This is a nice piece of risk communication from Dominic Walliman at Domain of Science (which I discovered on Open Culture.com). The “map” is actually a log-log plot of severity (number of deaths) and likelihood (average return period), but this guy manages to convey all that in a digestible way without dumbing it down. You can just stare at the chart, but in this case it really is worth watching the video.

So what should we be paying more attention to? Well, we might actually pay more attention to pandemics now, and we should. The AIDS pandemic has actually been really bad, and is a good example of how we can just get used to and accept a hugely terrible event that unfolds over a long time. Also antibiotic resistance, synthetic biology, and some complex of climate change/ecosystem collapse/food supply issues. This last he explains pretty well and succinctly between about minutes 12 and 13, so that is worth watching if you have only one minute.

If I were a politician, I would want a chart like this on my wall, prepared by experts in risk management and system theory, and tapping into experts on each of the major risks. I would also want to add more mundane risks that are certain to happen and killing a lot of people, like air pollution, motor vehicle crashes (and pedestrian and cyclist deaths), and diabetes. Then I would tackle some of the worst ones and try to align my policies and budget allocations with them. Not glamorous stuff, but I would hire this guy to try to help explain it to the public. If he wasn’t available, I would pick another photogenic person with a soft and pleasing British (Australian?) accent to help.