Environmental risks are the top three concerns among the 1,000 global decision-makers surveyed in the latest Global Risks Perception Survey of the World Economic Forum (WEF). For the third straight year, “extreme weather” ranked first, followed by “failed climate change mitigation” and “natural disasters”. The survey was part of a WEF annual report produced in advance of the recent confab of global leaders in Davos, Switzerland. The World Bank has calculated that the real cost of natural disasters to the global economy is $520 billion per year.

This article appears in the April 2019 issue of Natural Awakenings.