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Survival MD By Dr. Scurtu By Brian Williams on Wed, 12 Aug 2020 More Information Survival MD by Robert Grey and Dr. Radu Scurtu, is a comprehensive survival guidebook focusing on preparing user and their family in emergency, when there is lack of medical facilities and pharmacies during crisis, such as natural disaster, terrorist attack, or complete economic collapse. You will learn how to create a real Medical First Aid Kit. The first aid kit will save your life. You should not have doubts about it. The guide will also teach you what to stock up starting today so that you are more prepared than ever. Creating the perfect first aid kit is not simple. It has to be complete and it has to be light so that you can carry it around with you. Since most crisis are difficult to predict and can come at any time, its important to remember that preparation is the best way to combat disaster. Not having the right knowledge and skills in case of an unexpected emergency can literally mean the difference between life and death. As a caring family man who has spent years researching survival education, I personally recommend the Survival MD program as I truly believe that it is one of the best and most comprehensive survival systems available. More here... Survival MD Summary Rating: 4.8 stars out of 25 votes Contents: Ebooks

Author: Robert Grey and Dr. Radu Scurtu

Official Website: www.survivalmd.org

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Natural hazards and us Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | The End of the World Of the hazards that many of our fellow inhabitants of planet Earth have to face almost on a daily basis. The reinsurance company Munich Re., who, for obvious reasons, have a considerable interest in this sort of thing, estimate that up to 15 million people were killed by natural hazards in the last millennium, and over 3.5 million in the last century alone. At the end of the second millennium AD, the cost to the global economy reached unprecedented levels, and in 1999 storms and floods in Europe, India, and South East Asia, together with severe earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan and devastating landslides in Venezuela, contributed to a death toll of 75,000 and economic losses totalling 100 billion US . The last three decades of the twentieth century each saw a billion or so people suffer due to natural disasters. Unhappily, there is little sign that hazard impacts on society have diminished as a consequence of improvements in forecasting and hazard mitigation, and the outcome of the...

Emergency Planning and Community Rightto Know Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Pollution Guide The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) is also known as SARA Title III since it was enacted as a freestanding law included in the SuperfUnd Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA). This law obligates facilities to provide local, state, and federal agencies with information on hazardous materials stored or in use at the premises. EPCRA covers four key issues emergency response planning, emergency release notification, reporting hazardous chemical storage, and toxic chemical release inventory (TRI). It, however, in no way limits what chemicals may be used, stored, transported, or disposed of at a facility. EPCRA was enacted in response to the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, where residents and emergency responders were unaware of and unprepared for the lethal chemicals in their immediate environment. The State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) and Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs) must be given information concerning facilities in their...

Is The Doomsday Argument Easily Refuted Last Updated on Tue, 23 Feb 2016 | Human Extinction Already embattled on other fronts, Carter has presented the doomsday argument only in lectures and seminars, never in print. However, I published it on p. 214 of Universes in a long foot-note. Since then I have investigated it in several articles. The argument is certainly controversial. So far, however, I have managed to find only one good ground for doubting it. Suppose that the cosmos is radically indeterministic, perhaps for reasons of quantum physics. Suppose also that the indeterminism is likely to influence how long the human race will survive. There then isn't yet any relevant firm fact, 'out there in the world' and in theory predictable by anybody who knew enough about the present arrangement of the world's particles, concerning how long it will survive like the fact that hidden cards include a definite number of aces, a number you are trying to estimate, or like the fact that exactly nine or exactly sixty names remain to be drawn from a lottery urn, after your own name has... Surviving World War III Survive Global Water Shortages Learn How To Survive Energy Crisis

Changing sea levels and natural hazards Wed, 19 Oct 2016 | Environmental Change Sea levels have changed throughout geological time (e.g. Haq et al., 1987) in response to a range of different and sometimes interacting isostatic, eustatic and tectonic processes (Dawson, 1992 Box 6.1). Natural hazards related to such sea-level change are surprisingly many and varied, and the relationship between the two is often far from clear. Broadly speaking, rising sea levels can be expected to increase the threat to coastal zones, primarily owing to the inundation or flooding of low-lying terrain (see Chapter 3) but also through increased erosion, d stabilisation and collapse of elevated coastlines. Higher sea levels will also exacerbate the impact and destructive potential of storm surges and tsunami, partly because of the elevated level of the sea surface but also through increasing the exposure of many coastlines as a result of inundation of wetlands and other protective environments. The hazard implications of falling sea levels are less obvious, although it has been...

Environmental change and natural hazards the impact in the twentyfirst century Last Updated on Wed, 22 Jan 2020 | Environmental Change 8.1), and based upon the second Hadley Centre climate model. Assuming unmitigated greenhouse emissions, the report predicts a global temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius by 2080, accompanied by a 41-cm rise in global mean sea level. Substantial diebacks of tropical forests and grasslands are forecast, while forest growth is promoted at higher latitudes. Water availability is predicted to fall in some parts of the world while rising in others, and patterns of cereal yields are expected to undergo similar dramatic changes. In natural hazard terms, an increase in coastal flooding is the most obvious consequence of the forecast changes, and the UK Met Office itself predicts a rise in the number of people affected annually from 13 to 94 million. Population growth in coastal zones is estimated using a projection of existing trends and assumes that the frequency of storms remains constant. Changes in either of these parameters would result in an even greater rise in coastal flood impact. In...

Natural hazards the human dimension Sat, 03 Jun 2017 | Environmental Change The impact of natural hazards on society is clearly on the rise, although it still falls far below that due to environmental degradation and, in particular, civil strife (Fig. 8.1). Figures for the period 1900-90 indicate that almost 90 per cent of disaster-related deaths over the period can be attributed to war and famine, with all the natural hazards together making up the remainder. Notwithstanding this, the numbers of people affected by natural hazards during the 1970s and 1980s fell little short of a billion - somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of the Earth's population. With over 250 million people being affected by the 1996 and 1998 Chinese floods alone, similar figures for the last decade of the millennium are likely easily to top the billion mark. The increasing impact of natural hazards over the past halfcentury is without doubt linked to rapidly rising populations in particularly vulnerable regions. At greatest risk are the poorest inhabitants of developing countries,...

The Future of Disaster Preparedness Sun, 20 Aug 2017 | Pollution Guide As losses increase and casualties remain frequent and widespread, the problem of natural catastrophes is topical and pressing. Expertise is gradually accumulating on how to best tackle disaster, and new agencies for managing it are forming at the local, regional, national, and international levels. For such efforts to succeed, rigorous standards need to be established for emergency planning, management, and training. There needs to be more investment in both structural and nonstructural mitigation As it is based on organization rather than civil engineering, the latter is often more cost-effective than the former. From the point of view of understanding disaster as a phenomenon, more attention needs to be given to the role of context and culture in perceiving and interpreting the needs generated by hazards and disaster impacts. see also Economics.

What are natural hazards Wed, 06 Mar 2019 | Environmental Change Although the nomenclature is sometimes ambiguous, natural hazards are usually defined as extreme natural events that pose a threat to people, their property and their possessions. Natural hazards become natural disasters if and when this threat is realised. Rapid-onset natural hazards, which form the focus of this book, can be distinguished from the often disastrous consequences of environmental degradation, such as desertification and drought, not only by their sudden occurrence but also by their relatively short duration. Natural hazards that are geophysical in nature, rather than biological, such as insect infestations or epidemics, arise from the normal physical processes operating in the Earth's interior, at its surface, or within its enclosing atmospheric envelope. Most geophysical hazards can be conveniently allocated to one or other of three categories geological (earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides), atmospheric (windstorms, severe precipitation, temperature extremes, and...

Carters doomsday argument Wed, 06 Mar 2019 | Human Extinction After what has just been said, it should come as no surprise that some centrally important principles of risk analysis have only lately been noticed and are sometimes violently resisted. Brandon Carter's doomsday argument is a prime example. As will be examined at greater length in Chapter 5, the argument exploits the fact that we ought to prefer (other things being equal) those theories whose truth would have made us more likely to find whatever we have in fact found. While this might seem fairly evidently forceful, many risk analysts have failed to reject Carter's argument only because they have never come across it. They haven't thought of asking themselves and would positively refuse to ask themselves where a human could expect to be in human history.

Preparing and Protecting American Families from the Onslaught of Catastrophe Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Climate Change Risks ProtectingAmerica.org is committed to finding better ways to prepare for and protect American families from the devastation caused by natural catastrophes. I co-chair the organization with James Lee Witt, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and our coalition members include the American Red Cross, other first responder groups, emergency management officials, insurers, municipalities, small businesses, Fortune 100 companies and private citizens. The membership is broad and diverse and includes members from virtually every state in the nation. ProtectingAmerica.org was formed to raise the national awareness about the important responsibility we all have to prepare and protect consumers, families, businesses and communities from natural disasters. We are building a campaign to create a comprehensive, national catastrophe management solution that protects homes and property at a lower cost, improves preparedness and reduces the financial burden on consumers and...

