Definition: People estimate the probability of an event or frequency of something by the ease with which instances come to mind.

Insights:

1. When people remember things not because of their actual frequency, but because it is vivid, gory, distinctive, or emotional - they will overestimate how likely it is.
2. The news can make people miscalibrated.

References:

1. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman defined the availability heuristic.

Insights:

1. When people are first confronted with information that challenges their existing beliefs, it can make them even more committed to those beliefs, even if they are wrong.
2. Belief systems can change by generation.

Examples:

1. Carbon emissions and the environment.

Insights:

1. People benefit from other's sacrifices and suffer from their own - so everyone has an incentive to free ride, and everyone suffers.
2. A solution is an authority that can punish free riders, however government with that power is unlikely to restrict power to maximising the common good.
3. Carbon pricing/taxes combine government and market intervention.