Confronting Catastrophe

Author : R. W. Greene
Publisher : ESRI, Inc.
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Computers
ISBN : 1589480406

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Confronting Catastrophe by R. W. Greene Pdf

This handbook explains the importance and practice of using a geographic information system (GIS) in designing and implementing an effective response to large-scale disasters, including wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks. The handbook is organized according to the accepted methodology of disaster management, which involves planning and identification, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The first three stages involve tasks that an organization or community can perform before a disaster occurs. The latter two tasks focus on postdisaster efforts. The spatial display and analysis tools of GIS are ideal for assessing disaster risks, consequences, and responses. GIS can display the location, size, value, and significance of assets that may be impacted by disasters. It can show the kinds of environmental, atmospheric, and other conditions that contribute to particular kinds of natural disasters. GIS can also juxtapose a particular kind of asset with specific hazardous conditions over a wide geographic area, thus allowing a precise calculation of potential loss in the immediate area. With this kind of graphic depiction, the choices about what to do and where to do it are clarified for those charged with making fast, cost-effective decisions. This handbook details how GIS software features can be used at each stage of planning and response. The use of GIS in a disaster is illustrated by its application in New York City in the days after September 11, where it was used to provide assistance to rescue and recovery teams. The manual also profiles GIS-based disaster modeling software packages now available at no cost to local communities.

Author : David E. Alexander
Publisher : Terra Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Natural disasters
ISBN : 1903544017

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Confronting Catastrophe by David E. Alexander Pdf

A survey and analysis of natural disasters - volcanoes, floods, landslides, hurricanes, etc.-in terms of new concepts and approaches.

Author : Robert R. M. Verchick
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2010-06-15
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780674047914

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Facing Catastrophe by Robert R. M. Verchick Pdf

The author argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection. His prescription boils down to three simple commands: Go green, be fair, and keep safe. He argues that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in managing natural infrastructure, distributional fairness, and public risk.--[book cover].

Author : Peter E. Hodgkinson,Michael Stewart
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2006-05-10
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781134703128

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Coping With Catastrophe by Peter E. Hodgkinson,Michael Stewart Pdf

Coping with Catastrophe is a practical handbook for people who provide psychosocial aftercare for victims of disasters. This completely revised and updated second edition includes the latest findings on the nature and effects of trauma, the psychological debriefing process and the effects of emergency work, and the latest treatment models for post-traumatic stress and abnormal grief. Eminently practical and easy to read, Coping with Catastrophe provides readers with information and skills to respond effectively and confidently to the needs of disaster survivors. It will be of immense value to a wide variety of helping professionals and carers, including social workers, psychologists, doctors, voluntary counsellors, and all those whose work brings them into contact with disaster victims.

Author : Mark Schuller
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2021-01-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781978820876

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Humanity's Last Stand by Mark Schuller Pdf

Foreword / by Cynthia McKinney -- Introduction: Careening toward extinction -- We're all in this together -- Dismantling white supremacy -- Climate justice versus the anthropocene -- Humanity on the move : justice and migration -- Dismantling the ivory tower.

Author : Elaine Pitt Enarson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Disaster relief
ISBN : 1588268314

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Women Confronting Natural Disaster by Elaine Pitt Enarson Pdf

Natural disasters push ordinary gender disparities to the extreme¿leaving women not only to deal with a catastrophe¿s aftermath, but also at risk for greater levels of domestic violence, displacement, and other threats to their security and well-being. Elaine Enarson presents a comprehensive assessment, encompassing both theory and practice, of how gender shapes disaster vulnerability and resilience.

Author : Alessa Johns
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2013-12-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781136683961

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Dreadful Visitations by Alessa Johns Pdf

Throughout history, varying responses to catastrophe have revealed much about a society's cultural and philosophical character. In Dreadful Visitations , leading scholars of different disciplines examine eighteenth-century responses to natural disaster, showing how human agency played an active role in the creation of destructive circumstances, and how these disasters helped to establish national and moral identities in the Age of Reason. Contributors: David Arnold, Daniel Gordon, Carla Hesse, George Starr, Alan Taylor, Steven Tobriner and Charles Walker.