The Doomsday Argument Recapitulation And Then New Comments Sat, 09 Mar 2019 | Human Extinction As this chapter,1 like the others, is intended to be readable in isolation, it starts with a brief recapitulation. The doomsday argument, originated by B.Carter and then published and defended by J.Leslie, with variants by J.R.Gott and H.B.Nielsen, points out that you and I would be fairly unremarkable among human observers if the human race were to end shortly roughly 10 per 'Doomsday argument' can be a misleading label since all that is involved is a magnification of risk-estimates. Suppose, for example, that the 'total risk' of Doom Soon the probability that the human race will, presumably through its dangerous behaviour, become extinct inside some fairly short period is judged by you to be 10 per cent before you consider the argument. When you do come to consider it, this might lead you to a revised estimate of 80 per cent. But notice that the newly estimated 80 per cent risk of Doom Soon, besides being no excuse for utter despair, would have been arrived at against the background...

Weatherrelated natural hazards and climate change Sat, 09 Mar 2019 | Environmental Change Recent weather-related disasters such as the examples in Chapter 1 have demonstrated the vulnerability of many communities to natural hazards caused by extreme weather windstorms, floods, hailstorms, snow and ice storms, droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and cold waves. Therefore any increase in the frequency or severity of such events would probably be the most noticeable and damaging aspect of anthropogenic climate change, particularly where vulnerability to these hazards is also increasing (Houghton, 1997, chapters 1 and 6). Moreover, it has been known for some time that because such events are related to extreme statistical fluctuations in the weather about its average values, changes in average weather conditions (e.g. global warming) can be accompanied by significant changes in the frequency of extreme weather events too (Wigley, 1985). It certainly seems that extreme events such as the great storm of 1987 in the UK and the 1988 heatwave in the USA helped to stimulate public... Surviving a Global Financial Crisis Ideas for Surviving Food Shortages Homestead and Survival Books

NotSoNatural Disasters Mon, 11 Mar 2019 | Global Warming Ajor natural disasters have always happened. Storms, hurricanes, floods, and droughts are all part of the planet's natural weather and climate system. In the future, however, humanity is going to be facing more and more intense versions of these phenomena and they're going to be anything but natural disasters. Civilization or more properly, the greenhouse gases (refer to Chapter 2) that civilization pumps into the atmosphere will bring them on. Earth could be facing more droughts, hurricanes, and forest fires, heavier rainfalls, rising sea levels, and major heat waves. The excess carbon dioxide that people put into the air might even disrupt the carbon cycle and turn the planet's life-support system into a vicious cycle.

Combining Estimated Risks When Using The Doomsday Argument Mon, 11 Mar 2019 | Human Extinction The estimated total risk of Doom Soon cannot possibly exceed 100 per cent, no matter how greatly it is magnified by doomsdayargument considerations. It is therefore very wrong to Suppose, for example, that we started by thinking that the risk associated with high-energy experiments stood at 1 per cent, the only other cloud on the horizon being a 9 per cent risk associated with pollution. The doomsday argument might then perhaps encourage us to re-estimate those risks as each eight times greater than they had initially seemed but certainly not as thirteen times greater, because this would mean estimating the total risk as 130 per cent.

How natural disasters caused by climate change affect women Mon, 11 Mar 2019 | Global Warming Natural disasters, which will increase in the wake of climate change, affect women and men differently. Women, as main caregivers, are more likely to be indoors particularly in developing countries when a disaster occurs and won't be able to escape. Even if they do survive, women tend to stay within the community longer afterwards to care for their families, thus exposing themselves to deadly diseases. Although not linked to global warming, the grave impact that natural disasters have on women can be seen in the death toll from the major Asian tsunami that struck at the end of 2005 and hit the province of Aceh in Indonesia, where 75 percent of those who died were women. When the death toll from natural disasters has significant gender differences, the resulting gender imbalance in the society can have major, long-term negative consequences. The Asian tsunami left the society with a three-to-one ratio of males to females. With so many mothers gone, the area experienced increases in...

The Apocalypse Wagon Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Energy Crisis Average fleet-wide car fuel consumption in Germany is 7.9 liters per 100 kilometers (L 100 km) and well above 12 L 100 km in the ultimate role model for motorization, the US. We could play reasonable and assume that the typical rate of annual oil demand for the Apocalypse Wagon is rapidly reduced in India and China, to two-thirds of the US benchmark, to about 8 L 100 km. We will also assume that India and Chinese cars will only travel 18,000 km year. Annual oil burn per car is therefore around nine barrels year.

Doomsday Argument Thu, 10 Nov 2016 | Global Catastrophic Risks The Doomsday Argument (DA) is an anthropic argument purporting to show that we have systematically underestimated the probability that humankind will become extinct relatively soon. Originated by the astrophysicist Brandon Carter and developed at length by the philosopher John Leslie,8 DA purports to show that we have neglected to fully take into account the indexical information residing in the fact about when in the history of the human species we exist. Leslie (1996) - in what can be considered the first serious study of GCRs facing humanity and their philosophical aspects - gives a substantial weight to DA, arguing that it prompts immediate re-evaluation of probabilities of extinction obtained through direct analysis of particular risks and their causalmechanisms. The balls in each urn are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, Now take one ball at random from the left urn it shows the number 7. This clearly is a strong indication that the left urn contains only 10 balls. If the odds originally...

Natural Disasters Mon, 11 Mar 2019 | Environmental Change Natural disasters earthquakes, floods, hurricanes have always occurred and undoubtedly always will. There are several reasons for mentioning them in a discussion of psychology and the environment. Our knowledge of such events and our growing ability to predict, at least statistically, the occurrence of some of them have implications for behavior. For example, the knowledge that a particular area is highly likely to experience severe earthquakes within a given time span has implications for the kinds of structures that should be allowed in that area and for the kinds of preparations that should be made to deal with such events when they occur. Conversely, human behavior has implications for the consequences of natural disasters that do occur. Careful planning that takes the probabilities of predictable natural disasters into account can lessen their effects planning that ignores those probabilities has the potential to magnify their effects manyfold. The Yucca Mountain site being...

Extreme value statistics Last Updated on Fri, 24 Aug 2018 | Global Catastrophic Risks Global catastrophic risks are extensive, severe, and unprecedented. Insurance and business generally are not geared up to handling risks of this scale or type. Insurance can handle natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and windstorms, financial catastrophes such as stock market failures to some extent, and political catastrophes to a marginal extent. Insurance is best when there is an evidential basis and precedent for legal coverage. Business is best when the capital available matches the capital at risk and the return reflects the risk of loss of this capital. Global catastrophic risks unfortunately fail to meet any of these criteria. Nonetheless, the loss modelling techniques developed for the insurance industry coupled with our deeper understanding of uncertainty and new techniques give good reason to suppose we can deal with these risks as we have with others in the past. Do we believe the fatalist cliche that 'risk is the

Future evolutionary directions Last Updated on Fri, 04 Sep 2020 | Global Catastrophic Risks Even a large global catastrophe such as a 10 km asteroidal cometary impact would not spell doom for our species if we would manage to spread to other solar systems by the time the impactor arrives. We can, however, postulate a number of scenarios, short of extinction, that will test our ability to survive as a species. I will not discuss here scenarios involving intelligent machines or more radical forms of technology-enabled human transformation.

Positive or negative teleologies utopianism and apocalypticism Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Global Catastrophic Risks Although there have been few truly apocalyptic movements or faiths, those which foretell an absolute, unpleasant and unredeemed end of history, there have been points in history with widespread apocalyptic expectation. The stories of the Biblical flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah alerted Christians to the idea that God was quite willing to destroy almost all of humanity for our persistent sinfulness, well before the clock starts on the Tribulation-Millennium timeline. Although most mythic beliefs include apocalyptic periods in the past and future, as with Ragnarok or the Hindu-Buddhist view of a cyclical destruction - recreation of the universe, most myths make apocalypse a transient stage in human history.

