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Too Many People in Nature's Way
Ant writes "Wired News report that the dead and the desperate of New Orleans now join the farmers of Aceh and the fishermen of Trincomalee, villagers in Iran and the slum dwellers of Haiti in a world being dealt ever more punishing blows by natural disasters... ... "We rely on technology and we end up thinking as human beings that we're totally safe, and we're not," said Miletti, of the University of Colorado. "The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet."
By one critical measure, the impact on populations, statistics show the planet to be increasingly unsafe. More than 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003, a 60 percent increase over the previous two 10-year periods, U.N. officials reported at a conference on disaster prevention in January.
Those numbers don't include millions displaced by last December 2004's tsunami, which killed an estimated 180,000 people as its monstrous waves swept over coastlines from Indonesia's Aceh province to Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, and beyond. By another measure -- property damage -- 2004 was the costliest year on record for global insurers, who paid out more than $40 billion on natural disasters, reports German insurance giant Munich Re. Florida's quartet of 2004 hurricanes was the big factor.
But generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way, said Thomas Loster, a Munich Re expert. "More and more people are being hit," he said..." I'd also like to point out a project here to find housing for Katrina's victims; it tries to combine lists of sites offering housing, and do a meta-search.
As populations grow, they are going to move into more and more dangerous areas. Given the relative shortness of the human lifespan, any major environmental disaster that occurs with periodicity of more than 30-40 years is going to have humans living in its path. (because humans tend to forget things through generations) Unfortunately since these events are so rare, it is hard to prepare for them. That said, people seem to focus on these things right after a disaster. Remember the New Orleans disaster is one of the largest distructive forces to hit the continental US, regardless of population.
-Sean (OutdoorDB - the Outdoor Wiki)
You had people all over the US talking about how third world uncivilized people deserved the tsunami. And people like michael savage etc. saying no federal aid should be sent to help other countries. Being libertarian, I can agree that with the concept of federal assistance being bad, I dont see why he has a vitriolic resentment of it considering how miniscule the foreign aid budget is (especially after you deduct military assistance to high income countries that somehow counts as "aid"). After the tsunami, I even came across a weblog (ernie i think) that said something to the effect of "those civilizations have been around for thousands of years longer than us and didnt advance so they deserved it. Too bad, f*ck 'em".
/fox) reported a blatant lie that foreign countries didnt step up to offer aid and assistance for new orleans.
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.. but a vast majority of people are there because they didnt have the means (no cars & buses) to evacuate in time ..let me stress that not every new orleans person is involved in looting.
Like every single individuals and kids who died or were orphaned had done stuff to deserve what happened to them.
And then there was the radio show host who said he didnt care about people who couldn't swim.
About new orleans, you the media (sean hannity
Here's a report that contradicts what sean hannity was saying:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/05/katrina.world.ai
The point I am making is that you have a large segment (thankfully not the majority) of the US population who thinks the rest of the world is all evil and can go to hell. These same people are now sayuing "screw new orleans bunch of savages". Sure there are scumbags causing trouble there
By way of example our individual physiologies as systems experience runaway in terms of sexual orgasam ( ya sex, more people ) and in terms of death.
We're not only pushing the envelope in terms of population, we're also pushing the food chain that sustains us. The oceans are being fished clean to feed the growing population. It's not unlikely that the ocean food chain will collapse in our lifetime. Add in global warming and the projected more frequent, more violent storms; mix in our proclivity to live in large numbers on the coast lines, and, the recipe for disaster is all but made, no need to add in a killer like a super volcano.
The lesson of New Orleans is that we can't handle relatively mid range disasters. We speak of the first world in terms of Super Powers in quasi mythological terms that suggest we control nature. We're just outlaw apes broken free of our natural constraints and deluded in belief systems that talk to our immortality as mirror images of the creator of the universe.
The joke about to go very bad. May you live in interesting times.
cheers
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
> New Orleans has been there for a very long time.
Yeah and strangely enough the old part of the city isn't flooded that bad. How is that possible? Because a long time ago people were smart enough to build their houses above sea level.
I'm living in the Netherlands, well known because a big part of the country is below sea level. We have the same problem here, people building their homes next to big rivers, and then complain if their property gets flooded. Because of some big floods over the last ten years, there are now plans to create enormous backup water bassins, so we can leave the water somewhere if the rivers get too high.
From an agrarian point of view the answer is obvious - river floodplain silt is usually excellent for growing (ask the Egyptians and the Dutch.) But how many of the people trapped in New Orleans were agriculturalists? I suspect none.
