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Survival MD By Dr. Scurtu

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The writer presents a well detailed summery of the major headings. As a professional in this field, I must say that the points shared in this book are precise.

This ebook does what it says, and you can read all the claims at his official website. I highly recommend getting this book.

Natural hazards and us

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...

The Framework Convention On Climate Change And The Cop Process

In 1992, before the IPCC identified the human fingerprint on global warming, the world was already concerned that human activities enhance the natural greenhouse effect and that this will result in additional warming of the earth's surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind and determined to protect the climate system for present and future generations. 23 In response to this challenge, the UNFCCC was entered into to Achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow 19 U.N. 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),...

Modeling the earths climate

Today, several scientific endeavors are attempting to model the Earth's weather and climate for a variety of reasons, such as for farming, urban- ization, and emergency preparedness and for economic, scientific, political, and humanitarian reasons. GISS has taken a lead and become one of the premier groups involved in modeling climate in order to better understand it. One of the main goals of the researchers is to be able to anticipate the effect climate change will have on society and the environment. Although they are involved with several types of models, they are currently focusing most on global climate models (GCMs). These are large-scale models with the ability to simulate the entire Earth and all the forces that affect it, both human-induced and natural. For example, natural forces include volcanic eruptions, variations in insolation (incoming solar radiation), and changes in the Earth's orbital path. Human-induced forces include pollution (increasing greenhouse gases from...

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Climates And Weather Explained

What do we mean by 'weather' and 'climate' How do we account for them Why is it necessary to understand meteorological processes to explain the climate These are some of the questions dealt with in Climates and Weather Explained, a comprehensive introduction to the study of the atmosphere, integrating climatology and meteorology. The book provides an entry to an understanding of the climate system, with clear explanations of basic principles, concepts and processes. It covers matters ranging from the origin of the atmosphere to the future of global climates. It is shown how patterns of evaporation, temperature, clouds, winds etc. arise from the weather and determine climates. The text is supported by a wealth of informative illustrations and a vast array of case studies demonstrating the relevance of the subject matter to everyday life. There is a focus on the southern hemisphere, to redress a bias in existing literature, which concentrates on northern hemisphere conditions. This...

Climate Extremes And Society

The past few decades have brought extreme weather and climate events to the forefront of societal concerns. Ordinary citizens, industry, and governments are concerned about the apparent increase in the frequency of weather and climate events causing extreme, and in some instances, catastrophic, impacts. Climate Extremes and Society focuses on the recent and potential future consequences of weather and climate extremes for different socioeconomic sectors. The book also examines actions that may enable society to better respond and adapt to climate variability, regardless of its source. It provides examples of the impact of climate and weather extremes on society - how these extremes have varied in the past, and how they might change in the future -and of the types of effort that will help society adapt to potential future changes in climate and weather extremes. This review volume is divided into two sections one examining the evidence for recent and projected changes in extremes of...

Impacts of extreme events

While many of the extreme events discussed here have been, and will increasingly be, costly in social, economic, and environmental terms, it needs to be emphasized once again that strong impacts are not necessarily or exclusively related to extreme weather events. Indeed, many of the geomorphologic hazards in the Alps are the result of long-term climatic and geological forcings that at some stage result in a particular threshold exceedance leading to sudden and intense slope instabilities. Impacts of climate change in the Alps can be placed into five broad categories hydrology, snow, and ice plants, forest ecosystems, and mountain biodiversity human health (this aspect will not be discussed further here) socioeconomic sectors such as tourism, agriculture, and hydropower and financial services such as insurance. While extreme events may have a significant impact on one or more of these sectors, they can also be viewed as short-term and rapid ''pulses of energy'' into systems that are...

The costs and opportunities of climate change in Southeast Asia

Chapter 2 summarizes many of the broad anticipated effects of climate change. The second section of this book illuminates many of the concerns and policy-making 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,...

What climate changes are likely

The complexity of the climate system makes it difficult to predict some aspects of human-induced climate change exactly how fast it will occur, exactly how much it will change, and exactly where those changes will take place. In contrast, scientists are confident of other predictions. Mid-continent warming will be greater than over the oceans, and there will be greater warming at higher latitudes. Some polar and glacial ice will melt, and the oceans will warm both effects will contribute to higher sea levels. The hydrologic cycle will change and intensify, leading to changes in water supply as well as flood and drought patterns. Human-induced climate change is only an issue if it is large enough and rapid enough to create real problems for natural ecosystems and for human societies. In this and the following chapter we will look at the magnitude and rate of climate change, including sea-level rise and changes in extreme events, that are likely to result from human-induced emissions of...