Symptoms of dysfunctional millennialism in assessing future scenarios Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Global Catastrophic Risks One symptom of dysfunctional millennialism is often dismissal of the possibility that political engagement and state action could affect the outcome of future events. Although there may be some trends or cataclysms that are beyond all human actions, all four millennialist biases - Utopian, apocalyptic, fatalist, and messianic - underestimate the potential and importance of collective action to bring about the Millennium or prevent apocalypse. Even messianists are only interested in public approbation of their own messianic mission, not winning popular support for a policy. So it is always incumbent on us to ask how engaging with the political process, inspiring collective action, and changing state policy could steer the course of history. The flip side of undervaluing political engagement as too uncertain, slow, or ineffectual is a readiness to embrace authoritarian leadership and millenarian violence in order to achieve quick, decisive, and far-sighted action.

Peter Taylor Catastrophes and insurance Last Updated on Mon, 26 Aug 2019 | Global Catastrophic Risks This chapter explores the way financial losses associated with catastrophes can be mitigated by insurance. It covers what insurers mean by catastrophe and risk, and how computer modelling techniques have tamed the problem of quantitative estimation of many hitherto intractable extreme risks. Having assessed where these techniques work well, it explains why they can be expected to fall short in describing emerging global catastrophic risks such as threats from biotechnology. The chapter ends with some pointers to new techniques, which offer some promise in assessing such emerging risks. Insurance against catastrophes has been available for many years - we need to only think of the San Francisco 1906 earthquake when Cuthbert Heath sent the telegram 'Pay all our policyholders in full irrespective of the terms of their policies' back to Lloyd's of London, an act that created long-standing confidence in the insurance markets as providers of catastrophe cover. For much of this time,...

Encounters with Extraterrestrial Objects Last Updated on Sun, 15 May 2016 | Global Catastrophes The end of 2000, 1,254 and by June 2007, more than 4,100, of which nearly 880 were bodies with diameters 1 km (fig. 2.5). As the findings accumulate, there has been an expected decline in annual discoveries of NEAs with diameters 1 km, and the search has been asymptotically approaching the total number of such NEAs. Consequently, we are now much better able to assess the size-dependent impact frequencies and to quantify the probabilities of encounters whose consequences range from local damage through regional devastation to a global catastrophe. velocities, even small NEOs have kinetic energy equivalent to that of a small nuclear bomb larger bodies can bring regional devastation, and the largest can cause a global catastrophe. after additional observations. Levels 3 and 4 indicate close encounters with 1 or greater chance of collision capable of localized or regional destruction and significant threats of close encounters causing a global catastrophe begin only with level 6. Family Bunker Plans Organic Farming Manual Wilderness Survival Skills

Suggestions for further reading Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Global Catastrophic Risks Anarchists of the Middle Ages (New York Oxford University Press, 1961,1970,1999). The classic text on medieval millennialism. Devotes much attention to Communism and Nazism. Heard, A. (1999). Apocalypse Pretty Soon Travels in End-time America (New York W. W. Norton & Company). A travelogue chronicling a dozen contemporary millennial groups, religious and secular, from UFO cults and evangelical premillennialists to transhumanists and immortalists. Leslie, J. (1998). The End of the World The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction. Grand Rapids MI. CNN. (1998). Survivalists try to prevent millennium-bug bite. October 10. Cohn, N. (1970). The Pursuit of the Millennium Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Working Paper No. 107. http ssm.com abstract 834264 Hall, JR. (2000). Apocalypse Observed Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan (London Routledge). Halpern, P. (2001). Countdown to Apocalypse A Scientific Exploration of the End of the World (New York, NY...

Martin J Rees Foreword Last Updated on Sat, 29 Aug 2020 | Global Catastrophic Risks Throughout the decades of the Cold War, the entire Western World was at great hazard. The superpowers could have stumbled towards Armageddon through muddle and miscalculation. We are not very rational in assessing relative risk. In some contexts, we are absurdly risk-averse. We fret about statistically tiny risks carcinogens in food, a one-in-a-million change of being killed in train crashes, and so forth. But most of us were 'in denial' about the far greater risk of death in a nuclear catastrophe. But, along with these hopes, twenty-first century technology will confront us with new global threats - stemming from bio-, cyber- and environmental-science, as well as from physics -that could be as grave as the bomb. The Bulletin's clock is now closer to midnight again. These threats may not trigger sudden worldwide catastrophe - the doomsday clock is not such a good metaphor - but they are, in aggregate, disquieting and challenging. The tensions between benign and damaging spin-offs from...

Dominant Fuels Enduring Prime Movers Last Updated on Wed, 05 Sep 2018 | Global Catastrophes The modern tradition of concerns about an impending decline in resource extraction began in 1865 with William Stanley Jevons, a leading economist of the Victorian era, who concluded that falling coal output must spell the end of Britain's national greatness because it is of course . . . useless to think of substituting any other kind of fuel for coal (Jevons 1865, 183). Substitute oil for coal in that sentence, and you have the erroneous foundations of the present doomsday sentiments about oil. There is no need to elaborate on how wrong Jevons was. The Jevonsian view was reintroduced by Hubbert (1969) with his correct timing of U.S. oil production, leading those who foresaw an early end to oil reserves to consider Hubbert's Gaussian exhaustion curve with the reverence reserved by Biblical fundamentalists for Genesis.

Nick Bostrom and Milan M Cirkovic Introduction Last Updated on Mon, 10 Sep 2018 | Global Catastrophic Risks The term 'global catastrophic risk' lacks a sharp definition. We use it to refer, loosely, to a risk that might have the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale. On this definition, an immensely diverse collection of events could constitute global catastrophes potential candidates range from volcanic eruptions to pandemic infections, nuclear accidents to worldwide tyrannies, out-of-control scientific experiments to climatic changes, and cosmic hazards to economic collapse. With this in mind, one might well ask, what use is a book on global catastrophic risk The risks under consideration seem to have little in common, so does 'global catastrophic risk' even make sense as a topic Or is the book that you hold in your hands as ill-conceived and unfocused a project as a volume on 'Gardening, Matrix Algebra, and the History of Byzantium' We are confident that a comprehensive treatment of global catastrophic risk will be at least somewhat more useful and...

Pastfuture asymmetry and risk inferences Sat, 09 Mar 2019 | Global Catastrophic Risks Consider the simplest case of a single very destructive global catastrophe, for instance, a worse-than-Toba super-volcanic eruption (see Chapter 10, this volume). The evidence we take into account in a Bayesian manner is the fact of our existence at the present epoch this, in turn, implies the existence of a complicated web of evolutionary processes upon which our emergence is contingent we shall neglect this complication in the present binary toy model and shall return to it in the next subsection. The situation is schematically shown in Fig. 6.1. The a priori probability of catastrophe is Pand the probability of human extinction (or a sufficiently strong perturbation leading to divergence of evolutionary pathways from the morphological subspace containing humans) upon the catastrophic event is Q. We shall suppose that the two probabilities are (1) constant, (2) adequately normalized, and (3) applicable to a particular well-defined interval of past time. Event B2 is the occurence of...

The Earth a potted biography Mon, 11 Mar 2019 | The End of the World Since the first single-celled organisms made their appearance billions of years ago, within sweltering chemical soups brooded over by a noxious atmosphere, life has struggled precariously to survive and evolve against a background of potentially lethal geophysical phenomena. Little has changed today, except perhaps the frequency of global catastrophes, and many on the planet still face a daily threat to life, limb, and livelihood from volcano, quake, flood, and storm. The natural perils that have battered our race in the past, and which constitute a growing future threat, have roots that extend back over 4 billion years to the creation of the solar system and the formation of the Earth from a disc of debris orbiting a primordial Sun. Like our sister planets, the Earth can be viewed as a lottery jackpot winner one of only nine chunks of space debris out of original trillions that managed to grow and endure while the rest annihilated one another in spectacular collisions or were swept...

Introduction anthropic reasoning and global risks Last Updated on Sat, 13 Jul 2019 | Global Catastrophic Risks Different types of global catastrophic risks (GCRs) are studied in various chapters of this book by direct analysis. In doing so, researchers benefit from a detailed understanding of the interplay of the underlying causal factors. However, the causal network is often excessively complex and difficult or impossible to disentangle. Here, we would like to consider limitations and theoretical constraints on the risk assessments which are provided by the general properties of the world in which we live, as well as its contingent history. There are only a few of these constraints, but they are important because they do not rely on making a lot of guesses about the details of future technological and social developments. The most important of these are observation selection effects. In the rest of this chapter, we shall consider several applications of the anthropic reasoning to evaluation of our future prospects first the anthropic overconfidence argument stemming from the past-future...

