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Thursday Aug. 23, 2018

Risk?

Moderate-high.

Sounds reasonable …

Not investments of horse races – think sky-divers, mountain climbers, commuters – and lately, breathers?

We tend to the cavalier – living amidst risk. Road risk. Health risk. Career risk. Investment risk. Relationship risk. Conflict/war risk. We insure cars, homes, lives – hedges our risks but eliminates none. Some risks, high, but tolerable. Some so low as to be insignificant. I live in a highly desirable city [4th most livable in the world*]

How about breathing risk; something I’ve always ‘just assumed’, but given forest fire smoke pollution we’ve been confronting here lately, it is one more risk for everyone.

As I was checking the ‘air quality index’ the other day it showed a ‘4’ (4-6 is moderate) at 7:00AM. It showed a ‘4’ at 5PM. How could that be when I was checking at 7:26AM? It wasn’t the real risk – it was someone’s guess at the real risk. I checked the weather forecast – my phone app says it will be raining this morning. It makes sense then that some rain will reduce the smoke in the air. That ‘second-hand smoke’ has been filling our skies and our lungs for a couple of weeks now and it makes me cautious about getting out for a bike ride …

Someone fell off a mountain the other day near Canmore. 30. Hiking. Then dead.

What was their risk?

Moderate?

What risk do you accept?

Is moderate what you want, or none at all?

Aversion to risk – more than prudent posture regarding investments and health – seems to be, as I look around my world, that moderate-high is the risk level our society lives with.

*-according to an Economist survey Calgary is THAT good …


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