Climate Action Tracker

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Both sides here in the united states have lost any motivation for working along with the other side here whose fault it is. That's a bad situation for a democracy to be in. One of the most influential books to me in recent years has been etan hirsh's book, politics is for power. It makes the case that increasingly americans are treating politics more like they treat their local sporting teams. Ah, cheer and jeer from the side lines, but don't think that you can affect the game rather than act.

We’re pretty well-calibrated when it comes to dealing with common, everyday-level setbacks. But our brains aren’t naturally equipped for dealing with unlikely but world-catastrophic disasters. Yet such threats are real, both natural and human-induced. We need to collectively get better at anticipating and preparing for them, at the level of political action. Andrew Leigh is an academic and author who now serves in the Parliament of Australia. We discuss how to move the conversation about existential risks from the ivory tower to implementation in real policies.

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Andrew Leigh received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing Fenner. He was previously a professor of economics at Australian National University, and has served as Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. His recent book is What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics.

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