Risk evaluation is not neutral but shaped by sociocultural, epistemic, and moral standards. Their impacts are not “real” but rather virtual representations of anxieties given the certain contexts and moral structures embodied in the aff which shape how we interpret reality.

The separation of time and space, disembedding, reflexive modernity, and manufactured uncertainty as distinguishing features of early and late modernity are associated with the emergence and embedding of risk throughout contemporary society and in this context, the work of Ulrich Beck and other sociologists is relevant. It explains how risk is an anticipatory process, global in reach, and shaped by knowledge, social definition, and construction that in turn shapes individual perception. It also explains how risk can be amplified or attenuated by relations of power and how, ultimately, it is we as individuals who must shoulder much of the responsibility for risk management. As a generalisation, all concepts of risk (pre-modernity and modernity) establish the distinction between reality and possibility. If the future is either predetermined (such as in the religious context of fate, predestination, karma, or the will of Allah), or independent of present human activities (such as a bushfire that has no impact on humans or their environment), the term “risk” makes no sense. Therefore, the term “risk” denotes the possibility that an undesirable state of reality (adverse effects) may occur as a result of natural events or human activities sometime in the future. This implies that, as humans, we can and will make causal connections between actions (or events) and their effects, and that undesirable effects can be avoided or mitigated if the causal events or actions are avoided or modified (Krimsky & Golding, 1992). Risk, then, does not mean disaster or catastrophe, but rather the anticipation of disaster or catastrophe, which exists in a permanent state of virtuality, only becoming “topical” to the extent that it is anticipated. Or put another way, risks are not “real,” they are “becoming real.” At the moment in which risks become real—for example, in the shape of a natural hazard event—they cease to be risks and become disasters or catastrophes. At this point, their consequences dictate that risk has already moved elsewhere—to the anticipation of further events such as inflation, supply chain interruptions, or the restriction of civil liberties. Risks are always events that are not yet real. Without techniques of visualisation, symbolic forms, or mass media, risks are nothing at all (Beck, 2009b; Beck et al., 2013). Whilst the term “risk” is generally pertinent to the modern age, its deeper meaning has evolved over time, seeping into European languages in the last 400 years, where there remains a distinct lack of consensus about the etymology of “risk.” Some historians believe that the term derives from the Arabic word “risq,” which refers to the acquisition of wealth and good fortune (Skeat, 1910). Others have claimed that “risk” finds its origins in the Latin word “risco” and was first used as a navigational term by sailors entering uncharted waters (Strydom, 2003).Still others have claimed that these two derivations of risk were soldered together in the 17th century initially through the principle of maritime insur-ance and then extended into banking, finance and health between the 18th and 20th centuries (Hubbard, 2020). In this context, risk came to relate to the bal-ance between acquisitive opportunities and potential dangers (Wilkinson, 2002). In other words, early modernity was dominated by “external risks”—risks that could somehow be perceived as independent of the actions of the individuals, could be reasonably well calculated, and could be subjected to actuarial tables. Calculating the risks associated with unemployment and sickness on institu-tional profitability is but one example (Giddens, 1999b). However, as also argued by Anthony Giddens (1990) and Giddens and Pierson (1998), for the first time in the course of human history late modernity has created the environment to evolve risk to the global level. This includes radio-activity, which completely evades human perceptive abilities, and toxins and pollutants in the air, the water and foodstuffs, together with the accompany-ing short and long-term effects on plants, animals and people (Beck, 1992). Climate change and its deleterious effects on humanity, such as mass migration and monumental shifts in food production and water supply, have also become a truly “global risk” (Baldwin, 2017). Not only are these risks dangerous, but they are also generally not easily per-ceived or understood. They are complex risks which include patterned processes of increased danger, such as background radiation, ozone depletion, global warming and global dimming. They are permanent rather than temporary, global rather than local, and manufactured by us in practical and ideological ways. Also, while some people are more affected than others, for the distribution and growth of the more traditional risks—such as poverty (due to inequalities such as class, race, gender and social strata positions)—risks of late modernity sooner or later also strike those who produce or profit from them. The ecological disaster that these risks create as future consequences (such as climate change and nuclear radiation) ignore the borders of nations and the rich/poor differentials, threat-ening not only the health of humans and the environment but also property and profit. Simultaneously, they undermine the order of national jurisdictions, producing new international inequalities, not only between the Third World and the industrial states but also among the industrial states themselves (Beck, 1992). Hence, these risks are abstract processes in the sense that we cannot necessarily directly see or feel them, but they are material in the sense that they involve the changing form of nature itself or of our societies and their patterns of production and reproduction (Handmer & James, 2007). They are future-oriented and based on causal interpretations, and therefore initially only exist in terms of the (scientific or anti-scientific) knowledge about them rather than through experience. Also, while this knowledge shapes us, paradoxically, so does our denial and/or ignorance of it. Therefore, risks can be changed, magnified, dramatised, or minimised within knowledge, and to that extent, they are particularly open to social definition and construction. As a result, institutions such as governments, the mass media, and the scientific and legal professions in charge of defining risks become key influencers in determining what is or is not “at risk” or “risky” (Beck, 1992, 2009b). The social definition and construction of risks can be viewed as a simultaneous process of the experience of potential risks intersecting with the way institutions and individuals perceive them. These perceptions are informed by social systems and value structures which influence the extent in which risks are either amplified or attenuated (Kasperson & Kasperson, 1996). Social amplification and attenuation of risk occurs through information processes, institutional structures, social group behaviour and individual responses. These intensify or weaken signals that individuals and social groups receive. They also filter the multitude of signals regarding the attributes of the risk and their importance (Kasperson & Kasperson, 1996; Kasperson et al., 1988).This information and filtering are shaped and influenced by scientists, risk management institutions, media, social activists and opinion leaders, personal networks, and public agencies, as well as by us as individuals. It is done through filtering (only processing a fraction of the information coming through), de-coding and processing (interpreting). It is also done by attaching values, in-teracting with social and cultural peers, formulating behavioural intentions, and finally, engaging in individual or group actions to either accept, ignore, tolerate or change the risk (Kasperson et al., 1988).Often, through the process of amplification and attenuation, our “reality” can be dramatised or minimised, transformed, or simply denied, according to the norms which decide what is known and what is not. Our realities can become the products of struggles and conflicts over definitions of risk within the context of specific relations of definitional power (Beck, 2009a). Put simply, in most cases, it is those who are in power who ultimately decide what is “risky” and what is not.