If the world seems more dangerous -buffeted more than before by natural and human-caused disasters, severe weather, political unrest and financial instability-it is no illusion. Catastrophes are on the rise, and experts say the trend is neither temporary nor coincidental. "I call it the new risk architecture," says Erwann Michel-Kerjan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and co-leader of Wharton's Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. "like it or not, it is reality." Are things really that much worse today than they have been historically? Or are they magnified on a planet shrunk by globalization and mass media? There are empirical measures, to be sure, but perceptions matter, and they are evolving.
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