Dawes object lessons in elementary schools

Dawes' Suggestive Hints towards Improved Secular Instruction, published in 1847, provided teachers countrywide with a common-sense explanation of things used in everyday life. The newly formed government education department agreed to pay the cost of the apparatus list published in Hints for any school qualified to use it, so that by 1857 about 8 per cent of elementary schools (3500 total) had the apparatus sets and the newly formed teacher training colleges were including his ideas in their curriculum.

Health Impacts of Climate Change

Against this background, in 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO) chose the theme 'protecting health from climate change' for World Health Day.11 This involved public talks, media releases and national policy reports launched around the world by a variety of organisations. Dr Margaret Chan, Director of the WHO, stated that Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Climate change will affect, in profoundly adverse ways, some of the most fundamental determinants of health food, air, water. In the face of this challenge, we need champions throughout the world who will work to put protecting human health at the centre of the climate change agenda.12 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...

Emergency Planning and Community Rightto Know

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...

Global climate change a new type of environmental problem

Of all the environmental issues that have emerged in the past few decades, global climate change is the most serious, and the most difficult to manage. It is the most serious because of the severity of harms that it might bring. Many aspects of human society and well being - where we live, how we build, how we move around, how we earn our livings, and what we do for recreation - still depend on a relatively benign range of climatic conditions, even though this dependence has been reduced and obscured in modern industrial societies by their wealth and technology. We can see this dependence on climate in the economic harms and human suffering caused by the climate variations of the past century, such as the El Nino cycle and the multi-year droughts that occur in western North America every few decades. Climate changes projected for the twentyfirst century are much larger than these twentieth-century variations, and their human impacts are likely to be correspondingly greater....

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Definition of extreme events

Extreme events are generally easy to recognize but difficult to define. This is due to several reasons. First, there is no unique definition for what is meant by the word extreme several definitions are in common use. Second, the concept of extremeness is relative and so strongly depends on context. Third, the words severe, ''rare,'' ''extreme,'' and high-impact are often used interchangeably. * Extreme events are events that have extreme values of certain important meteorological variables. Damage is often caused by extreme values of certain meteorological variables, such as large amounts of precipitation (e.g., floods), high wind speeds (e.g., cyclones), high temperatures (e.g., heat waves), etc. Extreme is generally defined as either taking maximum values or exceedance above pre-existing high thresholds. Such events are generally rare for example, extreme wind speeds exceeding the 100-year return value, which have a probability of only 0.01 of occurring in any particular year.

Munich Re estimates of climaterelated losses

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.

Is The Doomsday Argument Easily Refuted

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...

Climate change due to global warming

The increase in carbon dioxide and other pollutants in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, petrol, etc.) has led to an increase in global temperature. Although the temperature increase is comparatively small, it has begun to have a major effect on the climate, with a disruption of weather systems and a raising of the sea level. This has been most marked on a system of currents off the west coast of South America known as the El Nino southern oscillation. Climatic systems are reversed or severely disrupted, with heavy rains and flooding when no rain is normally expected and drought conditions when there should normally be rain. Countries in South America, Southeast Asia and Oceania are the most affected, but its effects are felt all over the world. Even without El Nino, likely that most of the effects will be concentrated in the poorer regions of the world, with an increase in vector-borne and diar-rhoeal diseases, malnutrition and natural disasters.

Reframing the Climate Crisis after Kyoto

When it became clear that the push for the Kyoto treaty unwittingly created a mental framework that failed to move or motivate most Americans, PSR, like many other U.S. environmental groups, went back to basics in public education and grassroots organizing. In the subsequent years, putting climate work in terms of health has changed the approach to climate and organizing by PSR and national-level groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Environmental Defense. As detailed in this book, there's a lot to learn from this process. At PSR, we began, with help from a number of leading foundations, by carrying out state-by-state reports and grassroots organizing campaigns in eighteen states over the years 1998 to 2001. Called Death by Degrees (and later changed to Degrees of Danger out of respect and sensitivity after the September 11, 2001, terrorists attacks), the reports were the first to link climate change and human health effects to a...

Other factors that might influence climate change

So far climate change due to human activities has been considered. Are there other factors, external to the climate system, which might induce change Chapter 4 showed that it was variations in the incoming solar energy as a result of changes in the Earth's orbit that triggered the ice ages and the major climate changes of the past. These variations are, of course, still going on what influence are they having now Some scientists have suggested that all climate variations, even short-term ones, might be the result of changes in the Sun's energy output. Such suggestions are bound to be somewhat speculative because the only direct measurements of solar output that are available are those since 1978, from satellites outside the disturbing effects of the Earth's atmosphere. These measurements indicate a very constant solar output, changing by about 0.1 between a maximum and a minimum in the cycle of solar magnetic activity indicated by the number of sunspots. There have also been...

