This week my blog was going to be about the Geneva Convention and about disasters being called “human-made.” Once I started the blog, I realized I had way too much information and about disasters and there was no way I would be able to blog about both topics in a timely fashion. So, I decided to focus on the class’s discussion about Human-Made disasters. When we say “natural disaster”, it isn’t actually nature creating the disaster. It is humans failing to prepare or human’s ignorance to the disaster’s situation. Basically it can be considered a lack of planning or lack of disaster preparedness-measures and plans taken to minimize the loss of life and damage done.
Human-Made Disasters?
First examine two terms, both in the reading Cahill: disaster, which is a breakdown between man and his environment. It is a sudden or slow event that demands exceed the available resources, and generally requires outside help. Then there is a natural disaster, a sudden major upheaval of nature that causes a lot of destruction, death, and suffering.
It’s mind-blowing that disasters are considered human-made. When we say a natural disaster occurs, nature can’t be blamed entirely for what happened and the destruction caused. For example, the class discussed the destruction in Japan caused by the tsunami and. Someone in class had mentioned that there had been a line of rocks placed near some of the coast in Japan. These rocks had engravings that read; “do not build below these rocks” (or something close to this). The warnings had been there for years, yet the people of Japan chose to ignore them, and build in an unsafe area where the tsunami had struck. Had these rocks not been ignored, or if measures of effectiveness had been taken, the tsunami’s impact could have been avoided with minimal loss and damages. By ignoring the rocks and not implementing measures of effectiveness, the Japanese built communities along the coast where the tsunami was able to destroy the communities. This is one reason that favors the idea of disaster being human-made.
Similar to the damage cause by the tsunami is Japan was the damage done by Hurricane Katrina. The area affected by the hurricane used to be much like a swamp land. Years ago, these swamp lands would naturally break up the hurricane before hitting the main land, weakening the blow. Like Japan, if these warning signs would not have been ignored much destruction could have been avoided and lives could have been saved. Both of these are just two of the many examples of how and why disasters are, for the most part, human-man. One might argue a couple of points from this topic. First, and probably most apparent, one would argue that if the natural disaster (meaning nature; hurricane, earthquake, flood..ect) didn’t occur, humans wouldn’t have to worry about a disaster, nor would humans be blamed for creating the disaster. Especially after examining the two terms; disaster and natural disaster, it seems apparent that you can’t have one without the other. In class we said, if humans weren’t there, then a crises wouldn’t exist. But, I think we could say if the natural disaster wasn’t there, the crises wouldn’t exist. It’s definitely and arguable subject. Another argument; when homes and building we built in the flood zones in Japan and affected hurricane areas in Southern America, that the architecture of the buildings and land could sustain nature’s impacts with minimal damage. This might be true; however, the past would prove that argument wrong; however, it would prove that argument right. I definitely think both of these points are two very good arguments about disasters being “human-made.” I’m not exactly sold on human-made disaster, yet I’m not sold on blaming nature 100 percent for disasters.
In the blog I mention the terms; measures of effectiveness and disaster preparedness, which is basically taking measures to prepare for something, more specifically a disaster or crises. I found and interesting video on emergency preparedness for hurricanes. I felt it was related to the blog and interesting because the east coast was just hit by a hurricane. The video can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIj_I-Kpqm8
I agree with you Zach, as you stated a lot of similar things to what I had said in my post. Initially I was shocked when I saw/heard that all disasters are "human" made, but after thinking about it like this it really is not all that hard to understand. They are human made in that the disasters are simply the fault of the humans not preparing sufficiently for the disaster that is about to occur.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I would like to talk more about, and I believe you commented on this note when you spoke towards my original blog post, is the idea of “more people = more disaster”. With that I don’t think it will ever be a solvable problem they way things are going now. Looking at the “rock warnings”, how can Japan continue to grow without the expansion of land? The same principle goes for the swamplands of the Gulf (Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas). How can the South grow or expand at all if one limits the availability of its growth?
It’s all going to be really interesting to solve and work through. These are “problems” that I do not think can or will ever go away. There will always be hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis or other disasters that directly effect humans. I don’t know how one can ever prepare enough, because does mother nature have limits? I’ll stop rambling now, but this is a lot to think about.
I enjoyed reading your blog too.
-Pat