Conclusions Last Updated on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 | Global Catastrophic Risks The millennial impulse is ancient and universal in human culture and is found in many contemporary, purportedly secular and scientific, expectations about the future. Millennialist responses are inevitable in the consideration of potential catastrophic risks and are not altogether unwelcome. Secular techno-millennials and techno-apocalyptics can play critical roles in pushing reluctant institutions towards positive social change or to enact prophylactic policies just as religious millennialists have in the past. But the power of millennialism comes with large risks and potential cognitive errors which require vigilant self-interrogation to avoid. 86 Global catastrophic risks

Quantifying the Odds Sun, 30 Jul 2017 | Global Catastrophes Scores of millions of people live in regions that are highly susceptible to such natural disasters as hurricanes or earthquakes, posing risks whose magnitude is only 10-10-10-11 per person per hour of exposure. Even in the United States, with its poor rail transport (compared to Europe and Japan), people who travel every day by all natural disasters train enjoy the safest form of public transportation. Traveling by train has a fatality risk of about 10-8, adding a mere 1 to the overall risk of dying while en route. Similarly, the latest generation of jet planes is so reliable that only a rare pilot error (often during inclement weather) causes major accidents. Between 2002 (when there was not a single accident) and 2005 the risks of U.S. commercial aviation were only about 1 x 10-8 (identical to the risk of suicide) as some 600 million passengers boarded planes for trips averaging 2 hours (NTSB 2006). And even during the tragic year of 2001 the annual nationwide mean was about 3.3 x...

Further Reading Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | The End of the World UCL Press. 1998. Bryant, Edward. Tsunami The Underrated Hazard. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Burroughs. William. J. Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. 2001. McGuire, Bill. Apocalypse A Natural History of Global Disasters. Cassell. 1999. Threat to Life on Earth. Barrens. 2002. McGuire, W.J., Kilburn, C. R.J., and Mason, I. M. Natural Hazards and Environmental Change. Arnold, gooi. Newson, L. The Atlas of the World's Worst Natural Disasters. Dorling Kindersley. 1998. Steel. Duncan. Target Earth. Readers Digest, gooo. Zebrowski, E. Jr. Perils of a Restless Planet Scientific Perspectives on Natural Disasters. Cambridge University Press. 1997.

Confirmation bias Last Updated on Thu, 01 Aug 2019 | Global Catastrophic Risks In computer security, a trusted system is one that you are in fact trusting, not one that is in fact trustworthy. A trusted system is a system which, if it is untrustworthy, can cause a failure. When you read a paper which proposes that a potential global catastrophe is impossible, or has a specific annual probability, or can be managed using some specific strategy, then you trust the rationality of the authors. You trust the authors' ability to be driven from a comfortable conclusion to an uncomfortable one, even in the absence of overwhelming experimental evidence to prove a cherished hypothesis wrong. You trust that the authors didn't unconsciously look just a little bit harder for mistakes in equations that seemed to be leaning the wrong way, before you ever saw the final paper.

Technoapocalypticism Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Global Catastrophic Risks Greens and others of an apocalyptic frame of mind were quick to seize on Joy's essay as an argument for the enacting of bans on technological innovation, invoking the 'precautionary principle', the idea that a potentially dangerous technology should be fully studied for its potential impacts before being deployed. The lobby group ETC argued in its 2003 report 'The Big Down' that nanotechnology could lead to a global environmental and social catastrophe, and should be placed under government moratorium. Anxieties about the apocalyptic risks of converging bio-, nano- and information technologies have fed a growing Luddite strain in Western culture (Bailey 2001a, 2001b), linking Green and anarchist advocates for neo-pastoralism (Jones, 2006 Mander, 1992 Sale, 2001 Zerzan, 2002) to humanist critics of technoculture (Ellul, 1967 Postman, 1993 Roszak, 1986) and apocalyptic survivalists to Christian millennialists. The neo-Luddite activist Jeremy Rifkin has, for instance, built coalitions...

Variability of agricultural production Last Updated on Thu, 12 May 2016 | Global Water Security Frost protection has to be set up for the irrigated arable land according to the climate of the country. According to research, the late spring and early autumn frosts are not related to global warming, and agriculture has to be prepared to them. Climate change can influence the frequency of natural disasters, which has to be taken into consideration.

Global warming is a largescale problem Last Updated on Sat, 13 Jul 2019 | Climate Forecast System The market may influence the global warming debate through the insurance industry. We saw in Chapter 12 the huge increase in insurance payout to cover atmospheric-related natural disasters. It is not at all clear to what extent this trend is due to climate or to social factors, but the insurance industry is certainly concerned about the possibility of climate change affecting their bottom line. Insurance companies have been responsible for other preventative measures such as requirements for hard hats on construction sites.

The Framework Convention On Climate Change And The Cop Process Last Updated on Wed, 16 Jan 2019 | Sustainable Development Environment Programme, 2002 Natural Disasters Set to Cost Over 70 Billion (Oct. 29, 2002) available at www.enn.com extras see also WMO, WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2001 (2001) available at (reporting on record floods and other natural weather related disasters in 2001), and John Shaw, The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2002, at 12.

There are large potential gains to IEA countries on the one hand and to China and India on the other from enhanced Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | World Energy Outlook Countries have long recognised the advantages of co-operation with China and India, reflected in a steady broadening of the range of co-operative activities through the IEA and other multilateral and bilateral agreements. These activities need to be stepped up, with China and India establishing a deeper relationship with the Agency. IEA co-operation with China and India on enhancing oil-emergency preparedness and on developing cleaner and more efficient technologies, especially for coal, remains a priority. Collaboration between IEA countries and developing countries, including China and India, is already accelerating deployment of new technologies a development that will yield big dividends in the longer term. Mechanisms need to be enhanced to facilitate and encourage the financing of such technologies in China, India and other developing countries. Given the scale of the energy challenge facing the world, a substantial increase is called for in public and private funding for energy...

Government Regulations Programs And Funding Last Updated on Sun, 16 Sep 2018 | The Environment In 1984 a deadly cloud of chemicals was released from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, following an explosion in the plant. The methyl isocya-nate gas killed approximately three thousand people and injured two hundred thousand others. Shortly after, a similar chemical release occurred in West Virginia, where a cloud of gas sent 135 people to the hospital with eye, throat, and lung irritation complaints. There were no fatalities. Such incidents fueled the demand by workers and the general public for information about hazardous materials in their areas. As a result Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA PL 99-499).

Toward a Better International Regime Last Updated on Wed, 16 Dec 2015 | The Human Future The United Nations system at large addresses many important problems, from emergency food supplies to peacekeeping in many areas around the world, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But, through influence on their government delegations, vested interests too often swing decisions to favor themselves or to impede action. The United Nations itself suffers from an outdated structure (especially that of the Security Council) and a far-flung set of agencies with too little coordination among them. In short, the UN system needs revision, as well as much more consistent and concrete support from member nations. Fortunately, discussion of these needs is already under way.

Energy and globalisation of the economy Last Updated on Mon, 31 Aug 2020 | Energy Transition Globalisation of the economy has led to greater dependency on oil, due to the ever-increasing demand for petroleum fuels and more generally fossil fuels. We have recently seen that the global economy could cope reasonably well with an increase in the cost of energy. In contrast however, an interruption, even temporary, in oil supplies would cause a major crisis.

Introduction The risk of extinction Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Human Extinction Will the human race become extinct fairly shortly Have the dangers been underestimated, and ought we to care The Introduction will give the book's main arguments, particularly a 'doomsday argument' originated by the cosmologist Brandon Carter. We ought to have some reluctance to believe that we are very exceptionally early, for instance in the earliest 0.001 per cent, among all humans who will ever have lived. This would be some reason for thinking that humankind will not survive for many more centuries, let alone colonize the galaxy. Taken just by itself, the doomsday argument could do little to tell us how long humankind will survive. What it might indicate, though, is that the likelihood of Doom Soon is greater than we would otherwise think. Here, 'otherwise-thinking' involves taking account of well-recognized dangers like those of pollution and nuclear war.

Comparing The Risks And Trying To Guess The Total Risk Last Updated on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 | Human Extinction Even after taking the doomsday argument into account, there remain many grounds for hope and none for absolute despair. For a start, there's the fact that the doomsday argument could be much weakened if the world were indeterministic, which is what many people think it to be. This will be discussed in just a moment. To end the chapter, let us take a closer look at how risk estimates are affected when we see force in Carter's doomsday argument.

Lingering Doubts and Concerns Last Updated on Sat, 24 Mar 2018 | Thermal Balance Response Scientists have identified a range of impacts of global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has not issued a series of doomsday predictions but rather a carefully thought-out list of consequences based on data. (Consequences of global warming are addressed in detail in Chapter 7.) Climate models investigate a range of optimistic as well as business as usual scenarios. Sea level increases will be measurable but are not expected to flood coastal areas in the next few decades. Ice-free Arctic summers by the end of the century, increased droughts and floods from precipitation, reduction of the ice cover in Greenland, and intensified severe weather events are expected. Massive coastal flooding will not happen overnight and is not considered a done deal. However, continued buildup of greenhouse gases could irreversibly trigger that outcome. Disruption of the ocean currents that keep northern Europe more temperate is considered unlikely in the near future....