Changing sea levels and natural hazards

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...

Costing the impacts extreme events

In the previous paragraphs the impacts of climate change have been described in terms of a variety of measures for instance, the number of people affected (e.g. by mortality, disease or by being displaced), the gain or loss of agricultural or forest productivity, the loss of biodiversity, the increase in desertification, etc. However, the most widespread measure, looked for by many policymakers, is monetary cost or benefit. But before describing what has been done so far to estimate the overall costs of impacts, we need to consider what is known about the cost of damage due to extreme events (such as floods, droughts, windstorms or tropical cyclones). As has been constantly emphasised in this chapter these probably constitute the most important element in climate change impacts. Because the incidence of such extreme events has increased significantly in recent decades, information about the cost of the damage due to them has been tracked by insurance companies. They have catalogued...

Model Range Related Changes Are Climate Related

Dance changes in the short-term suggest that the range-related pattern may take many years to appear. It is likely that species respond individually to climate change depending on thermal sensitivities, reproductive strategies, mobility, life span, and interactions with other species (Graham and Grimm 1990).The pattern we see today thus integrates changes by many species over many years. This may help to explain the failure of other investigators to find such strong range-related changes in their own reexaminations of historical data sets that date back only 20 or 30 years. For example, John Pearse and collaborators, in reexamining extensive intertidal faunal surveys originally conducted from 1971 to 1973 from Santa Cruz, California, did not find a strong range-related pattern of change overall, but did find increases in several southern species (J. Pearse, unpublished data).

Environmental change and natural hazards the impact in the twentyfirst century

From the perspective of the first year of a new millennium, the impact of rapid-onset geophysical hazards over the course of the next century is difficult to forecast, particularly in light of the major uncertainties attached to predictions of environmental change over this period. Perhaps some constraints can be imposed, however, on the basis of climate change impact forecasts made in a recent report by the UK Meteorological Office (1999) (Box 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...

Natural hazards the human dimension

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

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.

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Global warming and climate change impacts in East Asia

Clearly, the global effects of climate change are potentially major, and will likely lead to many adverse consequences, difficult choices, and expensive adaptation measures for much of the world's population. The countries of East Asia will not be immune to these changes, and in most cases will be among the worst affected due to their vulnerable geographies and economies. Effects may not always be adverse, but even if they are not they will likely increase unpredictability and require adaptation. What are the expected impacts of climate change in East Asia Several research reports have anticipated the effects of climate change for the region. Some of their findings are summarized here to convey the scale and nature of the potential changes, many of which are elaborated in later chapters of this book. According to a 1997 report from the IPCC on anticipated regional impacts of climate change (IPCC 1997),5 temperate Asia (including Japan, the Koreas, and most of China) has experienced an...

What are natural hazards

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

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

American families need to be better prepared for and protected from mega-catastrophes. Hurricane Katrina underscored this point with the same force and clarity that the savage attacks of 11 September 2001 crystallized our national awareness and galvanized our national thinking about the immediate need to improve and enhance our preparation and defenses with regard to terrorism. 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 Doomsday Argument Recapitulation And Then New Comments

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...

Climate change impacts in Asian countries

Flooding, one of the main natural disasters in China, occurs frequently, not only in southern China where a humid monsoon climate prevails but also in arid and semiarid northern China. Changes in risk of flooding are considered to be one of the potential impacts of climate change, since some studies indicate an increase in frequency intensity of heavy rain. On the other hand, the additional investment in infrastructure for preventing flood disasters in the early decades of this century have the potential to mitigate not only the additional flood disasters caused by future climate change but also those which currently occur because of climate variability. (i) policy makers do not arrange adaptation investment for projected damage, and climate change does not occur (baseline), (ii) policy makers do not arrange adaptation investment for projected damage, but climate change does occur, (iii) policy makers arrange adaptation investment for projected damage, but climate change does not...

Weatherrelated natural hazards and climate 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...

NotSoNatural Disasters

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.

Climate change as crisis

Climate change as a conventional environmental crisis Vital to the rationale for the international response to climate change is its depiction as an environmental crisis. Oral traditions, history, and scientific research tell of the associations between climatic conditions and social well-being, a subject of long and active debate. Although the linkage can easily be exaggerated, such as in the hands of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century climatic and geographic determinists (of whom Elsworth Huntington is perhaps the most notorious - see Fleming 1998), climate has shaped human life on earth, from the evolution of our species to development of cultures (Schneider and Londer 1984). Brief or extended periods of extreme climatic conditions have wrecked havoc on many civilizations throughout history and pre-history. Conversely, there appear to be strong associations in the pre-modern era between human development and benign, stable climate (Lamb 1982). Yet, a cautionary note must be...

