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Your neighbor’s (third party) operational hazards can generate risks requiring a strategic shift.

Your neighbor’s (third party) operational hazards can generate risks requiring a strategic shift. We live in a complex interconnected world which generates interdependencies some times very difficult to detect/understand. Interdependencies are of different kinds: physical, geographical, logical, cyber. Your neighbor’s (third party) operational hazards can generate risks requiring a strategic shift. Here are some examples of interdependencies The US Pentagon mistakenly sent live anthrax to at least nine labs in the US and to a US military base in South Korea…

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BBQ risks probability uncertainty unpredictability

risks probability uncertainty unpredictability Today it’s kinda windy, some clouds, I feel just fine, but my wife thinks it’s cold when the sun goes incognito behind the clouds. Quite an uncertain weather, right? Focus now on the possible downward outcome: rain later in the day, during our open air BBQ (rain is the hazard, BBQ is the part of the system which will be potentially hit). We can measure the related uncertainty using the POP (Probability of Precipitation) released by…

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Mining in the Appalachians, West Virginia, and Health Consequences to neighboring population.

Mining in the Appalachians, West Virginia, and Health Consequences We have recently read about US Federal officials planning to recommend the National Academy of Sciences to review a series of studies that have found residents living near mountaintop removal mining operations facing increased rates of serious illnesses and premature death. The request is a consequence of more than two dozens of peer-reviewed publications by Former West Virginia University researcher Michael Hendryx and other scientists stating that residents living near mountaintop…

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Is it true that bite-sized development are less risky than mega mines?

bite-sized development are less risky than mega mines? The world’s gold miners and most likely other capital intensive industries are changing their views: after decades of mega projects, many of which have backfired or proven to be disastrous, the new credo is “bigger isn’t better”. At Riskope we have been in the situation where we had to exhort clients to pull the plug on such projects following the results of preliminary holistic risk assessments: very painful moments indeed, when you…

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Systems failures of Metro/Subway systems in Santiago de Chile and Toronto

Systems failures of Metro/Subway systems Over a period of less than one year, multiple system failures have put down Metro/ Subway networks of Santiago de Chile and Toronto, stranding up to 100,000 commuters. In both cases the problems stemmed from power failures (investigations still underway, as far as we know). In both case there was no or very limited alternative, or as the media and some politicians have feasted-on, “no plan B”. The failures were so significant because both the…

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