Author : Robert R. M. Verchick
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-02
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780674064256

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Facing Catastrophe by Robert R. M. Verchick Pdf

As Hurricane Katrina vividly revealed, disaster policy in the United States is broken and needs reform. What can we learn from past disastersÑstorms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and wildfiresÑabout preparing for and responding to future catastrophes? How can these lessons be applied in a future threatened by climate change? In this bold contribution to environmental law, Robert Verchick argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection. His prescription boils down to three simple commands: Go Green, Be Fair, and Keep Safe. ÒGoing greenÓ means minimizing exposure to hazards by preserving natural buffers and integrating those buffers into artificial systems like levees or seawalls. ÒBeing fairÓ means looking after public health, safety, and the environment without increasing personal and social vulnerabilities. ÒKeeping safeÓ means a more cautionary approach when confronting disaster risks. Verchick argues that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in managing natural infrastructure, distributional fairness, and public risk. He proposes changes to the federal statutes governing environmental impact assessments, wetlands development, air emissions, and flood control, among others. Making a strong case for more transparent governmental decision-making, Verchick offers a new vision of disaster law for the next generation.

Author : Peter E. Hodgkinson,Michael Stewart
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0415040981

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Coping with Catastrophe by Peter E. Hodgkinson,Michael Stewart Pdf

Author : Charles Perrow
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2011-02-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1400838517

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The Next Catastrophe by Charles Perrow Pdf

Charles Perrow is famous worldwide for his ideas about normal accidents, the notion that multiple and unexpected failures--catastrophes waiting to happen--are built into our society's complex systems. In The Next Catastrophe, he offers crucial insights into how to make us safer, proposing a bold new way of thinking about disaster preparedness. Perrow argues that rather than laying exclusive emphasis on protecting targets, we should reduce their size to minimize damage and diminish their attractiveness to terrorists. He focuses on three causes of disaster--natural, organizational, and deliberate--and shows that our best hope lies in the deconcentration of high-risk populations, corporate power, and critical infrastructures such as electric energy, computer systems, and the chemical and food industries. Perrow reveals how the threat of catastrophe is on the rise, whether from terrorism, natural disasters, or industrial accidents. Along the way, he gives us the first comprehensive history of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security and examines why these agencies are so ill equipped to protect us. The Next Catastrophe is a penetrating reassessment of the very real dangers we face today and what we must do to confront them. Written in a highly accessible style by a renowned systems-behavior expert, this book is essential reading for the twenty-first century. The events of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina--and the devastating human toll they wrought--were only the beginning. When the next big disaster comes, will we be ready? In a new preface to the paperback edition, Perrow examines the recent (and ongoing) catastrophes of the financial crisis, the BP oil spill, and global warming.

Author : Marisa O. Ensor
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2009-12-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0816527849

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The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch by Marisa O. Ensor Pdf

Around the world disaster vulnerability is on the rise. The incidence and intensity of disasters have increased in recent decades with lives being shattered and resources being destroyed across broad geographic regions each year. As it swept across the Honduran landscape, the exceptional size, power and duration of Hurricane Mitch abruptly and brutally altered the already diminished economic, social, and environmental conditions of the population. In the aftermath of the disaster a group of seven socio-environmental scientists set out to investigate the root causes of the heightened vulnerability that characterized pre-Mitch Honduras, the impact of the catastrophe on the local society, and the subsequent recovery efforts. Edited by Marisa O. Ensor, this volume presents the findings of their investigation. The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch offers a comprehensive analysis of the immediate and long-term consequences of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras. Based on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork and environmental assessments, this volume illustrates the importance of adopting an approach to disaster research and practice that places ÒnaturalÓ trigger events within their political, cultural, and socio-economic contexts. The contributors make a compelling case against post-disaster recovery efforts that limit themselves to alleviating the symptoms, rather than confronting the root causes of the vulnerability that prefigured the disaster.