Box Impact of Climate Change on China

The energy projections in this Outlook make climate change an important challenge for the country. China's first National Climate Change Programme (NDRC, 2007), published in June 2007, recognises this and notes that climate change will bring about significant impacts on China's natural ecosystems and social economic system in the future. This finding echoes those of an IPCC report on impacts of climate change, released a couple of months previously (IPCC, 2007). The issues of most concern are rising sea levels, an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events and glacial retreat in the north-west. Even without global warming, China's climate presents major challenges. Most of China already experiences seasonal extremes of temperature, precipitation is unevenly distributed and natural disasters have had severe impact. More than one-quarter of China's area is already affected by desertification. Over 18 000 km of coastline and more than 5 000 islands are at risk in the event of a...

Combining Estimated Risks When Using The Doomsday Argument

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

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

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.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina seen from above. (NASA Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team) At 1 30 a.m., Monday, August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane with peak winds of approximately 150 mph (240 kph). Its minimum pressure of 918 millibars (mbar) made it the third strongest hurricane to strike the United States. Although the storm had been headed straight for New Orleans, it veered slightly eastward as it neared the Gulf Coast, so that the city was struck by the less powerful, western eye wall of the storm. While New Orleans was spared the most intense winds and highest storm surge, the entire Gulf Coast, including Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina seen from above. (NASA Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team) Flooding in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Lake Pontchartrain, at the top of the photo, is the source of the water. At the bottom, near the banks of the Mississippi River, is the relatively high ground that did not become...

Doomsday Argument

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...

DMS and climate

With the above reservations, primary production in the ocean is thus responsible for a considerable proportion of the tropospheric aerosols, and thus cloud droplets, that contribute to the climate system in various ways (see 3.5). We have seen that primary production is highly variable in both space and time ( 4.1.2) an additional complication with DMS production is its strong dependence on species. The reasons for this, and a good knowledge of the emission rates of different plankton, are presently elusive. The causes are presumably linked to the osmotic processes across cell boundaries, and hence may partially depend on salinity and temperature. The differences in species and seasonal Fig. 4.12. Diagram of the feedback loop involving climate and planktonic production of DMS. droplets tends to increase the net surface area of the droplets, and hence the cloud albedo by reflecting more solar radiation. Thus if DMS were to increase, the net effect might be a decrease in the input of...

Natural Disasters

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...

Global warming is a largescale problem

However, the market has its blind spots, leading to effects like the tragedy of the commons. In economics, a cost that is not paid by the decision maker is called an external cost. An example of an external cost associated with driving to work is the traffic. One more car will tend to slow down all the other cars on the road, costing other drivers their time. The cost of climate change is not only paid by people who are responsible, but by everybody, soon and far into the future. Our sheep farmer made the other farmers pay part of the cost of his new sheep. If true costs are left external, then the economic balancing act of the market does not take them into account, and tragedies of the commons are the result. An external cost can be internalized by means of taxes or regulations. The idea is to make the market aware of the true cost of a decision to take this path versus that path. One way to harness the balancing abilities of the market for preventing global warming is a scheme...

Extreme value statistics

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 Rabat, P., van Vierssen, W., Veraart, J., Vellinga,...

Increasing losses from weatherrelated hazards

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).

Mitigation through information establishing a clearinghouse for loss data

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

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

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...

Data on hazard events and losses

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...

Woodworking Plans and Designs

Possible impacts of more frequent floods in the future

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).

Melding science into the catastrophe risk business

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...

Impacts and adaptation

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...

Future evolutionary directions

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. 3.5.1 Drastic and rapid climate change without changes in human behaviour supervolcanic) causative agents is severe and the survivors are few in number, there may be no time to adapt. The fate of the early medieval Norse colonists in Greenland, who died out when the climate changed because they could not shift from eating meat to eating fish (Berglund, 1986) stands as a vivid example. Jared Diamond (2005) has argued in a recent book that climate change has been an important factor in several cases of societal collapse in human history.

Positive or negative teleologies utopianism and apocalypticism

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

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.