Explanations and consequences Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Global Politics It is important to note, firstly, that the issues the media choose to cover do not necessarily correlate with the status of the issue as a pressing concern (Downs 1972,1991). As Lacey and Longman (1993 227) observe, 'Despite the gravity of the predictions which followed the acceptance of the greenhouse effect global warming hypothesis by IPCC . . . the number of articles written on these topics declines rapidly in the Autumn of 1990 and the Spring of 1991.' Following the publication of the IPCC's First Assessment Report in 1990, the New York Times ran the headline 'US data fail to show warming trend', while Forbes magazine heralded 'The global warming panic A classic case of over-reaction' (quoted in Edwards 1997). Similarly, ten days after the IPCC reported on 6 June 1996 that 'the balance of evidence suggests a discernible influence on global climate', The Sunday Times declared that 'The latest apocalypse, global warming, is just that. Lots of hot air' (ibid....

Biocomplexity in Ecological Systems Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Social Science Upon entering the twenty-first century, we face significant scientific and engineering challenges and opportunities resulting from accelerating environmental changes New scientific and engineering research and innovation are needed to understand the changes and impact of multiple stresses on environmental systems as well as to inform responses to natural hazards. Now more than ever, scientists and engineers must address combinations of factors, such as the interactions between human activities and natural cycles at different spatial and temporal scales. Guns, Firearms and Ammo For Sale Woodworking Plans and Designs

Increasing losses from weatherrelated hazards Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Climate Variability and Since 1960, dollar losses from natural hazards have steadily increased (Figure 14.1). Weather-related events constitute most of these losses (more than 75 ), with hurricanes, floods, and severe storms (including hail and tornadoes) as the major causal agents. The year 2004 would have been the most costly year, with almost US 30 billion in losses, had there not been Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The tallies for the storm of the century stand currently at more than US 100 billion in damages with more than 1,000 fatalities (NCDC, 2006).

Summary And Conclusion Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Water Crises For the most part, previous responses to drought in all parts of the world have been reactive, representing the crisis management approach. This approach has been ineffective (i.e., assistance poorly targeted to specific impacts or population groups), poorly coordinated, and untimely more important, it has done little to reduce the risks associated with drought. In fact, the economic, social, and environmental impacts of drought have increased significantly in recent decades. A similar trend exists for all natural hazards. Blaikie, P, T Cannon, I Davis, B Wisner. At Risk Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability, and Disasters. London Routledge Publishers, 1994.

Climates And Weather Explained Last Updated on Thu, 28 Mar 2019 | Climates and Weather There is a focus on the southern hemisphere, to redress a bias in existing literature, which concentrates on northern hemisphere conditions. This allows fresh insight into many topics. However, the universal nature of the basic information makes the book almost equally relevant to northern readers. Considerable attention is given to topics of quite general interest, such as global warming, natural hazards, the sustainable global population, agriculture, heat deaths, drought, windchill, weather forecasting, human comfort, and much else.

Mitigation through information establishing a clearinghouse for loss data Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Climate Variability and Figure 14.2. (a) Total losses from all natural hazards from 1960 through 2004 (b) total losses from only weather-related hazards from 1960 through 2004. Based on the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS Version 4.2), and adjusted to 2005 US dollars. Figure 14.2. (a) Total losses from all natural hazards from 1960 through 2004 (b) total losses from only weather-related hazards from 1960 through 2004. Based on the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS Version 4.2), and adjusted to 2005 US dollars. A national loss inventory for the United States can be improved based on several lessons from SHELDUS, DesInventar, EM-DAT, and GLIDE. First, it is possible to consolidate and standardize data from various origins (see SHELDUS and DesInventar). Second, documenting only major events might satisfy initial needs, though in the long run a complete and detailed coverage of all losses is desirable (see SHELDUS and EM-DAT). Third,...

Weatherbattered states Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Climate Variability and As can be seen in Figure 14.2a, most losses from natural hazards occur along the US coastlines. In considering only weather-related losses, the pattern remains essentially the same, with the exception of California, where earthquake losses are dominant (Figure 14.2b). Interestingly, earthquakes and other geophysical events do not significantly alter the historic spatial pattern of losses. Instead, they simply add another loss burden to areas that also suffer from weather-related losses, mainly flooding. To reduce losses and improve preparedness, it is suggested that communities prepare for the impacts of weather-related events to the same degree that they plan for the impact from earthquakes, or at least adopt an all-hazards mitigation approach as has been suggested by the research community (Mileti, 1999).

Condensed summary Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Climate Variability and A comprehensive national loss inventory of natural hazards is the cornerstone for effective hazard and disaster mitigation. Despite federally demanded mitigation plans (Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, DMA 2000) that are supposed to accurately represent the risks and losses, there still is no systematic and centralized inventory of all hazards and their associated losses (direct, indirect, insured, uninsured, etc.) - at least not in the public domain. While a variety of agencies and groups collect hazard-related information, differences among their goals result in a patchwork of data coverage. In lieu of a central, systematic, and comprehensive events and loss inventory, the Hazards Research Laboratory at the University of South Carolina developed the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS). This database is currently the most comprehensive inventory for the United States. However, issues that emerged during its development - such as standardizing...

Irimescu Gh Stancalie V Craciunescu C Flueraru and E Anderson Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Global Water Security Floods are among the most devastating natural hazards in the world, affecting more people and causing more property damage than any other natural phenomenon (DMSG, 2001). In the period of time between 1900 and 2006 a total of 415 major flood events occurred in Europe alone, with an average death toll of 22 and 35,159 affected people (www.em-dat.net). In Romania as well as in many other European countries, prevention and monitoring floods are activities of national interest, taking into account the frequency of occurrence and the degree of the effects. There are several types of floods

Climate Extremes And Society Last Updated on Wed, 06 Nov 2019 | Climate Variability and Dr Richard Murnane is the Program Manager for the Risk Prediction Initiative (RPI) and a Senior Research Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), where he leads RPI's efforts to transform science into knowledge for assessing risk from natural hazards. Dr Murnane's own research focuses on tropical cyclones, climate variability, and the global carbon cycle. Before joining the RPI and BIOS in 1997, Dr Murnane was on the research staff of Princeton University in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

Data on hazard events and losses Last Updated on Wed, 11 May 2016 | Climate Variability and There is a wealth of information on natural hazards in the United States. A variety of agencies and groups collect hazard-related information however, differences in their goals result in a patchwork of data coverage. Useful sources of data currently available for analyzing historic and current hazard event and loss trends are summarized in Table 14.1. The mission agencies collecting hazard-related data have a broad range of mandates that are reflected in the type of data they compile and how they collect, analyze, archive, and disperse it to the public and private sectors. For example, during a major hazard event, each federal agency has responsibility for a segment of the response, impacts, or losses, as specified under the Federal Response Plan. Unfortunately, archiving much of the data is not mandatory and is not funded therefore, valuable information is typically lost in the months or years following the event. Center Natural Hazards Center Summary of Natural Hazard...

Worldwide glacier monitoring Last Updated on Sun, 28 May 2017 | Ice and Snow To keep track of the fast changes in nature and to assess corresponding impacts on landscape evolution, fresh water supply and natural hazards, monitoring strategies will have to make use ofthe rapidly developing new technologies (remote sensing and geo-in-formatics) and relate them to the more traditional methods.

Impacts of extreme events Last Updated on Sun, 28 May 2017 | Climate Variability and Biodiversity in mountain areas encompasses both natural and cultivated species these systems are sensitive to climatic factors and are likely to have different vulnerability thresholds according to the species, the amplitude, and the rate of climate change. Plant life at high elevations is constrained primarily by direct and indirect effects of low temperatures, radiation, wind and stormi-ness, or lack of water (Korner and Larcher, 1988). Plants respond to these climatological influences through a number of morphological and physiological adjustments. Adaptation to environmental change includes the progressive replacement of currently dominant species by more thermophilic species. Observations in the Alps (Grabherr et al., 1994 Keller et al, 2000) suggest that certain plants have already begun to respond in this manner to observed twentieth-century warming. A further mechanism is that the dominant species may be replaced by pioneer species of the same community that have enhanced...

