Global Risk Quotes

Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, miscalculation or madness.

The atomic clock ticks faster and faster. We may anticipate a state of affairs in which the Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other but only at risk of his own life.

Having excessive power in the hands of one country meant the fate of the world was too dependent on what happened in that one country.

I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb.

Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a mistake, the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture.

We must eliminate all nuclear weapons in order to eliminate the grave risk they pose to our world. This will require persistent efforts by all countries and peoples. A nuclear war would affect everyone, and all have a stake in preventing this nightmare.

Today we are aware as never before of the plurality of human life-styles and possibilities, while at the same time being tied, like in an old silent movie, to a runaway locomotive rushing headlong toward a very singular catastrophe

The consequence of a world full of nuclear powers to me is so incomprehensible in terms of the dangers that that implies.

I don't think that Iran with a nuclear capability will be just the problem of the state of Israel. This is a matter that concerns the whole world.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

I was no longer the man whose mistake could involve the world in war.

Radiation doesn't recognize borders. A meltdown in Japan or India, say, is a danger to the whole world. Wind circulates the radiation everywhere. Water quality is affected. We all eat the same fish. We use products from all over the world - if something is contaminated, it will cause harm.

I view current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous, creating unacceptable risks to other nations and to our own"

Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen...We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century.

The gravest threat faced by the world is of an extremist group getting hold of nuclear weapons or materials.

Young people were once considered relatively safe from HIV/AIDS. Today, their lives and futures are at risk throughout the world because of this disease. I believe it is young people throughout the world who offer us the greatest hope for defeating this deadly pandemic.

Mankind runs a major risk of the shortage of fresh water. Water is a major source of life but could well be a major source of conflict.

What Pakistan has not realized is that if you are an unstable country, and economically in a crisis, it doesn't really pay to have a nuclear device, because that device, too, becomes unstable

Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War, and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.

Civilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis.

Colonization means potential immortality for the human genus. Man's safety on Earth was never great, and it dwindles hourly. Disarmament, even world government, will not guarantee survival in an age when population presses natural resources to the limit and when the knowledge of how to work mischief on a planetary scale is ever more widely diffused among peoples who may grow ever more desperate.

We all have to be concerned about the world being very dangerous.

Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet.

For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.

Nuclear terrorism is one of the most serious threats of our time. Even one such attack could inflict mass casualties and create immense suffering and unwanted change in the world forever. This prospect should compel all of us to act to prevent such a catastrophe.