Living as I do at an elevation of 80M above mean sea level, on a slope with excellent drainage, I take a very philosophical view of this. But I can't help thinking that we are still organising our world according to the preoccupations of much less advanced societies- and that the time to start doing something was over a hundred years ago, but the longer we leave it the worse it will get. London and New York could suffer various degrees of damage when the Azores slippage occurs. The effect of losing two of the world's major financial markets would not be good, considerably worse than losing some refinery capability (if Bush wasn't making so much money out of the windfall profits to the oil companies, he _could_ ration US fuel supplies and reduce prices, but you cannot dole out access to cash and credit and keep a modern society running.) How much would it actually cost in real money - not virtual profits - to plan to relocate the world's major financial and trade centers to safer locations?
The present situation is predicated on the idea that the rich will always suffer minimally in disasters. If my house is swept away or flattened I will have several options as to where to live while it is rebuilt, while the poor won't. But there are disaster scenarios that impact the rich as well as the poor, by making their savings and investment worthless and creating a breakdown in society which will enable criminals to steal possessions - think of the Jews in 30s Germany. If we don't guard against these, we are truly asking for it.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I live in a town which has several layers of 'new' built on each other. When the town was founded, there was a small trader town named 'Drezdany' (old slawish for: those living at the river banks). To protect the bridge crossing the river, at the other bank a castle was built which subsequently attracted settlers around it. This small settlement was thus called Neuendresden (New Dresden), as opposed to the old trader town Drezdany, now called Altendresden (Old Dresden). :)
After several heavy firestorms were destroying Old Dresden, it got a completely new designed block layout, with wide streets and firewalls between the single houses. This then was called Dresden-Neustadt (Dresden New Town), thus turning the former New Dresden into Dresden-Altstadt (Dresden Old Town).
In the 19th century the town grow out of its city walls, creating new suburbs behind the old limits, so Dresden-Neustadt became two parts: Dresden-Innere Neustadt (Inner New Town) and Dresden-Aeussere Neustadt (Outer New Town). Dresden Altstadt kept its name, the new suburbs were instead called Vorstaedte (Suburbs) according to the direction they were: Pirnaische Vorstadt (suburb in direction to Pirna [another town]), Suedvorstadt (southern suburb) etc.pp.
In WW II, most of Dresden's Old Town got destroyed, and except for solitude buildings re-erected because of their representative or historical value, most of Dresden-Altstadt now is in fact a new town, even with a new block layout. To see the historic, old downtown, you have to go to Dresden-Neustadt (New Town).
As you can see: There is nothing impossible with naming a new town
Here's a video of a concrete house that's been through two hurricanes without a scratch. You can see blown out screens on the porch but the houses came out fine. This is actually the company headquarters of the company that makes the concrete dome kits in Florida (www.aidomes.com).
Concrete Dome
Both types of homes are cheap to build, will withstand far more wind than traditional bricks and sticks construction and are more energy efficient.
What else do both of those type homes have in common? It's very difficult to get them financed. You can't go through a traditional mortgage because Fannie Mae won't touch the loans, which means you have to get a portfolio loan like we did which is prime plus. Then you get to fight with the insurance company for coverage. Our house won't burn or get blown down, but the original quote was higher than for a conventional house!
As long as we have a such a backward attitude toward home construction and financing more survivable housing structures, then you can expect a lot of flying lumber every time a hurricane lands somewhere. We build the same type homes in danger areas, then act surprised when they don't survive.
True a concrete home will flood just like conventional construction but at least the shell will be in good condition. Rip out the insides, sand blast it clean, rebuild the interior. If you build it right you can even replace the HVAC ducts and wiring conduit to prevent mold growth. It'll be just like new.
These days you can actually watch the lumber in conventional homes get thinner by the day but we're just so stuck in that brick box with a tar paper roof mentality.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The key difference between Iraq and New Orleans is that Iraq is a national problem. It is another country, and individal states are not authorized to "deal" or make war with other countries. Thus, it is the responsibility of the federal government to deal with Iraq. Regardless of whether you believe we should be there or not, it's a situation that has to be dealt with and paid for on a federal level.
New Orleans, however, is but a small city within a state. They had a responsibility, as a city, to do everything in their power to protect themselves from predictable natural disasters. They should have done this with their own money, not with money from the Federal government. The local tax rates should have been much higher in New Orlearns (and should be much higher in all coastal areas) so that the goverment could provide adequate protection for the people.
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