Predicting and Preventing the Unwanted
With a nod to David Cameron, ex Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who succinctly said what he thought of the election of Jean-Claude Juncker to the position of President of the European Commission, the risk matrix is the wrong…
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Accident theory places such an emphasis on the idea of ’cause’ that it is often hard for people to understand the relative insignificance of this concept. Heinrich understood that while one thing may ’cause’ an ‘accident’ something else altogether might…
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I have been teaching the three basics of risk science for a long time now: you have to have energy for damage to occur; the process of damage takes some time and this allows us to understand the anatomy of…
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This topic is only going to grow, as might be expected. I read a newspaper report (i newspaper, United Kingdom 18th July 2016) of the first known fatal accident involving an autonomous car, a Tesla, the software in which was unable to distinguish…
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Since early 2010 I have been keeping a record of the cases that make headlines, at least the headlines I see. My sources are the TV news and national newspapers in both Australia and the UK. At present I have…
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My source of information for this article is a Scientific American article. This extraordinary story began on October 23rd 2015 at the Canyon Gas Storage Field “the largest underground Methane storage in the Western United States”. Evidently large quantities of gas…
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This is an example I recently saw, in the foyer of a university School of applied science. Its presence there, as the first thing one saw when entering was striking. It said to me this is our science, this exemplifies what…
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The Scape Goat From Wikipedia: A scapegoat is a person or animal which takes on the sins of others, or is unfairly blamed for problems. The concept comes originally from Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert…
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The Samarco mine tailings dam failure draws my attention to the gulf that I have seen existing between general safety practices in a company and operational safety practices. General safety, as practised by occupational safety and health practitioners, is typically…
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The condition known as ‘black lung’ (a form of pneumoconiosis affecting coal miners), long thought to be no longer a problem in the coal industry in Australia, has been found to have recurred. An ABC report (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-01/’black-lung’-makes-comeback-in-queensland-coal-mines/6990842 viewed 24/12/15) says that this…
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