TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose This paper aims to consider few cognitive and conceptual obstacles to engagement with global catastrophic risks (GCRs).Design/methodology/approach The paper starts by considering cognitive biases that affect general thinking about GCRs, before questioning whether existential risks really are dramatically more pressing than other GCRs. It then sets out a novel typology of GCRs – sexy vs unsexy risks – before considering a particularly unsexy risk, overpopulation.Findings It is proposed that many risks commonly regarded as existential are “sexy” risks, while certain other GCRs are comparatively “unsexy.” In addition, it is suggested that a combination of complexity, cognitive biases and a hubris-laden failure of imagination leads us to neglect the most unsexy and pervasive of all GCRs: human overpopulation. The paper concludes with a tentative conceptualisation of overpopulation as a pattern of risking.Originality/value The paper proposes and conceptualises two new concepts, sexy and unsexy catastrophic risks, as well as a new conceptualisation of overpopulation as a pattern of risking.
VL  - 21
IS  - 1
SN  - 1463-6689
DO  - 10.1108/FS-05-2018-0047
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/FS-05-2018-0047
AU  - Kuhlemann Karin
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - Complexity, creeping normalcy and conceit: sexy and unsexy catastrophic risks
T2  - foresight
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 35
EP  - 52
Y2  - 2024/04/24
ER  -