The Cure For Catastrophe

Author : Robert Muir-Wood
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-06
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780465096473

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The Cure for Catastrophe by Robert Muir-Wood Pdf

We can't stop natural disasters but we can stop them being disastrous. One of the world's foremost risk experts tells us how. Year after year, floods wreck people's homes and livelihoods, earthquakes tear communities apart, and tornadoes uproot whole towns. Natural disasters cause destruction and despair. But does it have to be this way? In The Cure for Catastrophe, global risk expert Robert Muir-Wood argues that our natural disasters are in fact human ones: We build in the wrong places and in the wrong way, putting brick buildings in earthquake country, timber ones in fire zones, and coastal cities in the paths of hurricanes. We then blindly trust our flood walls and disaster preparations, and when they fail, catastrophes become even more deadly. No society is immune to the twin dangers of complacency and heedless development. Recognizing how disasters are manufactured gives us the power to act. From the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 to Hurricane Katrina, The Cure for Catastrophe recounts the ingenious ways in which people have fought back against disaster. Muir-Wood shows the power and promise of new predictive technologies, and envisions a future where information and action come together to end the pain and destruction wrought by natural catastrophes. The decisions we make now can save millions of lives in the future. Buzzing with political plots, newfound technologies, and stories of surprising resilience, The Cure for Catastrophe will revolutionize the way we conceive of catastrophes: though natural disasters are inevitable, the death and destruction are optional. As we brace ourselves for deadlier cataclysms, the cure for catastrophe is in our hands.

Author : Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2015-02-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781620409893

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Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert Pdf

A new edition of the book that launched Elizabeth Kolbert's career as an environmental writer--updated with three new chapters, making it, yet again, "irreplaceable" (Boston Globe). Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental classic Field Notes from a Catastrophe first developed out of a groundbreaking, National Magazine Award-winning three-part series in The New Yorker. She expanded it into a still-concise yet richly researched and damning book about climate change: a primer on the greatest challenge facing the world today. But in the years since, the story has continued to develop; the situation has become more dire, even as our understanding grows. Now, Kolbert returns to the defining book of her career. She has added a chapter bringing things up-to-date on the existing text, plus three new chapters--on ocean acidification, the tar sands, and a Danish town that's gone carbon neutral--making it, again, a must-read for our moment.

Author : Shauna J. Grant
Publisher : Scholastic Inc.
Page : 85 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2022-07-19
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9781338766684

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Mimi and the Cutie Catastrophe: A Graphix Chapters Book (Mimi #1) by Shauna J. Grant Pdf

Rising star Shauna J. Grant makes her Graphix Chapters debut with this humorous and wholesome series. Get drawn into reading with Graphix Chapters! Graphix Chapters are ideal books for beginning and newly independent readers aged 6-8. With approachable page counts, easy-to-follow paneling, and artwork that supports text comprehension, these engaging stories with unforgettable characters help children become lifelong readers. Meet Mimi. She's charming! She's cheerful! She's cute! But that's not all! She's also a loyal friend and fun playmate, who has the best adventures with Penelope, her magical toy dog. But when Mimi notices people treating her like she's too cute, can she show them that she's much more than meets the eye? Or will she be stuck in this cute-astrophe?

Author : Nellie Hermann
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2008-08-05
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781416568230

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The Cure for Grief by Nellie Hermann Pdf

Deeply bonded to her three older brothers and in awe of her father's experiences as a Holocaust survivor, young Ruby is shocked when her eldest brother is abruptly taken away to a hospital, where he changes into a person she barely recognizes. 35,000 first printing.

Author : Ilan Kelman
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780198841340

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Disaster by Choice by Ilan Kelman Pdf

We speak of earthquakes, floods, and wildfires as 'natural disasters'. In this provocative book, Ilan Kelman argues that the true disaster is not caused by natural phenomena, but by human choices which leave people unprepared and at terrible risk. He explores how we can and should act to stop people dying when nature unleashes its powers.