Glaciers landscapes and the water cycle Last Updated on Wed, 22 Jan 2020 | Ice and Snow Many places, lakes have already started to form. Such lakes may replace some of the lost landscape attractiveness, but their beauty may come at a dangerous price (as explained above in the section on natural hazards). On slopes, vegetation and soils take dec- 9 ades and even centuries or sometimes millennia to follow the retreating ice and cover the newly exposed terrain64. As a consequence, the zones of bare rock and loose debris will expand. Vegetation (especially forests) and ice both have a stabilizing effect on steeply inclined surfaces. During the expected long transitional period between glacier vanishing and forest immigration, erosion (including large debris flows) and instability (including large rockfalls and landslides) on slopes unprotected by ice or forest will increase substantially65.

Chapter summary Impact of landslides Last Updated on Sat, 13 Jul 2019 | Environmental Change Landslides are the most widespread and undervalued natural hazard on Earth. They are undervalued because the most common landslides are too small to pose a threat to human life and so rarely attract popular attention. Unlike many other geophysical events, however, even small landslides can incur considerable economic loss. Thus a small slope collapse of a few thousand tonnes blocking a motorway can cost several million pounds in repair work, as well as indirect losses that might result, for example, from reduced tourism. At the other extreme, giant catastrophic landslides (of, say, 109-1010 tonnes), although rare, can release within seconds the energy of a major volcanic eruption or of an earthquake with Richter magnitude between 6 and 8. Such events can wipe out entire communities without warning. Annual losses due to landslides across the world amount to tens of billions of US dollars (Fig. 4.1), a figure that includes the costs of destroyed property, of repair work and of...

Possible impacts of more frequent floods in the future Last Updated on Mon, 10 Sep 2018 | Climate Variability Cross-cultural differences also seem to play a role in determining how people respond to weather-induced catastrophes. Thus, Baumann and Sims (1974, p. 28) note that people with cultural orientations stressing individual autonomy tend to adopt active-rational means of coping with such natural hazards, whereas people with cultural orientations stressing the power of outside forces such as God, fortune, luck, tend to adopt more passive-fatalistic means of coping. Those who see themselves as less autonomous, they say, or who acknowledge the power over their lives of outside forces, would be more fatalistic, more accepting, and yet more frightened of the hurricane threat and more undone by its consequences (p. 30).

Bob Carter British Report the Last Hurrah of Warmaholics Last Updated on Tue, 06 Aug 2019 | Global Warming Meanwhile, the empirical data stressed by climate rationalists will ultimately prevail over the predictions of the unvalidated computer models. Perhaps then we will be able to attend to the real climate policy problem, which is to prepare response plans for extreme weather events, and for climate warmings as well as coolings, in the same way we prepare to cope with all other natural hazards.

The costs and opportunities of climate change in Southeast Asia Last Updated on Mon, 26 Aug 2019 | Climate Change Challenges faced by the world's largest developing country China. In Chapter 11, Joy V Galvez helps us appreciate the impacts of climate change - and their implications for policy making - in a much smaller and arguably even more vulnerable developing country of East Asia the Philippines. Her summary of many key issues and concerns in the Philippines highlight some possible differences in perceived interests and strategies of the poorer countries in East Asia. As Galvez points out, the Philippines is a hot spot for natural hazards. As such, it is particularly vulnerable to climate change, and she describes in some detail many of those vulnerabilities first introduced in Chapter 2. The sectors in the Philippines projected to suffer the most from climate change-related impacts are water resources, agriculture, coastal resources, and human health. Galvez reminds us that these impacts worsen conditions in an already very underdeveloped country, and they will cause further suffering among...

Defining A New Paradigm Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Water Crises As vulnerability to drought has increased globally, greater attention has been directed to reducing risks associated with its occurrence through the introduction of planning to improve operational capabilities (i.e., climate and water supply monitoring, building institutional capacity) and mitigation measures aimed at reducing drought impacts. This change in emphasis is long overdue. Mitigating the effects of drought requires the use of all components of the cycle of disaster management (Figure 1), rather than only the crisis management portion of this cycle. Typically, when a natural hazard event and resultant disaster occurs, governments and donors follow with impact assessment, response, recovery, and reconstruction activities to return the region or locality to a pre-disaster state. Historically, little attention has been given to preparedness, mitigation, and prediction or early warning actions (i.e., risk management) that could reduce future impacts and lessen the need for...

Planning For Drought The Process Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Water Crises Drought is a natural hazard that differs from other hazards in that it has a slow onset, evolves over months or even years, affects a large spatial region, and causes little structural damage. Its onset and end are often difficult to determine, as is its severity. Like other hazards, the impacts of drought span economic, environmental, and social sectors and can be reduced through mitigation and preparedness. Because

Melding science into the catastrophe risk business Last Updated on Mon, 10 Sep 2018 | Climate Variability and Risk models are a complex assemblage of scientific understanding of a natural hazard, engineering knowledge regarding the response of structures to the forces produced by a hazard, and financial and economic awareness of the factors associated with repairing and replacing structures, details on insurance policies and reinsurance treaties, and estimates of the effects of phenomena such as demand surge produced by large events that significantly affect the economy. Given the complexity of the problem, it is not difficult to imagine that integrating science into the risk models can be a challenge. The RPI continues to make science understandable, available, and useable by its sponsors, but the best way for this to occur is to incorporate the science into a risk model. However, companies still want to verify risk model estimates. The proxy work that extends the historical record of hurricane landfalls provides one of the few methods of independently verifying wind-speed exceedance...

Accidents at chemical plants Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Environmental Policy The directive was amended twice (in 1987 and 1988) and was then thoroughly reviewed and replaced by directive 96 82, known as the Seveso II directive. This is aimed at encouraging the prevention of major accidents involving dangerous substances, and at limiting the consequences of such accidents if they occur. It covers both industrial activities and the storage of dangerous chemicals, and requires the operators of relevant industrial plants to notify local authorities of their activities and to develop accident prevention plans. Internal emergency plans must be developed by operators, external emergency plans by competent authorities, the plans must be regularly tested, and member states must place necessary controls on the siting of new plants to minimize the effects of accidents, and make changes (including new transport links) to existing plants. To back up the legislation on accident hazards, the European Commission created the Major Accidents Hazards Bureau within its Joint...

Impacts and adaptation Last Updated on Thu, 28 Mar 2019 | Climate Change Politics Human-induced climate changes have already occurred and significant further changes cannot be avoided, but Nature will not collapse in a global catastrophe, though it will change markedly. The major threat will come from the difficulty that global society will have in adapting to these rapid major changes of the environment and particularly their implications for our ability to establish a sustainable future for a still growing world population. The rate of change of the global climate needs to be kept within bounds by worldwide cooperative efforts of mitigation, and adaptation to unavoidable changes is obviously also essential. The implications must necessarily be explored in terms of national efforts because of the need to assess local vulnerabilities. However, developing countries will be more severely hit and have less capability to take the necessary protective measures. The developing countries will need assistance from the industrialised countries to deal with their...

Measuring Our Predicament Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Energy Crisis 101 Views from Hubbert's Peak is a socio-political view of what has really been happening since the first oil shock of 1973. Has the world really been doing as well as many economists and politicians would have us believe And, if not, must we all really head full-speed towards the apocalypse, or might there actually be another route to somewhere better, which has been overlooked because it doesn't suit the current ideology

In search of possible causes of mass extinctions Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Mass Extinctions In contemplating the history of the dinosaurs it is necessary to rectify one widespread misconception. Outside scientific circles the view is widely held that the dinosaurs lived for a huge slice of geological time little disturbed by their environment until the final apocalypse. This is a serious misconcep

Getting Back Together or Splitting Up Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Geography Natural hazards, resources, environmental history and environmental management are all topics which can be approached from either the human or physical side, although there remain reasonable questions of what exactly is added. Some discussions on the challenges awaiting such work are presented in a series of papers on African Environments in the December 2003 issue of Area, authored by historians, human geographers, ecologists and economists.

Linking Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies Last Updated on Wed, 05 Sep 2018 | Climate Change Emergency Planning Planning for emergencies, especially those that may result in power outages, should be factored into the full cost of energy systems. Too often generators for backup power are tacked onto projects without any systematic thinking about their capacity to function in different types of emergencies. Other dimensions of emergency planning are worth considering as well. They include emergency communications within the campus and outside of the campus, transportation home, temporary housing, evacuations, and emergency medical access.

