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The discussion about global disasters and their effects
[...]... rarely as lethal as hurricanes, in just a few days in April 1974 almost 150 tornadoes claimed over 300 lives in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and adjacent states Global Catastrophes large earthquakes are confined to distinct zones that coincide with the margins of plates In recent years, sudden movements of California’s San Andreas Fault have generated large earthquakes in San Francisco (1989) and southern... Two plates may scrape jerkily past one another, accumulating strain and releasing it periodically through destructive earthquakes Examples of such conservative plate margins include the quake-prone San Andreas Fault that separates western California from the rest of the United States and Turkey’s North Anatolian Fault, whose latest movement triggered a major earthquake in 1999 Alternatively, two plates... now understood and appreciated far and wide In response, the UK Government is pushing for an international science panel to evaluate potential natural threats on this scale, and plans are well advanced for tsunami warning systems in both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans In fact, the Earth is an extraordinarily fragile place that is fraught with danger: a tiny rock hurtling through space, wracked by violent... fortunate enough to live in prosperous Europe, North America, or Oceania view great natural catastrophes as ephemeral events that occur in strange lands far, far away Mildly interesting but only rarely impinging upon a daily existence within which a murder in a popular soap opera or a win by the local football team holds far more interest than 50,000 dead in a Venezuelan mudslide Remarkably, such an attitude... areas, volcanic ash can be extremely disruptive, making travel difficult, damaging crops, poisoning livestock, and 15 Very short introduction to the Earth 3 A lone, badly damaged building is all that is left at Laem Pakarang in Thailand, following the devastating arrival of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004 Global Catastrophes contaminating water supplies Just 30 centimetres or so of wet ash is... 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 3 Very short introduction to the Earth... eruptions and the latter are small Driven by the mantle convection currents beneath, the plates waltz endlessly across the surface of the Earth, at about the same rate as fingernails grow, constantly modifying the appearance of our planet and ensuring that, given time, everywhere gets its fair share of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions Hazardous Earth While earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are linked... worry about The only explanation is that these people are in denial They are quite aware that terrible disaster will strike at some point in the future – they just can’t accept that it might happen to them or their descendants 1 Global Catastrophes When it comes to natural catastrophes on a global scale such an attitude is virtually omnipresent, pervading national governments, international agencies,... changing moods Global Catastrophes 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 represented by a team of runners tackling the three and a half laps of the 1,500 metres For the first lap our planet would be a barren wasteland of impacting asteroids and exploding volcanoes During the next the planet would begin to cool, allowing... Little has changed today, except perhaps the frequency of global catastrophes, and many on the planet still face a daily threat to life, limb, and livelihood from volcano, quake, flood, and storm The natural perils that have battered our race in the past, and which constitute a growing future threat, have roots that extend back over 4 billion years to the creation of the solar system and the formation . Galileo Stillman Drake Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh GLOBAL CATASTROPHES Bill McGuire GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin HABERMAS James Gordon.