Linking Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies

While master plans should create strategies for adapting to the effects of climate change, they are also central to implementing the actions to reduce emissions as well as to finding ways to connect both adaptation and mitigation. For example, an increased reliance on distributed power or on-site generation from combined heat and power (see chapter 6), renewable energy, or alternative fuels may decrease heat-trapping gas emissions and make the university less vulnerable to power outages or storm events. Likewise, attention to energy efficiency can help to reduce the impact of rising costs. 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. Among the lessons we learned was how vulnerable we are when the power fails. The...

Peter Taylor Catastrophes and insurance

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,...

Lapse rate and the greenhouse effect

The lapse rate in the atmosphere (how quickly temperature decreases with altitude) is determined primarily by convection and the hidden heat carried aloft by water vapor. The lapse rate determines the sensitivity of the temperature of the ground to changes in the IR opacity of the atmosphere. If we want to forecast the effect of the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration on the temperature of the ground, we will have to get the lapse rate right, and any changes in the lapse rate that result from future climate change.

The Wheel of Change Toward Sustainability

As the climate movement grows, successful organizational change will require clarity on two questions What are we striving to achieve and What is our theory of success In this section, a set of interconnected interventions that can foster fundamental organizational transformation is presented. With an understanding of this wheel of change, leaders of the climate movement can accelerate the transition to a clean-energy economy. Although these interventions are described step by step, it is critical that you understand that organizational change is not linear. It's messy. In chapter 3, Mary Lou Finley cautioned that the climate movement will involve fits and starts, progress and reversals. The same will be true for the organizational change that will be required within this movement. It is possible to start the change process anywhere on the wheel of change (figure 12.2). For example, leaders of a university may begin by increasing the inflow and dissemination of information about the...

Genesis of the Risk Prediction Initiative

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 (Malmquist, 1997). The October 2005 workshop was motivated in part by the active 2004 hurricane season and was designed to meet RPI's goals, but it was received with extreme interest because it was closely preceded by Hurricane Katrina and two publications (Emanuel, 2005 Webster et al, 2005) that raised the specter of greatly enhanced losses due to an increase in the intensity and number of the strongest tropical cyclones. The second reason for focusing on tropical...

Reducing coastal risk

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. In advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, a 30 ft storm surge at Bay St Louis, Mississippi was predicted by the IHRC research team (see Figure 10.4 and Plate 15). The CEST model proved to be highly accurate as field measurements2 confirmed the extremely high surge height...

Encounters with Extraterrestrial Objects

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. In any case, it is impossible to quantify satisfactorily the actual effect because fine dust would not be the only climate-modifying factor. Soot from massive fires ignited by hot ejecta and sulfate aerosols liberated from impacted rocks could each have as much...

Suggestions for further reading

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...

The Meaning of Global Warming

Turning the debate away from certainty and prevention to uncertainty and preparedness changes the way people think about global warming itself. Global warming preparedness changes the meaning of global warming. It is necessary, in and of itself, and it is a bridge to wider action. Once people accept that global warming is happening they are on their way to asking, If there is something I can do to cope with the effects of global warming, is there also something I can do to lessen those effects to begin with

Seeing the Rational in the Irrational

Now imagine how powerless the dominant eco-tragedy and apocalypse narratives make people feel. Many environmentalists and liberal movie critics walked out of An Inconvenient Truth feeling excited and happy because they believed that now Americans are finally going to get it. Well, we believe that Americans got it all right they got that global warming is so overwhelming that there is little they can do about it. After ninety minutes of overwhelming evidence that global warming has arrived and that it could trigger violent cataclysms, why would anyone believe that buying fluorescent lightbulbs and hybrid cars could ever be enough Katherine Ellison aptly captured the feelings of many in an op-ed she wrote for the New York Times after seeing An Inconvenient Truth

Emergent technologies and future prospects

There is little doubt that global warming will trigger changes that will fundamentally change the practice of architecture. Already the prediction that global warming will lead to greater intensity and frequency of storms is being realised. It is inevitable that, as heat is built up within the biosphere, this results in the release of energy which powers more extreme climate activity. We have noted examples of the predicted rate of return of the 1 in 100 year storm as currently defined. Newhaven headed the list with a return rate of 1 in 3 years by 2030. The immediate consequence for architects is that design wind loads should be amended to cope with this progressive change and the fact that buffeting will increase in intensity. It is inevitable that sea levels will rise. Already there are compelling reasons not to develop below the 5 metre contour at or near the coasts. The predictions of rising levels are becoming more alarmist, with the doomsday scenario of a 110 metre rise if...

Martin J Rees Foreword

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

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.

