Mostly it crops-up when decisions are being made in a powerful social context, where there is a "social tide" a rational decision may have to swim against. We are social creatures and it is difficult for us to isolate our decisions from concern over what the rest of the room will think. When such social contexts also involve large amounts of money, the problem is greatly exacerbated. "Group think" is much more pervasive and harder problem to tackle than many care to acknowledge.

The siting of nuclear power stations in Japan would have been precisely this kind of a decision. When as a politician, or planning department official, you have lots of intelligent people telling you how you can make the plant safe, huge pressures on budgets and huge pressures from the public to avoid certain areas, you will quickly find yourself looking at that tract of reclaimed land or the sparsely populated flood plain. It's only for a few brief months after an event like the Japanese Tsunami, that proposals, such as that the power-station or head-office should be sited further up the hill or further away from the fault line, gain traction, and that is precisely because it is only then they are not swimming against the social tide.

We all know attitudes will revert once our collective guard goes back down. Social mores will always prevent us calling out the elephant in the room. In no time politicians like the last UK government’s John Prescott, will go back to sanctioning crazy actions like building houses on reclaimed Thames Estuary floodplains.

But here is a final point for your consideration. The question of the safety or otherwise of nuclear power generation is being raised again. But our ability to assess and act on risk objectively is so compromised by group/social psychology the weakness cuts in two directions. Now there has been a disaster and the risk is no longer an abstract question (at least for the next few months), suddenly, the social tide has turned and all nuclear power must be bad. From no action we can easily go to overreaction. Angela Merkel has called a halt and re-assessment of the German program for nuclear energy and the Swiss are doing the same. This may be appropriate given the terrible events in Japan, but let's hope group-think doesn't strike again. The stand-out point is that quite evidently building a nuclear reactor smack-bang next to one of the most active fault lines on the earths crust, on the coast, and at sea level at height where it was bound to be overwhelmed by a powerful Tsunami, was always simply and undeniably, a terrible idea.

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