Health Impacts of Climate Change Last Updated on Wed, 30 Dec 2015 | Social Justice Key messages for the 2008 World Health Day included that the health sector is one of the most affected by climate change, that climate change already accounts for more than 60 000 deaths from climate-related natural disasters every year and that many of the important global killers, such as malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition,

The Neolithic period c ka to c ka BP Last Updated on Sat, 11 Apr 2020 | The Hydrological System | During the Neolithic period, human society achieved some remarkable progress in its struggle for survival. In the first place, certain societies in the Middle East adopted agriculture and domesticated animals as the dominant strategy in their struggle for survival. This agriculture, as will be discussed below, was based on irrigation. By using irrigation human society became less dependent on the natural environment, where productiveness is dependent on the randomness of climate changes, especially in regions bordering the arid belts of the world. In the second place, pottery was invented. This enabled the storage and cooking of agricultural products and of those that were gathered or hunted. The third achievement was the creation of urban centers, which enabled the efforts of a large community of individuals to be concentrated for cooperative projects, such as a defensive wall against artificial or natural hazards, such as floods. In due time, such communal effect enabled diversion...

Diminishing Oil and Gas Reserves Last Updated on Sat, 23 May 2020 | Methanol Economy In the forecasts, it was assumed that around 90 of the oil that can be recovered has already been discovered, putting the reserves at 900 billion barrels and the yet-to-find oil at only 150 billion barrels. This conclusion arises from the fact that today, about three-fourths of the world's oil reserves are located in about 370 giant fields (each containing more than 500 million barrels of oil) that are relatively well studied 4 . As discoveries of these giant fields peaked in the 1960s, large additions to the known oil reserves are unlikely, unless new major oil fields in as-yet unexplored regions of the world are discovered 27 . However, as mentioned, mankind has already increasingly gone to the end of the world , even under the most hostile climatic conditions in search of oil, and only a few areas, such as Antarctica or the South China Sea, remain to be explored. This leaves little room for the discovery of a new Middle-East. Today, 80 of the produced oil flows from fields...

Case Study Catastrophic Valley Aggradation on Guadalcanal Island Caused by Tropical Cyclone Namu in Last Updated on Thu, 07 May 2020 | Tropical Cyclones Elevation of 290 m, recorded 874 mm of precipitation over the duration of the cyclone. Farther up in the mountains, moisture receipt is assumed to have been much greater still. TC Namu's torrential rain caused swollen rivers on the Guadalcanal Plains to burst their banks on 18-19 May. Extensive areas were awash with a metre of water, ruining 90 of food gardens and sweeping away homes and half the farm livestock (National Disaster Council 1986). Huge river discharges smashed bridges on the Lungga, Ngalimbiu and Mbalisuna rivers (Fig. 10.13). Retreating floodwaters left behind 30-50 cm thicknesses of silt over the plains (Table 10.3). Evacuation of thousands of people led eventually to permanent relocation by about 5 of the population away from the Guadalcanal Plains.

Setting the scene the new catastrophism Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Environmental Change Infrequent but globally devastating natural hazards has revealed that the present is not necessarily always the key to the past. A new working model for the Earth as a combined geological and biological system now envisages a steady state situation, within which natural processes operate slowly and incrementally, but which is periodically interrupted by catastrophes that dramatically change the environment of the planet. This concept of punctuated equilibrium is much better suited to explaining a world that we now know is periodically subjected to geological upheavals of sufficient size to cause dramatic and rapid environmental change on a global scale and perhaps cause, or at least contribute towards, mass extinctions. Within this new paradigm, both volcanic 'super-eruptions' (see Chapter 5) and asteroid and comet impacts on the Earth adopt important pivotal roles.

The Caucasus icerock avalanche and its implications Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Ice and Snow The second important change in glacier-related risks concerns the increasing economic development in most mountain regions. Human activity is increasingly encroaching upon areas prone to natural hazards. Related problems affect both developed and developing countries. The latter (such as in Central Asia, the Himalayas or the Andes), however, often lack resources for adequate hazard mitigation policies and measures. Cost-efficient, sound and robust methods are therefore needed to regularly monitor the rapid environment and land-use changes in high mountains and to identify the most vulnerable areas. This is equally important for developed countries in the European Alps. Expensive protective structures had to be built in the past to reduce the risk. Public funds increasingly struggle to keep pace with - and to ensure sufficient protection from - the rapid environmental changes and their consequences in mountain areas. Integrating climate change effects and robust process models into...

Floods in Afghanistan Last Updated on Thu, 12 May 2016 | Global Water Security Afghanistan is a country not only crippled by decades of conflict, but also prone to natural disasters. Earthquakes, droughts, floods and extreme snowfall affect the lives of thousands of Afghans. Severe flooding in 2005 and 2006 made thousands homeless, and destroyed agricultural land, livestock and infrastructure. In the post-Taliban era alone 50 floods have already been reported. However, except for short situational reports many of these floods are not well documented, thus little is known about the Afghan flood issue.

Contamination From Industrial Accidents Last Updated on Sun, 13 Mar 2016 | Environmental Change In addition to the immediate costs they incur in terms of injury, death, and property loss, industrial accidents sometimes have environmental consequences that last a long time. Major accidents like the nuclear-reactor incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the chemical plant emissions in Bophal, and the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez make news headlines and get a great deal of attention as they should. What may have greater long-term implications for the environment, however, are the cumulative effects of the countless industrial accidents resulting in spills and emissions that individually do not get media attention or that may not even be detected or reported. physiological effects on people who live close to where they have occurred or might occur (Baum & Fleming, 1993 Hatch, Wallenstein, Beyea, Nieves, & Susser, 1991 Wandersman & Hallman, 1993), and that such effects can last for several years if not become chronic (Baum, 1990 Baum, Gatchel, & Schaeffer, 1983 Gatchel,...

Michael Renner Sean Sweeney and Jill Kubit Last Updated on Sun, 17 May 2020 | A Warming World As climate action grows urgent, some observers warn that economies will suffer as a result. But economic prosperity and employment depend in fundamental ways on a stable climate and healthy ecosystems. Without timely action, many jobs could be lost due to resource depletion, biodiversity loss, the impacts of increasing natural disasters, and other disruptions. Meanwhile, employment that actually contributes to protecting the environment and reducing humanity's carbon footprint offers people a tangible stake in a green economy.

Characterization of Contemporary Global Environmental Changes Last Updated on Wed, 05 Sep 2018 | Social Science | Both data and information at global scale are now abundant in alerting us to the magnitude and seriousness of the processes we have unleashed. This evidence tells us of exponential increase in carbon dioxide, exponential rates of ozone depletion and nitrous oxide concentrations in the atmosphere, rapid losses in tropical rainforests, increases in the frequency of natural disasters and in the rate of species extinctions. The same can be said for fertilizer consumption, damming of rivers, water use, paper consumption, the number of people living in cities, and the number of motor vehicles (Steffen et al. 2003). There has also been a steady increase in the last 60 years in the incidence of armed conflict worldwide (Kates and Parris 2003 8062). In 1992, one third of the world's countries were involved in such conflicts, and in that year 40 million refugees and displaced persons were affected by armed conflicts (ibid). These figures do not include the growing globalization of both terror...

Unnecessary Release Of Toxic Materials Last Updated on Tue, 17 Feb 2015 | Environmental Change Toxic materials are released to the soil, water, or air by many industrial processes. Until quite recently, information regarding who was releasing what was not readily available to the general public or even, in many cases, to policymakers. This situation was changed by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986, which requires that the Environmental Protection Agency prepare annually a Toxic Release Inventory that reports the amount of toxic material released by each manufacturing facility. This information is available to the general public and can be accessed in paper or electronic form (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1989). The Act appears to have motivated considerable activity by private industry (Baram, Dillon, & Ruffle, 1990).

The Wheel of Change Toward Sustainability Last Updated on Sun, 01 Sep 2019 | Fight Climate Change An enlightened leader in a small organization can sometimes alter the controlling mind-set by simply talking with other senior executives, employees, and stakeholders. Most organizations, however, seem to require a major top-to-bottom effort led by senior executives or a major crisis to spur action. In the vast majority of cases, a relentless and compelling message is required to make the case that safety from the financial consequences of carbon caps, social protest, financial losses, customer defection, or environmental crisis can be achieved only by adopting new climate-friendly thinking, behaviors, and practices.

The physical environment Last Updated on Thu, 09 Apr 2015 | Epidemiology The winds are appreciated by man to improve his living conditions in the warm moist areas of the world and avoided in the hot dry zones. However, excess wind in hurricane areas or the localized tornado cause destruction and loss of life (Fig. 1.5). Natural disasters disrupt the normal pattern of life, destroy water supplies and provide ideal conditions for epidemics to occur.

