Essay On Mother Nature

Major natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and floods often precipitate sudden emergencies, which have significant impact on all domains of life for affected populations. Children are a particularly vulnerable group to the effects of natural disasters, with unique physical, developmental, and psychosocial characteristics that place them at high risk for adverse outcomes (Murray, 2011). Some of the consequences for children after natural disasters include physical insecurity, poor living conditions and displacement, and disruption to community life. Numerous children may also be left orphaned after the loss of one or both parents. The aftermath of natural disasters place children at risk for adverse physical but

At 6pm on April 30th, 2014, a life-threatening disaster struck the Florida panhandle. At that time, Florida residents were not aware of the rain and flooding that was about engulf Pensacola and the surrounding areas. But as time began to pass, it became obvious this was not an ordinary storm. As the rain poured and the lightning struck, many people lost power and television connection, unable to see that what was thought to be a small storm would set national records and be the cause for severe-weather threats. This event taught me how to prevent a disastrous situation in dire conditions as well as the importance of being prepared.

The differing needs of a vulnerable population have to be addressed in order to alleviate issues that were noted after Katrina. In particular, the needs which are known prior to a disaster, such as evacuation for the infirmed, elderly, impoverished, and those who lack the means to evacuate. The Department of Homeland Security represented a solution to addressing these needs via a three phase response: “pre-event planning and preparation, the event, and recovery” (Dept. Homeland Security, 2008). It has been widely studied that residents of a vulnerable community may be impacted more severely and are disproportionately affected than those with means following a disaster. Assessing how to prepare for each of the phases represents an issue for emergency managers especially when it comes to those who lack the means to prepare for themselves. Quickly rebuilding homes in a devastated area won’t help a community when a disaster strikes again. Platt stated that “disasters offer a window of opportunity to strengthen communities”, via “construction and change land uses to prevent a recurrence of a disaster”. (Platt, 1998) It also can be argued that following a disastrous event, this is when a true opportunity arises, by providing an opportunity to work through solving the societal issues that are the basis for a vulnerable populous via comprehensive political reforms and

While we do not have historical record of all of the natural hazards that have impacted the United States, we do know that for multitudes of years, the United States has been hit by many natural hazards – hurricane, tornado, drought, wildfire, flood and earthquake, to name a few. As each of these natural hazards occur, multiple issues arise – relative to the core components of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Yet, even with prior knowledge from years past and the destructive events that have occurred, we as a nation continue to struggle with natural hazards that more often than not become natural disasters. For too long it seems as if we have settled in to a rhythm of responding, attempting to recover, rebuilding and then repeating the cycle as another natural hazard strikes.

Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, freak floods, mudslides, typhoons, and avalanches. Natural disasters cost billions of dollars each year all over the world. The severity of these disaster are measured by the lives lost, the economic loss, and the ability of the population to rebuild. Natural disasters that really affect people worldwide tend to become more intense as the years go on. The frequency of earthquakes, mega storms, and heat waves has gone up considerably in the last few decades. Scientists, geologists, and storm watchers work hard to predict major disasters and avert as much damage as possible but it is still to predict some natural disasters. It has become easier to predict major storms, blizzards, cyclones, and other weather related natural disasters over the years. But there are still natural disasters that come up rather unexpectedly, such as earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. FEMA goal is to ensure that the United States is able to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, natural and manmade alike. The agency’s motto is “A Nation Prepared”. Some people like FEMA former director Joe Allbaugh believe people shouldn’t depend on FEMA. That people should be able to help themselves and rebuild on their own.

In addition, most of the participants mentioned the creditability and time efficiency of social media reports of hurricane assessments. In other words, many households are still questioning the importance of evacuation and ran out of time when trying to evacuate with extended family members. Besides, what needs to be mentioned is that some participants blamed negative influences of racial inequality when making their decisions before the hurricane.

One of the worse natural disasters to ever impact the Earth was undoubtedly Hurricane Katrina. It impacted New Orleans causing many casualties. This lead to psychological pain as the city tried to regain its prior image. Also, leading to environmental racism, which is a form of discrimination against minority groups and individuals from less unfortunate countries who are exposed to environmental hazards (Ravelli & Webber, 2013). Individuals in New Orleans had been endangered to discrimination due to being left in areas exposed to disasters. Furthermore, how New Orleans coped with the situation, comes from Bullard’s ideas of ecological righteousness, changing the burden of proof to polluters also equalizing current inequalities. The city faced

Hurricane Katrina revealed the difference in preparedness programs that citizens had based on the jurisdictions the lived in. The White House Report Recommendations concluded how inadequate these programs were and recommended to “combine the various disparate citizen preparedness programs into a single national campaign to promote and strengthen citizen and community preparedness” (Menzel, 2006).

