Disaster by Choice: How our actions turn natural hazards into catastrophes

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Sanne Blauw travels the world to unpick our relationship with numbers and demystify our misguided allegiance, from Florence Nightingale using statistics to petition for better conditions during the Crimean War to the manipulation of numbers by the American tobacco industry and the ambiguous figures pedalled during the EU referendum. An] engaging book filled with rich examples and details of specific historical events Kelmans succinct and generally lucid account of the state of knowledge within the field, will likely be useful to a wide range of readers. The Geological Society of London is the UK's national society for geoscience, providing support to over 12,000 members in the UK and overseas. As prospects for space travel and settlement expand, mental and physical health risks and disaster risks must be managed. The Pgak’yau people in northern Thailand must survive solastalgia (mental distress from forced environmental change).

Some disabled people might face something as simple as the lack of a ramp leading to a tornado shelter. Science recounts a different story, however: disasters are not the consequence of natural causes; they are the consequence of human choices and decisions. This is an excellent little book that crystallises ideas about the influence and impact of human actions on natural catastrophes into a thoughtful and informative narrative, concluding - and rightly so - that there is no such thing as a natural disaster.Information about the Geological Society’s internationally acclaimed books and journals for authors, editors, librarians and readers.

assume is ours, and to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be wrath from outside our communities. Environmental psychology and philosophy take us from "solastalgia" to radical anticipation of a new era.Floods, fires and viruses are just three of a panoply of natural hazards that includes earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and many others. He looks at the burgeoning immune therapies that could one day cure such life-threatening diseases as cancer. The thing that makes a natural hazard a disaster is when it impacts on human populations, taking assets or (worse yet) lives. This Way to the Universe’ is a celebration of the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives.

Ilan Kelman is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, England and a Professor II at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. However, eight houses within the burnt area were participating in the Wildfire Partners programme of mitigation measures. We feel the need to fight natural forces, to reclaim what we assume is ours, and to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be wrath from outside our communities. In this wide-ranging, one-stop guide, James Temperton outlines the medical revolutions that are transforming healthcare. Life is full of the unexpected: chance encounters, changing plans, delayed journeys and other mishaps.But we can combat this, as Kelman shows, describing inspiring examples ofeffective human action that limits damage, such as managing flooding in Toronto and villages in Bangladesh, or wildfires in Colorado. Disasters for all, whether affluent or poor, able or disabled, are caused by vulnerabilities, not hazards. This attitude distracts us from the real causes of disasters: humanity’s decisions, as societies and as individuals. 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.

From the workings of its different layers to why carbon dioxide is special, from pioneers like Pascal to the unsung heroes working in the field to help us understand climate change, ‘Firmament’ introduces us to an oft-overlooked area of science and not only lays the ground work for us to better understand the debates surrounding the climate today, but also provides a glimpse of the future that is possible with this knowledge in hand. Disasters arise from a lack of preparedness, which may result from individual actions or a lack of political will. I am typing this review in the aftermath of property-damaging floods in the UK and life-taking wildfires in Australia, and during the Covid-19 pandemic. The enigmas Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe.Damming Finland’s River Kemi wrecked livelihoods and people-land connections, exemplifying mental health impacts from human-caused environmental change.