Author : Matthew Stein
Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2011-11-16
Category : Reference
ISBN : 9781603583237

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When Disaster Strikes by Matthew Stein Pdf

Disasters often strike without warning and leave a trail of destruction in their wake. Yet armed with the right tools and information, survivors can fend for themselves and get through even the toughest circumstances. Matthew Stein's When Disaster Strikes provides a thorough, practical guide for how to prepare for and react in many of life's most unpredictable scenarios. In this disaster-preparedness manual, he outlines the materials you'll need-from food and water, to shelter and energy, to first-aid and survival skills-to help you safely live through the worst. When Disaster Strikes covers how to find and store food, water, and clothing, as well as the basics of installing back-up power and lights. You'll learn how to gather and sterilize water, build a fire, treat injuries in an emergency, and use alternative medical sources when conventional ones are unavailable. Stein instructs you on the smartest responses to natural disasters-such as fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods-how to keep warm during winter storms, even how to protect yourself from attack or other dangerous situations. With this comprehensive guide in hand, you can be sure to respond quickly, correctly, and confidently when a crisis threatens.

Author : Lindsay Thomas
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2021-03-16
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781452964256

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Training for Catastrophe by Lindsay Thomas Pdf

A timely, politically savvy examination of how impossible disasters shape the very real possibilities of our world Why would the normally buttoned-down national security state imagine lurid future scenarios like a zombie apocalypse? In Training for Catastrophe, author Lindsay Thomas shows how our security regime reimagines plausibility to focus on unlikely and even unreal events rather than probable ones. With an in-depth focus on preparedness (a pivotal, emergent national security paradigm since 9/11) she explores how fiction shapes national security. Thomas finds fiction at work in unexpected settings, from policy documents and workplace training manuals to comics and video games. Through these texts—as well as plenty of science fiction—she examines the philosophy of preparedness, interrogating the roots of why it asks us to treat explicitly fictional events as real. Thomas connects this philosophical underpinning to how preparedness plays out in contemporary politics, emphasizing how it uses aesthetic elements like realism, genre, character, and plot to train people both to regard some disasters as normal and to ignore others. Training for Catastrophe makes an important case for how these documents elicit consent and compliance. Thomas draws from a huge archive of texts—including a Centers for Disease Control comic about a zombie apocalypse, the work of Audre Lorde, and the political thrillers of former national security advisor Richard Clarke—to ask difficult questions about the uses and values of fiction. A major statement on how national security intrudes into questions of art and life, Training for Catastrophe is a timely intervention into how we confront disasters.

Author : Alessa Johns
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2013-12-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781136683893

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Dreadful Visitations by Alessa Johns Pdf

Throughout history, varying responses to catastrophe have revealed much about a society's cultural and philosophical character. In Dreadful Visitations , leading scholars of different disciplines examine eighteenth-century responses to natural disaster, showing how human agency played an active role in the creation of destructive circumstances, and how these disasters helped to establish national and moral identities in the Age of Reason. Contributors: David Arnold, Daniel Gordon, Carla Hesse, George Starr, Alan Taylor, Steven Tobriner and Charles Walker.

Author : Richard A. Posner
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2004-11-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 0195346394

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Catastrophe by Richard A. Posner Pdf

Catastrophic risks are much greater than is commonly appreciated. Collision with an asteroid, runaway global warming, voraciously replicating nanomachines, a pandemic of gene-spliced smallpox launched by bioterrorists, and a world-ending accident in a high-energy particle accelerator, are among the possible extinction events that are sufficiently likely to warrant careful study. How should we respond to events that, for a variety of psychological and cultural reasons, we find it hard to wrap our minds around? Posner argues that realism about science and scientists, innovative applications of cost-benefit analysis, a scientifically literate legal profession, unprecedented international cooperation, and a pragmatic attitude toward civil liberties are among the keys to coping effectively with the catastrophic risks.