 The World Economic Forum's Global Risks 2012 report is based on a survey of 469 experts from industry, government, academia, and civil society. The survey captures the perceived impact, likelihood, and interconnections of 50 prevalent global risks. These risks are divided into five categories, economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological. The report also identifies five centers of gravity, one for each risk category. These are chronic fiscal imbalances, greenhouse gas emissions, global governance failure, unsustainable population growth, and critical systems failure. Each of these are linked by four critical connectors, severe income disparity, major systemic financial failure, unforeseen negative consequences of regulation, and extreme volatility in energy and agricultural prices. There are 449 interconnections. The report examines in-depth three main risk cases. The cases are titled The Seeds of Dystopia, How Safe Are Our Safeguards, and The Dark Side of Connectivity. The report also highlights X-Factors, emerging concerns with still unknown consequences that warrant further research. These X-Factors include volcanic winter, cyber-neotribalism, and epigenetics. This year's special report features an initial analysis of the unprecedented disaster that took place in Japan on March 11, 2011. Global risks do not respect borders, and the aim of the Global Risk Report is to help countries, communities, and companies to work together to address these risks today before they become major problems tomorrow.