Perception and evaluation of risks : findings of the "Baden-Württemberg risk survey 2001"

Abstract

Modern society has been preoccupied with the notion of risk (Jaeger et al. 2001, Beck 1992, Short 1984). Advances in science and technology have enabled societies to accelerate the speed of technological change and to extent the scope and magnitude of human interventions into nature and the life-world. This process has been accompanied by a major societal effort to assess, simulate, control, and mitigate the potential consequences of this change. The task of predicting and ultimately avoiding adverse consequences of human actions is based on the common understanding that future events are not unavoidable occurrences, caused by God, nature, or fate, but that society has the intellectual capability and the moral obligation to shape the future and to protect its members from potential harm.