Author : Robert N. Proctor
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 779 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2012-02-28
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780520950436

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Golden Holocaust by Robert N. Proctor Pdf

The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization. It is also one of the most beguiling, thanks to more than a century of manipulation at the hands of tobacco industry chemists. In Golden Holocaust, Robert N. Proctor draws on reams of formerly-secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely-used drug on the planet, with six trillion sticks sold per year. He paints a harrowing picture of tobacco manufacturers conspiring to block the recognition of tobacco-cancer hazards, even as they ensnare legions of scientists and politicians in a web of denial. Proctor tells heretofore untold stories of fraud and subterfuge, and he makes the strongest case to date for a simple yet ambitious remedy: a ban on the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.

Author : R. A. Scotti
Publisher : Back Bay Books
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2008-12-14
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780316054782

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Sudden Sea by R. A. Scotti Pdf

The massive destruction wreaked by the Hurricane of 1938 dwarfed that of the Chicago Fire, the San Francisco Earthquake, and the Mississippi floods of 1927, making the storm the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Now, R.A. Scotti tells the story.

Author : Stefanos Geroulanos,Todd Meyers
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2018-08-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226556628

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The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe by Stefanos Geroulanos,Todd Meyers Pdf

The injuries suffered by soldiers during WWI were as varied as they were brutal. How could the human body suffer and often absorb such disparate traumas? Why might the same wound lead one soldier to die but allow another to recover? In The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe, Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers uncover a fascinating story of how medical scientists came to conceptualize the body as an integrated yet brittle whole. Responding to the harrowing experience of the Great War, the medical community sought conceptual frameworks to understand bodily shock, brain injury, and the vast differences in patient responses they occasioned. Geroulanos and Meyers carefully trace how this emerging constellation of ideas became essential for thinking about integration, individuality, fragility, and collapse far beyond medicine: in fields as diverse as anthropology, political economy, psychoanalysis, and cybernetics. Moving effortlessly between the history of medicine and intellectual history, The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe is an intriguing look into the conceptual underpinnings of the world the Great War ushered in.

Author : Isaac Asimov
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 406 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1980
Category : Fiction
ISBN : UOM:39015008241401

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A Choice of Catastrophes by Isaac Asimov Pdf

Author : Alan Lawrence Sitomer
Publisher : Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2012-07-31
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9781423178088

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Nerd Girls: A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions by Alan Lawrence Sitomer Pdf

Since their highly-contested battle over the middle school talent show, the Nerd Girls and the ThreePees have been engaged in an all-out prank war. So naturally, their principal decides that they must compete in the academic septathlon--as a team. Can they come together and win, or will their squabbles ruin everything?

Author : Charles Perrow
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 55,8 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 : Colin Mason
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2013-06-17
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781136555114

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The 2030 Spike by Colin Mason Pdf

The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.

Author : Benjamin Reilly
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 458 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2022-04-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781476688091

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Disaster and Human History by Benjamin Reilly Pdf

Human history is periodically punctuated by natural disasters, from Vesuvius' eruption to the modern-day Covid-19 pandemic. Volcanoes have buried entire cities, earthquakes have reduced structures to smoldering ruins. Floods and cyclones have wreaked havoc on river valleys and coastlines, and desertification and climate change have weakened society's underpinnings. Death tolls are often escalated by starvation and illness, which frequently occur in tandem. This second edition assesses natural disasters on human society and the effect of strategies developed to reduce their impact. This book addresses the interconnectivity of disaster and human responsibility through 23 updated case studies, including a new chapter on the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and the ensuing Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Author : Richard A. Posner
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 45,9 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.

Author : Justin Cronin
Publisher : Doubleday Canada
Page : 512 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2016-05-24
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780385669566

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The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin Pdf

The wait is finally over for the third and final installment in The Passage trilogy, called "a The Stand-meets-The Road journey" by Entertainment Weekly. In the wake of the battle against The Twelve, Amy and her friends have gone in different directions. Peter has joined the settlement at Kerrville, Texas, ascending in its ranks despite his ambivalence about its ideals. Alicia has ventured into enemy territory, half-mad and on the hunt for the viral called Zero, who speaks to her in dreams. Amy has vanished without a trace. With The Twelve destroyed, the citizens of Kerrville are moving on with life, settling outside the city limits, certain that at last the world is safe enough. But the gates of Kerrville will soon shudder with the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and Amy--the Girl from Nowhere, the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years--will once more join her friends to face down the demon who has torn their world apart . . . and to at last confront their destinies.