We sit down with Dr. Seth Baum, Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute and research affiliate at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. We explore how societies understand and prepare for global-scale threats—from climate change and pandemics to nuclear conflict and artificial intelligence. Dr. Baum explains why uncertainty is the defining feature of catastrophic risk, why markets struggle to price the unthinkable, and why collective action and governance are essential to tackling the crises that no private market can solve.