Flooding In Afghanistan A Crisis E Hagen and JF Teufert Last Updated on Thu, 30 Apr 2015 | Global Water Security Afghanistan is a nation prone to natural disasters such as floods and droughts. Yet the severe floods of 2005 and 2006, which displaced thousands, highlighted how little was known about floods in the mountainous nation. At present no flood hazard maps exist pinpointing the location and extent of the inundated areas, nor are there data on occurrence and impact of floods. This paper explores the flooding crisis and its impact on Afghanistan furthermore it analyses the causes of floods and some aspects of flood mitigation.

Genesis of the Risk Prediction Initiative Last Updated on Sat, 29 Aug 2020 | Climate Variability and In general, these new companies, as well as other reinsurance and insurance companies that survived the large losses, were highly motivated to learn more about their exposure to risk from natural hazards. The RPI was created in 1994 as a result of discussions between BIOS scientists and individuals in these companies who were seeking novel approaches for understanding natural hazard risk. The goal is to support research on natural hazards and to transform the science into knowledge that sponsors can use to assess their risk

Global climate change a new type of environmental problem Last Updated on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 | Global Climate Change A nyone who pays even cursory attention to the issue understands that scientists vigorously disagree over whether human activities are responsible for global warming, or whether those activities will precipitate natural disasters So what have we learned from the scientists and economists I've talked about today

The status quo is not an option Last Updated on Thu, 21 May 2020 | A Warming World New york NASA scientists today confirmed that a massive asteroid is headed for a collision with the Earth a few years from now. The impact will make our planet largely uninhabitable, killing most of the human race and causing the extinction of most species. There is barely enough time to build the rockets needed to deflect the asteroid and prevent a global catastrophe. This is not a book about asteroids and disaster movies. Rather, it is about another global catastrophe that is on a collision course with our future the threat of climate change. According to real scientists at NASA and elsewhere, there is a real risk that climate

Reducing coastal risk Last Updated on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 | Climate Change Risks Has fallen on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). FEMA has taken an important step towards protecting coastal property by providing incentives to build new structures above the projected elevation of storm surges and to strengthen existing structures against windstorm damage. However, there has been no direct consideration of horizontal shoreline movement, specifically coastal erosion, nor planning to accommodate the accelerating pace of sea level rise and the likelihood of more intense storms (with their higher winds and larger storm surges). The lack of coordinated federal programs and policies is abundantly evident as the coastal building boom continues.

Agriculture In The Us Great Plains Last Updated on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 | Water Crises Region (e.g., Glantz, 1994 Riebsame, 1990 Riebsame, 1991 Webb, 1931). The fact that the region has experienced multiple droughts subsequent to the 1930s Dust Bowl years without the associated dramatic impacts on human health, soil quality, employment, and out-migration is generally taken as a reflection of the success of the social adaptations implemented in response to the event (Warrick and Bowden, 1981). Although it is important to recognize this general success, subsequent Great Plains droughts have reminded residents that sensitivity to the effects of droughts is a dynamic process, and that past successes are no reason to cease improving disaster preparedness ( Popper and Popper, 1987 Rosenberg and Wilhite, 1983 Wilhite and Easterling, 1987) or risk management (Wilhite, 2001). Adaptations in the United States since the 1930s have centered on government assistance, along two dimensions insurance against losses from natural disasters, and science and technology outreach....

Pictures Of Fire Basf Wilton Teeside Ici 1995 Last Updated on Tue, 17 Feb 2015 | Environmental Risks This example is symptomatic of the way in which wider concerns about pollution, safety and risk in Teesside continually resurface in the media. The TEES Report was published at the end of 1995. That year alone had seen summer concerns about smog and high levels of benzene and small particles (PM s) (Northern Echo 2 August 1995), fresh doubt about dioxins released in the steel industry's blast furnace operations (Northern Echo 13 February 1995) and five incidents involving the county emergency planning team. The largest of these was by all accounts the biggest fire in Teesside since 1945, started in a BASF warehouse of plastics at Wilton. In the aftermath of this fire, described in media images such as 'on the brink' and 'very nearly the accident we've always dreaded', one dispute centred on the toxicity of the fumes. The different perspectives were reflected in statements in Northern Echo news stories

Munich Re estimates of climaterelated losses Last Updated on Thu, 22 Mar 2018 | Climate Variability and Munich Re has been compiling statistics on natural disasters for many years because they illustrate the need for risk management. Their definition of what are ''major natural catastrophes'' follows the criteria laid down by the United Nations the affected region's ability to help itself is distinctly overtaxed, interregional or international assistance is necessary, thousands are killed, hundreds ofthousands are made homeless, and there are substantial economic losses and or considerable insured losses. In this section we exclude those disasters like earthquakes and volcanoes, which are not weather related. In fact, we shall focus on the number of incidents, rather than on insurance claims, because the latter are a rather variable proportion of the total losses. Even the total losses depend on the vulnerability and wealth of the areas impacted, so they too are rather variable.

Bondyrev and ED Tsereteli Last Updated on Tue, 13 Aug 2019 | Global Water Security The most pressing problem in most countries is to protect people and infrastructure from natural disasters and ensuring their sustainable development. This is particularly true in the mountainous region of South Caucasus, where complex natural conditions and excessive human interference cause a whole gamut of destructive processes.

Reporting Environmental Risk News values Last Updated on Thu, 30 Apr 2015 | Environmental Risks Environmental risk, in our view, is an abstraction about the possibility of damage and, by itself, does not possess any news value. Rather, it enters news by association with such things as newsworthy events (for example humanmade or natural disasters) or conflict over policy by contending stakeholders, or the activities and afflictions of celebrities. Journalists operate according to business imperatives and the norms of their profession. The fundamentals here are that news must be factual and must attract an audience. Adherence to the facts assures continued access to officials, celebrities and other newsmakers, while adherence to news values such as proximity, timeliness and interest assures attractiveness to audiences. Events can be conceived of as being both planned and unplanned. Planned events, many of which are designed to be covered by news media, are discussed under the topic 'Source selection' (pp. 51-3). With regard to unplanned events, including human-made and natural...

Conclusio Of Geography On Global Warming Last Updated on Wed, 12 Jun 2019 | Geography The explanation of this paradox lies partly in the range of obstacles or problems that separate geographers and the policy realm. The higher status accorded to pure science over applied work, something buried deep in Western science and ironically reinforced by government policies towards academia, remains one significant problem. Other institutional obstacles include the proliferation of levels of government and the concentration of geographers on downstream outcomes. There are also 'cultural' differences between academics and policy-makers that can only be bridged through persistent hard work. But beneath this is a more profound question. To what extent should geographers not only set the agenda of research, but choose to whom their work is relevant One the one hand, there is research that assists the management of society and the environment, clearing up their messes without necessarily addressing the cause of the problem. A recent example is a collection of short essays by US...

Table The vectors and reservoirs of leishmaniasis Last Updated on Thu, 25 Jun 2020 | Epidemiology Control and prevention Cases of the disease are normally sporadic, so should be treated to prevent flies from becoming infected. Repellents and personal protection adequately protect the individual from being bitten. Sandfly nets can be used, but a more effective solution is ITMN or LLIN (see Malaria above). Because of the fragile nature of the vector, it is easily attacked with insecticides, either with a residual house spray if the vector comes indoors, or by insecticide powder blown into mammal burrows, ant hills and similar micro-habitats. A long-term solution is to alter the micro-environment, such as by the destruction of termite hills and killing of rodents. Proper control of domestic animals, especially dogs, can be effective where they are important reservoirs. Low-dose inocula and attenuated vaccines have been developed to minimize the severity of disease in some endemic areas. The concomitant problem of HIV infection has added to the seriousness of dual infection, so a...

Major US Pollution Control Statutes Last Updated on Tue, 17 Feb 2015 | Pollution Guide One of the first modern environmental protection laws enacted in the United States was the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), which requires the government to consider the impact of its actions or policies on the environment. NEPA remains one of the most commonly used environmental laws in the nation. In addition to NEPA, there are numerous pollution-control statutes that apply to such specific environmental media as air and water. The best known of these laws are the Clean Air Act (CAA), Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) commonly referred to as Superfund. Among the many other important pollution control laws are the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Oil Pollution Prevention Act (OPP), Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA).

Health Benefits From Warming Last Updated on Thu, 25 Jun 2020 | Global Warming Paul Reiter, a dengue fever expert with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Puerto Rico office, argued against the relative importance of climate in human disease by pointing to periods in the past during which malaria and other tropical diseases were more common than today in cooler regions. He argued that the spread of malaria was more closely linked to deforestation, agricultural practices, human migration, poor public health services, civil war, strife, and natural disasters. Claims that malaria resurgence is due to climate change ignore these realities and disregard history, he wrote in an article about malaria's spread through England during the Little Ice Age, which began about

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