Slashdot Mirror
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.
The population is growing. It can't be that unsafe.
"The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet."
Well that tears it. I'm leaving. Anyone coming with me?
Perhaps we shouldn't rebuild on the lands that keep getting destroyed... I hear that's what they did in the days before governmental disaster relief.
Latewire
nature should get out of the way or face lawsuits
but generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way
Exactly. I don't think our planet is any more unstable then 100, 1000 or 10000 years ago. Yeah, maybe we have global warming but even so it makes much, much more of a difference that a hurricane making landfall at the Mississipi estuary affects several million people today compared to 10,000 in 1803 or maybe a couple hundred in 500 BC.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
d /index.html
.. 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
a lack of preparation? New Orleans has known for a long time how vulnerable it was, but the levee system wasn't built to sustain anything above a category 3 storm.
The first rule of risk management is that the amount of time, effort, and money that you spend on security should be proprortional to the probability of a breach times the amount of damage it would cause. I guess Louisana didn't get the memo.
You heard wrong, unless by "before government disaster relief" you mean "before there were governments and we all ate sticks and berries and ran from sabretooth tigers."
Serious. Check out the history of the Yangtzee and Ganges rivers going back almost 5,000 years, and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia at the very dawn of civilization. Cities are generally built where they are useful, not where they are safe.
Those with a Libertarian or Conservative leaning sometimes forget that Taxes purchase something useful for you: civilization.
The government diaster relief you deride so much makes civilization happen in North America. Just the cost of doing business here. Move to Somalia if you want to live someplace where there's no tax burden.
SoupIsGood Food
Planning so so poorly thought out, a kid playing SIM City would come up with better plans. And that is exacly my point. We have simulation software that is inextensive. Tons of historical data to pull from. We know how to design better levee systems, bridges and canals. But the political system fails us again and again.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
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.
at least it's not boring here, like it would be in some 'safe' places. Adds a certain air of curiosity - you never know what next gigantic natural process will wipe out another batch of puny humans off the face of the earth.
You can't handle the truth.
It is certainly his fault that the disaster recovery wasn't handled well - the aftermath of Katrina was absolutely awful and Bush seemed asleep at the wheel. That is unforgivable. Disasters have happened all over the world this year - in Portugal and Romania, fire and flooding respecitvely. The people from other countries in Europe, and the governments of those countries, helped the victims. Spanish and French rescue efforts were underway very quickly when the fires in Portugal were blazing - yet in the USA, help was very slow coming from the US itself, and when Europe initially offered the US help, they were turned down - why? What the hell? What the hell is going on with Bush?
Don't criticise Slashdot readers for criticising Bush - they are quite right to. Slashdot's audience, being geeks, are generally more intelligent and well-informed than the average US consumer: Think about it - could there possibly be a reason why so many Slashdotters are criticising Bush? I'll leave you to ponder it.
Liberal Ontarians and French Quebecers are draining Western Canada's wealth. Stop them now! Support Western separatism.
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
Although this sounds impressive and devastating: "... 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003..."
The problem is the word "affected". I had a cold last year, was I one of the people "affected" by natural disasters? How are they defining whether or not someone was affected? You could say anyone who donated money to a relief fund was affected, or are they only referring to the number of people injured or that had property damage. What about someone who hid out in his bomb shelter for a week. Was that person affected? Does emotional disurbance count as being "affected"?
I'd prefer a concrete statistic, like number of people killed, number of homes destroyed. Saying that x people were "affected" doesn't tell us anything useful.
Reports like these remind me that we're not in the information age, we're in the data age. The information age will be next when we start compiling all this data into useful information.
The population can grow as long as there is energy available to support it. Energy, and oil specifically allows us to insulate ourselves from nature's forces by building habitat, artificially increasing food production etc. Whether it is safe isn't even part of the equation.
When we no longer have the means to protect ourselves (i.e. oil runs out), then Nature will be far more punishing than a hurricane, tsunami or earthquake. Just imagine other cities in the state of New Orleans because there is no electricity, water, gas or food production. All of those comforts are entirely dependent on a shrinking supply of oil.
What governmental disaster relief?
The New Orleans Times-Picayune (which in 2002: published this report which predicted much of the current disaster.) has a scathing open letter to the president that spells out a lot of the FEMA incompetence.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I just saved 15% on my auto insurance.
And Mitchel Cohen writes. . .
And you're completely full of it, I don't care what your brother does. Maybe the economics don't work on some bastard project but overall the price of steel and concrete is very competitive.
How much will my home cost? Most people get them built for between $45-$60 per square foot. It really depends on how much of the work you do yourself and the finish details on the inside. source: http://www.heritagebuildings.com/faq/faq.asp?secti on=2#ans36
New bricks and sticks construction around here is selling for around $90.00=$110.00/square foot. A couple years ago steel construction was between 10 to 14% higher compared to wood. But with recent increases in lumber prices, increasing faster than steel and concrete construction, those historical differences have all but been erased. We get a steady stream of people stopping by and want to talk about building a house like ours. The numbers always work on construction, but unless they have a lot of cash they can't get it financed.
This place is built with steel I beams, not a trailer built on top of a steel structure, it's a real steel house. I can remove the ceiling panels upstairs and there are steel girders and insulating panels. My roof plates are solid steel plates overlapping so they don't leak and are bolted across the entire top of the house. It will never need replacing. Hail big enough to dent my neighbor's truck...not a scratch. Not a dent. Nothing.
With concrete it depends on what type of house you build. A pre-fab shell kit for a 2,000 square foot house is about $23,000.00, not including the interior fit and finish. We worked out the total cost for ours, including the land, to be about $110,00.00. That was before we found this place.
And it's positively better insulated than conventional houses. I live in a steel home and I can promise you it's quiter, cooler and better built than any conventional home I've ever lived in or stayed in. And 20 years from now it's going to look just like it does today.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage