Together with the news media, the informational and reputational component of availability cascades cause people to adhere to beliefs which are not based on much evidence and are not well thought out. When people have uninformed opinions of risk and instead rely on the emotions of others as an indication of how they should feel, the government often feels compelled to use funds to reduce risk. As Sunstein and Kuran highlight in their work, the emotional upheaval by the masses caused by incidents like the Love Canal, Alar, and the crash of TWA flight 800, pressures Congress into action. As one example, President Clinton approved a bill which allocated six billion dollars toward protecting our citizens from terrorism. This bill was passed even though there were no clear signs that any sort of terrorism was involved in the crash of TWA flight 800.
Catastrophic events are unknown, uncontrollable risks that can affect a large number of people.
This is not true for other types of risks. As shown in the Love Canal incident, both the media, friends, relatives and neighbors have the power to rally people toward a cause. They can evoke emotions of anger and disgust and cause them to demand change. This can also lead people to become less sensitive to low-probability events. Another issue that one must raise is people's ability to compare risks that are of a different nature when evaluating low probability events.