Battle Book Club: Running the Risk – From Shark Attacks to Nuclear Disaster
Battle of Ideas Festival 18 October 2025, 16.45-18.15, Westminster Room, Church House, Westminster, London. Please join us at this event: Battle Book Club: Running the Risk – From Shark Attacks to Nuclear Disaster
This is the book:
‘RUNNING THE RISK: Understanding life’s biggest risks and how we build a safer future’, by David Burrett Reid.
Here is a description of the key topics:
Risk is everywhere. Taking the bus, crossing the street, swimming in the ocean, going somewhere alone. Everything is risky – and we are, in many ways, more concerned about life’s riskiness than ever before. In Running the Risk: From Shark Attacks to Nuclear Disaster – understanding life’s biggest risks and how we build a safer future, David Reid aims to help us navigate a world full of risks.
Some risks we accept, like sitting next to a person on the Tube and hoping they don’t have a virus. Some risks we find harder to welcome as a fact of life, like shark attacks and plane crashes. The unknown risk affects people differently. Some still swim in the ocean and fly on planes, while some stick to swimming in lakes and traveling by train.
Some risks are merely par for the course of life, but some are preventable, and have only arisen in the contemporary world due to contemporary problems. Delving into issues like climate change, nuclear instability and AI advancements surpassing human capabilities, Reid illustrates what risk is, and how we can learn to live with and mitigate it.
Running the Risk is more than a grim explanation of modern issues; it is a guide to ‘building resilience’ and navigating the interconnected world. Drawing on historical examples like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Reid masters the art of risk and elucidates how our world can be made safer, healthier and happier.
Are sentiments like ‘no risk, no reward’ courageous or dangerous? Is mitigating risk crucial to happiness or a barrier to it? Is security necessary for well-being? Will the world ever truly be risk-free? Should it be?
David Burrett Reid’s biography:
An expert in strategic communications, David Burrett Reid is a member of the executive leadership team of Lloyd’s Register Foundation. A former physicist, David is also passionate about communicating science and the need to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. He was the Director of The Times Cheltenham Science Festival and led public engagement for various organisations including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Institute of Physics (IOP). He is the founder and executive chairman of Matter PR, one of the world’s only communications agencies specialising in helping science and engineering organisations. He is a Board Trustee of The Oxford Trust which encourages the pursuit of science, and The BRE Trust, an independent charity dedicated to improving the built environment for the benefit of all. –This text refers to the hardcover edition of the book.
There will be three three respondent speakers to David:
gambling writer and poker player
journalist, writer and broadcaster; author, Technology is Not the Problem and Big Data: does size matter?; presenter, Radio 4’s FutureProofing and How to Disagree
deputy director, Progress Educational Trust; author, AI: Separating Man from Machine
I will be chairing this session:
Dr. Dominic Standish: writer and commentator on risk; professor, University of Iowa; author, Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and Reality. Dominic holds a PhD in the sociology of environmental risk. He is the author of Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and Reality (2012) and has produced and chaired previous Battle of Ideas sessions related to environmental risk.
Dominic has had chapters published in seven books. He has been published in a wide range of newspapers and websites. Dominic’s comments have been published by the New York Times. His remarks have been broadcast on radio programmes, including on The Documentary on BBC World Service and Counterpoint on ABC Radio National Australia. He has been interviewed on TV programmes for the Discovery Channel, Al Jazeera, TRT World, Euronews, GB News, TalkTV and Sky News live. Dominic has also been interviewed for many podcasts.
Dominic lives in Italy and is currently writing a chapter for a book about Venice and ‘overtourism’ in a book to be published in January 2026.
David introducing his book:
Sandy and Timandra at the festival session:
David and Dominic at the festival session:
Follow Dominic on X/Twitter: @domstandish
Dstandish's Weblog 