I was also going to release this one over Halloween, but I think that for the reasons that you will hear, it's far, far more appropriate to release it now. My guest is Dr. Merlin Tuttle, and today we talk about the conservation of bats. Merlin is a well-known American conservationist. He is the founder of Merlin Tuttle's Bat Conservation. He has studied and photographed bats for over 60 years, and in so doing, he has changed the perception of bats, from that of bats being an animal to be feared to one of them being valuable, safe, even cute, and likable. Bats also play an important role in protecting plant species, controlling deadly mosquito populations, and reducing the reliance on pesticides.
However, there is a lot more work to do because forest habitats of bats are disappearing, and bat populations are vulnerable. And as you will hear, the fear of bats is still a huge factor in all of this. This is also a conversation about fear. And we discuss that. Merlin shares his background, how and why he developed the largest collection of bat photographs anywhere in the world, bats and contagious diseases (and the myths around that). We also talk about Merlin's work protecting the bat colony of the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, which has now become a world-famous tourist site, and so much more.
Show notes:
Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation
James Fairhead’s paper on the Ebola virus
Bats on the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas
Exaggerated Disease Warnings - here you can find articles, citations, infographics for sharing all about bats and disease.
Finding, Protecting and Restoring America's Historic Bat Caves
Pesticide Addiction: How Bats Can Help
All about Austin's bats, www.austinbats.org
About MTBC field trips:
Citizen Scientists: In Search of Bats
Videos:
Bats are Austin's Favorite Neighbors
Of Agaves and Bats film, https://vimeo.com/
More videos for all bat values, https://www.
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Today's episode is a wonderful look at organizational culture, performative risk management, that is risk management theatre, ways to quickly assess a healthy culture, and much more.
My guest is the brilliant Dr. Roger Miles.
For those of you who don't know him, Roger researches and engages with many kinds of organisations about how people perceive risk and make decisions under uncertainty. He has worked on, studied, and advised organizations about ethics, culture, psychology, and risk, decision-making under stress, and many more areas.
He is the author of Conduct Risk Management: Using a Behavioral Approach to Protect Your Board and Financial Services.
Conduct risk simply means the risk of people behaving badly.
He's also the lead author of Culture Audit in Financial Services.
And this conversation came about, because of an interaction I had with Roger about performative risk management – that is, stuff that happens only for show, not because it's actually helpful. And we talk about that, and it turns out that there is a long history of it.
However, there is so much more in this wonderful episode, which covers everything from
authoritarianism, unethical contracts, abstracts, codes of practice, AI, cognitive diversity, and a lot more.
Show notes:
Conduct Risk Management: Using a Behavioral Approach to Protect Your Board and Financial Services
Culture Audit in Financial Services.
Mission Improbable by Lee Clarke
States of Denial by Stanley Cohen
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Drop us a note: allthingsrisk@gmail.com