ABSTRACT
Concerns about safety have always been present. Today, however, they are articulated in a new way. If formerly one referred to ‘fate’ or ‘God’s will’ and misfortune was accepted as an inevitable fact, now we speak of ‘risks’. This change in language points to a change in our attitude to hazards. People who speak of ‘risks’ assume that the actual manifestation of a hazard is not inevitable. And they will start looking for options to reduce the likelihood of the hazard, or for means to limit its damage. They conceive of hazards from a social engineering perspective.