Adapting to Changes Caused by Global Warming

Across the United States and beyond, the effects of climate change may be dramatic. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that worldwide economic losses due to natural disasters appear to be doubling every ten years, and the next decade will reach 150 billion a year.4 Natural disasters appear to be more frequent and more severe.5 Campus planners should consider the energy delivery, increased frequency of floods, and consequences of higher average temperatures that are predicted (often by academics) to occur. Box 9.3 shows some of these effects. Some members of the private sector are taking climate-related warnings seriously. In particular, the insurance and reinsurance industries are actively working to bring attention to this problem. In some cases, insurance companies are canceling policies for coastal properties due to the increasing risk of storm-related flooding. Swiss Re, the world's second-largest reinsurance company, believes that losses in their industry could...

Nick Bostrom and Milan M Cirkovic Introduction

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...

The GARP tropical experiment begins

3.1.3 The GATE as a starting point for global climate studies The prime task for the JOC was to improve the observational network in order to provide data for testing the models that were being developed for weather forecasting. This was, however, also to be an important prerequisite for the development of climate models, but it did not seem meaningful to address the climate issue in all its complexities to begin with. In addition to GATE there were also several other subprogrammes that were very important for the fulfilment of the general GARP objectives, i.e. studies of 'air-surface interaction' and 'atmospheric radiation.' early in the twenty-first century, we are trying hard to prevent an ongoing deterioration of the surface-based observational system. Paradoxically, there is at the same time an extraordinary interest in defence against natural disasters and the threat of a human-induced climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases is constantly increasing. This indeed...

Overview of loss models

Hurricane loss models have traditionally consisted of an input set of historical or synthetic storms that constitute a frequency or occurrence model, and additional meteorological, vulnerability, and actuarial components. In support of these components, databases on historical events and their detailed characteristics are necessary. For average annual loss cost estimation, probability distributions governing the stochastic generation of events are also necessary. For a given, fixed exposure, the hurricane loss model would then be executed to simulate tens of thousands of years in order to produce loss cost estimates and attendant uncertainties in the estimates. This overview of hurricane loss model construction pertains both to the first loss model approved by the commission (the AIR model Clark, 1986, 1997) and to the current public domain model (Powell et al., 2005), as well as a model that has garnered ongoing funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) HAZUS...

New Orleans projected flood losses

The flood extent (Figure 15.5) was determined from four different sources of data Landsat 5 imagery taken on August 31, 2005 Digital Globe imagery taken on September 3, 2005 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood extent maps as of August 31, 2005 and aerial reconnaissance photos taken at 1,525 m on August 30, 2005. Flood depth was determined by using high-resolution (5 m horizontal) LIDAR data, from which RMS constructed a digital terrain model with ground elevation values assigned to each cell in a 100 m x 100 m grid over the greater New Orleans area. The modeled flood depths were validated using aerial reconnaissance imagery taken on August 30, from which flood depths were assessed relative to surrounding structures, automobiles, and other distinguishable objects. A mapping of the

Variation trend of extreme drought during

Extreme drought always brings about severer natural disasters, and threatens much the agricultural production and human's daily life. Lots of statistical results show the rapid increase of the damage caused by extreme drought. Thus it is necessary to study the frequency and variation trend of extreme drought. Here, the variation trend of extreme drought over China during 1951-2004 was analyzed (Ma and Fu, 2003).

Pastfuture asymmetry and risk inferences

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...

Who needs a loss inventory

The United States is exposed to many different types of natural hazards, and to weather and climate hazards in particular. Media-friendly hurricanes batter the coasts while floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, droughts, and other common and powerful hazards affect not only coastal areas but also the interior areas of the country. The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005 is just the current placeholder for the next ''big hazard event.'' Death and destruction can occur anywhere in the United States, not just along the coastlines. In times of increasing losses from natural hazards at both a global and a national scale (McBean, 2004 Cutter and Emrich, 2005), the country should not and cannot plan for the future without some systematic accounting or a central repository of past losses. The National Planning Scenarios, developed by the Homeland Security Council in collaboration with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are designed to support mitigation...

The Earth a potted biography

The major global geophysical catastrophes that await us down the line are in fact just run-of-the-mill natural phenomena writ large. In order to understand them, therefore, it is essential to know a little about the Earth and how it functions. Here, I will sashay through the 4.6 billion years of Earth history, elucidating along the way those features that make our world so hazardous and our future upon it so precarious. To begin, it is sometimes worth pondering upon just how incredibly old the Earth is, if only to appreciate the notion that just because we have not experienced a particular natural catastrophe before does not mean it has never happened, nor that it will not happen again. The Earth has been around just about long enough to ensure that anything nature can conjure up it already has. To give a true impression of the great age of our planet compared to that of our race, perhaps I can fall back on an analogy I have used before. Imagine the entirety of Earth's history...