It is well known that hurricanes are extremely dangerous and cause a significant amount of damage and devastation among many cities and countries. Researchers have studied and found that hurricanes could be classified and categorized into five different areas ranging from least severe to most extreme. Category one being the least severe and Category five would be known to destroy a whole city. Hurricanes are categorized on how much damage one can cause and how strong they are. There have been many hurricanes around the world that were known to cause a significant amount of damage but not one hurricane was compared to what the people from New Orleans, Louisiana experienced when Hurricane Katrina hit on Monday August 29, 2005. Katrina was known to be the hurricane that devastated the country, and the biggest hurricane recorded in the history of the world. The city of New Orleans was confronted with social, ethical, and economic implications after the tragic occurrence of Hurricane Katrina.

Many individuals in the country are struggling to make ends meet on a good day, so what happens when disaster strikes? They are unprepared, have a harder time recovering, and their risk and devastation are increased in the disaster. Class inequality impacts individuals on the lower end of the scale. They have less access to resources to prepare themselves before the disaster strikes, and after disaster strikes they have even less resources to recover with. Lower class individuals are also at a higher risk of devastation during a disaster because they cannot always escape before the disaster hits or have the potential to live in areas that are less likely to be affected.

Taking this objective into consideration, it is surprising that even though hurricane Katrina was a category 3 hurricane, and it was anticipated, more than 1800 individuals died (Thiede & Brown, 2013). Many factors have a role in not being able to prevent this natural disaster well ahead of time and therefore, they will be examined in the paper. They are but not limited to: failure of design, construction and maintenance of levees and flood walls, social and psychological rejection of the hurricane and poverty and limited education of residents in the affect areas (Thiede & Brown, 2013). Even though this natural disaster could have been prevented, it demonstrated the importance of taking practical decisions when a hurricane warning or watch is broadcasted (Melton et al., 2010). Overall, analyzing why hurricane Katrina was unavoidable is essential because it can educate people on how to practically respond to hurricanes and not disregard precautionary actions (Melton et al.,

Disasters are totalizing events, impacting and influencing every aspect of a community when they occur. As the anthropology of disaster grows, both in the number of publications and the number of researchers, the scope of topics related to disasters will also grow. Economic implications, vulnerable populations, and human ecology already contribute heavily to the

Data obtained by assessing social vulnerability must be implemented within each phase of the emergency management process; mitigation, response, and recovery. First, to effectively respond and recover from incidents emergency management agencies must concentrate on the mitigation phase to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. This is achieved through a thorough hazard/vulnerability analysis (HVA). This type of analysis assesses the risk of physical, economic, and social vulnerability within all communities of a given jurisdiction (Lindell et al., 2006, p. 165). Additionally, the basis of the HVA allows emergency managers to effectively plan for disaster by creating pre-planned responses to disasters (rather than improvised response) and staging resources to locations with the highest probability of risk; ultimately contributing to the mitigation and response phases.

The first part of this essay will outline the main arguments of the feminist ecologists and deal with the concept of Ecofeminism. The second part will sketch the main arguments of Rosemary Radford Reuther book, "Gaia and God". The final part of this essay will analyze: Starhawk's The Spiral Dance, "Witchcraft as Goddess Religion", The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and "the Descent of Inanna" and examine the pros and cons of the position that a return to goddess worship would save our planet.

As the Marxist approach puts it, “underlying states of human marginalisation are conceived as the principle cause of disaster.” (Pelling, 2001, p. 179). This resource exclusion to particular categories of people within society creates their vulnerability to risk, and in turn disaster. McLaughlin and Dietz (2007) suggest there are three dimensions that make up vulnerability including exposure, sensitivity and resilience. An example displaying the vulnerability of lower classed social categories is in North Bihar, India, where floods have been managed through engineering works to create embankments. While the Government appears to be reducing the hazard, this has increased the vulnerability of the local people. Soil fertility has decreased reducing agricultural success, dangerous flash floods are occurring due to embankment walls collapsing and communities have settled on apparently safe embankments and are now highly exposed (Pelling, 2001). The natural flood hazard was dangerous, but these works by society have created a natural disaster (Pelling, 2001). Power inequalities have created this disastrous situation where lower classes are at high exposure to floods due to profit hungry management bodies. This technological approach is clearly failing but the Government and other managing groups make large profits off flood engineering works and have the power to decide how to control the issue (Pelling, 2001). This has resulted in creating