In a climate-change context, risk often refers to how the environment can be measured, calculated, and predicted for economic and legal ends such as insurance or infrastructure. It also involves assigning value or probability to unknown (and often unknowable) environmental conditions (see D.T. Cochrane’s recurring SDUK columns on the friction between the economy and the environment). In broader terms, risk management attempts to predict and plan for events that elude understanding and estimation, as in the “act of God” clause that appears in many insurance policies. For tangible examples of how risk factors into urban planning, see the work of the Ontario Climate Consortium.