Introduction anthropic reasoning and global 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...

Other issues

In this section, I briefly consider the effect of climate change impacts on the remaining classes of property casualty insurance - i.e., other than property, and also how mitigation policy will affect insurers' underwriting and investment activities. Other property casualty classes may be affected by shifts in extremes - e.g., business interruption, automobile, and travel - but this author does not believe that the industry faces the prospect of a wave of climate change-related liability claims. In the United States, 16 of automobile accidents are attributed to adverse weather conditions, as are one-third of the accidents in Canada. Vehicles also sustain insurance losses during natural disasters, amounting to US 3.4 billion between 1996 and 2000 and averaging 10 of all disaster-related property losses. In some events, such as hailstorms, damage to automobiles can exceed 50 of total catastrophe losses (Mills et al., 2005). In Hurricane Katrina, one estimate reckoned that about half a...

Summary

The sea lamprey invasion of the Great Lakes occurred at the time that various other effects of cultural malpractices in the Great Lakes Basin were combining synergistically to create a major crisis for the fisheries and for other valued aspects of the Basin ecosystem. For the fisheries interests, themselves culpable for some of the ecosystem abuses, the sea lamprey became a scapegoat. No fishery interest was held responsible for this common enemy. Fisheries factions that could not collaborate previously then joined forces to combat the sea lamprey. Limited collaboration against the repulsive lamprey became a basis for expansion of collaboration to other issues, such as overfishing. This may be the main lesson that this case study brings by analogy to a consideration of possible consequences of climate change.

Conclusions

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

Spatial coverage

Is collected outside a standardized context. A national clearinghouse or consortium for hazard and disaster data could reduce such problems by consolidating and standardizing the collection and reporting system. Despite the limitations noted above, SHELDUS continues to be the most comprehensive geo-referenced database on natural hazards events and losses in the USA.

Concluding remarks

Economics offers insight into effective climate protection. These include showing others how to define the precise nature of market failure, the costs and benefits of action and inaction, to identify the full range of risk reduction strategies, to create economic incentives that will price climate protection, to make operational rational international architecture for providing global climate protection and to identify the underlying currents of political economy within and between nations. Economics searches for methods that balance the costs and benefits of achieving reasonable targets. Economics also helps people assign a price that could induce the developing countries to come on board in a substantive fashion refine the odds for catastrophe and surprise and to assess the nature of carbon sequestration to sort out whether the costs of measurement, verification and enforcement exceed the gains. Economics can test bed studies on the feasibility of international and domestic...

Linkage interplay

The linkage aspect of regime interplay highlights deliberate efforts to enhance synergy between regimes or avoid normative tensions. Existing linkages between the trade and climate regimes are rather limited. There is some direct contact in that the Framework Convention Secretariat has observer status in the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment and frequently attends the so-called 'information sessions' held in conjunction with Committee Meetings, where trade-related measures under environmental agreements are presented and discussed at a general level.39 However, its presentations are usually short and simply provide information about recent developments under the climate regime.40 Given that no instrument under the Framework Convention includes any reference to trade measures, it is not surprising that the climate regime has been rather peripheral in these discussions.41 Accordingly, climate-trade linkages have largely been played out by autonomous adaptation rather than by...

Normative statements

The arguments that people advance to support or oppose a proposed action rest on two kinds of support statements about what we know, or positive claims, and statements about what we value or should value, or normative claims. These two types of claim are fundamentally different. Examine the arguments advanced in any policy debate, and you will find a combination of positive and normative claims. Examine any highly contentious policy debate - like climate change - and you will find a confused intertwining of positive and normative claims. Making a reasoned judgment of what to do about climate change requires evaluating supporting claims of both types, and recognizing the differences between the two types of claim. Although distinguishing the two types of claim can be difficult, we argue that it is essential for understanding the debate and forming an independent judgment. On the climate-change issue, arguments on all sides of the debate also combine positive and normative claims....

Articles

Climate Scientists Issue Dire Warning. Guardian, February 28, 2006. Presents new evidence concerning the ramifications of global warming. Alley, Richard B. Abrupt Climate Change. Scientific American 291, no. 5 (November 2004) 62-69. Discusses the great ocean conveyor belt and how global warming could shut it down and trigger another ice age. Bosire, Bogonko. More Than 1 Billion Trees Planted in 2007. Discovery News (November 28, 2007). Available online. URL Accessed September 17, 2008. Describes how more than 1 billion trees were planted around the world in 2007, with Ethiopia and Mexico leading in the drive to combat climate change. tember 22, 2008. Presents scientific evidence that past extinctions were related to changing climate. CBS News. 'Monumental' Climate Change CBS News (June 19, 2007). Available online. URL eveningnews main2952286.shtml. Accessed September 22, 2008. This article outlines the destruction on the world's fine art as a result of pollution and...

Lapse Rates

Typical profiles in Figure 1.9 show positive lapse rates at most places in the lowest 10 km or so, and we will see in Chapter 7 that positive lapse rates promote convection and turbulence. This churning has led to the layer being called the troposphere, from the Greek word 'tropos', meaning to turn or change. The layer contains about 80 per cent of the mass of air and almost all the clouds. It is deeper in the tropics (about 17 km) than in temperate climates, where it is higher in summer (about 12 km) than winter (10 km), though there are also significant changes from day to day, e.g. from 8 km to 14 km. Convection is rare at the poles, where the surface is so cold and consequently the troposphere is relatively shallow at high latitudes, especially during the polar winter. Plate 1.1 Releasing a balloon carrying a radiosonde to measure temperature and humidity conditions in the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The radiosonde equipment is in a box in the meteorologist's left hand....

Quantifying the Odds

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

UCL Press. 1998. Bryant, Edward. Tsunami The Underrated Hazard. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Burroughs. William. J. Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Dawson. Alastair. G. Ice Age Earth. Routledge. 1992. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II. Climate Change gooi Impacts. Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, gooi. Lamb. H. H. Climate. History, and the Modern World. Routledge. 199*7-Legett. Jeremy. The CarbonWar. Penguin, gooo. 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....

Confirmation bias

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

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...

State of the World AYear in Review

NATURAL DISASTERS CLIMATE Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the Nobel Peace Prize for galvanizing international action against climate change. CLIMATE ADB says developing countries in Asia could face an unprecedented water crisis in a decade due to climate change, population growth, and mismanagement of water resources. NATURAL DISASTERS WWF reports that four Antarctic penguin populations are under pressure from climate change as habitat loss and overfishing disrupt breeding and feeding CLIMATE NATURAL DISASTERS CLIMATE UN says climate change is creating millions of green jobs in sectors from solar power to biofuels that will slightly exceed layoffs elsewhere in the economy CLIMATE At UN climate talks in Bali, nearly 200 nations agree to launch negotiations on a new climate change treaty following CLIMATE CLIMATE CLIMATE Some 50 million people worldwide participate in Earth Hour, switching off lights in some 370 cities in more than 35 countries to raise...

Variability of agricultural production

Rainfed agriculture has a large year-to-year variability according to the climate variability, primarily due to the drought events. The largest area equipped for irrigation was about half a million hectare, but practically, the largest irrigated area does not exceed 300,000 ha in dry years and 100,000 ha in wetter years. The changing economical and political conditions had large influence on the irrigated area. According to Table 2, Hungary has possibilities for irrigation on about 120,000 ha. Production on the 1-1.5 of the total agricultural land gives about 25 of the total income. 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.

There are large potential gains to IEA countries on the one hand and to China and India on the other from enhanced

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...

Box Cooperative Activities Between the IEA and India and China

Participate in the next emergency-response exercise in 2008. More recently, the IEA has assisted in training Chinese and Indian officials in emergency preparedness statistics. A number of IEA member countries have developed bilateral and multilateral mechanisms and programmes, in some cases working through the Agency, aimed at assisting and co-operating with China and India on a range of energy issues (Box 6.2). Four IEA countries Australia, Japan, Korea and the United States work with China and India on promoting clean, more efficient technologies through the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, launched in 2006. China and India also co-operate on energy-related issues with non-IEA countries through regional organisations, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation and the East Asia Summit. In 2006, China itself initiated five-party talks on energy with India, Japan, Korea and the United States. China and India, with the IEA, participate in the Renewable...

Government Regulations Programs And Funding

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

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

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

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

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

This caused slightly declining global temperatures. Today, aerosols still reduce the amount of solar heat that is received by the Earth, but the warming effect of the greenhouse gases is now clearly dominant. Chapter 6 details the relative impacts of the greenhouse gases, aerosols, and other components of the Earth's climate system on temperature. Response Chapter 4 describes the natural cycles that can affect the Earth's temperature. Variations in orbital distance are accounted for by comparing changes from one year to the next. Changes in solar intensity are far too small to account for the climate changes that have been measured. Changes in the Earth's orbital conditions (the Milankovich cycles described in Chapter 4 occur over much too long a time interval to be considered a factor in the warming that has been identified in recent years. In addition, the temperature increase is consistent with the increase in greenhouse gas levels and sea level...

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