Unforgettable Catastrophes

Unforgettable Catastrophes PDF Author: Tamara Hollingsworth
Publisher: Teacher Created Materials
ISBN: 1433383640
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Learn about some of the worst disasters in the world including the Hindenburg, the sinking of the Titanic, the Dust Bowl, BP oil spill, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, and the Chernobyl disaster in this fascinating nonfiction book. With intriguing facts, vivid images, helpful graphs and maps, and informational text featuring Time For Kids© content, this high-interest title will keep readers engaged from cover to cover. This book also includes text features such as a table of contents, glossary, and index, as well as resources such as a bibliography and a list of websites for learning more about some of the most well-known catastrophic events in history.

Unforgettable Catastrophes

Unforgettable Catastrophes PDF Author: Tamara Hollingsworth
Publisher: Teacher Created Materials
ISBN: 1433383640
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Get Book Here

Book Description
Learn about some of the worst disasters in the world including the Hindenburg, the sinking of the Titanic, the Dust Bowl, BP oil spill, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, and the Chernobyl disaster in this fascinating nonfiction book. With intriguing facts, vivid images, helpful graphs and maps, and informational text featuring Time For Kids© content, this high-interest title will keep readers engaged from cover to cover. This book also includes text features such as a table of contents, glossary, and index, as well as resources such as a bibliography and a list of websites for learning more about some of the most well-known catastrophic events in history.

Global Catastrophes and Trends

Global Catastrophes and Trends PDF Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262291622
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary look at global changes that may occur over the next fifty years—whether sudden and cataclysmic world-changing events or gradually unfolding trends. Fundamental change occurs most often in one of two ways: as a “fatal discontinuity,” a sudden catastrophic event that is potentially world changing, or as a persistent, gradual trend. Global catastrophes include volcanic eruptions, viral pandemics, wars, and large-scale terrorist attacks; trends are demographic, environmental, economic, and political shifts that unfold over time. In this provocative book, scientist Vaclav Smil takes a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary look at the catastrophes and trends the next fifty years may bring. Smil first looks at rare but cataclysmic events, both natural and human-produced, then at trends of global importance, including the transition from fossil fuels to other energy sources and growing economic and social inequality. He also considers environmental change—in some ways an amalgam of sudden discontinuities and gradual change—and assesses the often misunderstood complexities of global warming. Global Catastrophes and Trends does not come down on the side of either doom-and-gloom scenarios or techno-euphoria. Instead, Smil argues that understanding change will help us reverse negative trends and minimize the risk of catastrophe.

Catastrophe

Catastrophe PDF Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199884382
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
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.

Learning from Catastrophes

Learning from Catastrophes PDF Author: Howard Kunreuther
Publisher: Pearson Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0137067240
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Events ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the global economic crisis have taught businesspeople an unforgettable lesson: if you don’t plan for “extreme risk,” you endanger your organization’s very survival. But how can you plan for events that go far beyond anything that occurs in normal day-to-day business? In Learning from Catastrophes, two renowned experts present the first comprehensive strategic framework for assessing, responding to, and managing extreme risk. Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem build on their own breakthrough work on mitigating natural disasters, extending it to the challenges faced by real-world enterprises. Along with the contributions of leading experts in risk management, heuristics, and disaster recovery, they identify the behavioral biases and faulty heuristics that mislead decision makers about the likelihood of catastrophe. They go on to identify the hidden links associated with extreme risks, and present techniques for systematically building greater resilience into the organization. The global best-seller The Black Swan told executives that “once in a lifetime” events are far more common and dangerous than they ever realized. Learning from Catastropheshows them exactly what to do about it.

Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities

Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities PDF Author: Anthony Hallam
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192806680
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This is a book about the dramatic periods in the Earth's history called mass extinctions - short periods (by geological standards) when life nearly died out on Earth. The most famous is the mass extinction that happened about 65 million years ago, and that caused the death of the dinosaurs. But that was not the worst mass extinction: that honour goes to the extinction at the end of the Permian Period, about 250 million years ago, when over 90% of life is thought to have becomeextinct.What caused these catastrophes? Was it the effects of a massive meteorite impact? There is evidence for such an impact about 65 million years ago. Or was it a period of massive volcanic activity? There is evidence in the rocks of huge lava flows at periods that match several of the mass extinctions. Was it something to do with climate change and sea level? Or was it a combination of some or all of these?The question has been haunting geologists for a number of years, and it forms one of the most exciting areas of research in geology today. In this book, Tony Hallam, a distinguished geologist and writer, looks at all the different theories and also what the study of mass extinctions might tell us about the future. If climate change is a key factor, we may well, as some scientists have suggested, be in a period of mass extinction of our own making.

Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction

Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Bill McGuire
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191024996
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Life on earth will come to an end. It's just a matter of when. In this Very Short Introduction, Bill McGuire explores the many potential catastrophes facing our planet and our species in the future, and looks at both the probability of these events happening and our chances of survival. From the likely consequences of global warming to the inevitable destruction of the earth in the far future, McGuire considers a range of 'end of the world scenarios', including the New Ice Age, asteroid and comet impact, supervolcanoes, and mega-tsunami. Updated with a number of recent case studies from around the world, this new edition brings our understanding of global disasters and risk research up to date. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Next Catastrophe

The Next Catastrophe PDF Author: Charles Perrow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691150168
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
Perrow is famous 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. He offers crucial insights into how to make us safer, proposing a bold new way of thinking about disaster preparedness.

The Age of Catastrophe

The Age of Catastrophe PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476600635
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Disasters, both natural and man-made, are on the rise. Indeed, a catastrophe of one sort or another seems always to be unfolding somewhere on the planet. We have entered into a veritable Age of Catastrophes which have grown both larger and more complex and now routinely very widespread in scope. The old days of the geographically isolated industrial accidents, of the sinking of a Titanic or the explosion of a Hindenburg, together with their isolated causes and limited effects, are over. Now, disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill or the Japan tsunami and nuclear reactor accident, threaten to engulf large swaths of civilization. This book analyzes the efforts of Westerners to keep the catastrophes outside, while maintaining order on the inside of society. These efforts are breaking down. Nature and Civilization have become so intertwined they can no longer be separated. Natural disasters, moreover, are becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate from "man-made." Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Natural Hazards

Natural Hazards PDF Author: Edward A. Keller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135167370X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 1448

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Book Description
The new revised fifth edition of Natural Hazards remains the go-to introductory-level survey intended for university and college courses that are concerned with earth processes that have direct, and often sudden and violent, impacts on human society. The text integrates principles of geology, hydrology, meteorology, climatology, oceanography, soil science, ecology, and solar system astronomy. The textbook explains the earth processes that drive hazardous events in an understandable way, illustrates how these processes interact with our civilization, and describes how we can better adjust to their effects. Written by leading scholars in the area, the new edition of this book takes advantage of the greatly expanding amount of information regarding natural hazards, disasters, and catastrophes. The text is designed for learning, with chapters broken into small consumable chunks of content for students. Each chapter opens with a list of learning objectives and ends with revision as well as high-level critical thinking questions. A Concepts in Review feature provides an innovative end-of-chapter section that breaks down the chapter content by parts: reviewing the learning objectives, summary points, important visuals, and key terms. New case studies of hazardous events have been integrated into the text, and students are invited to actively apply their understanding of the five fundamental concepts that serve as a conceptual framework for the text. Figures, illustrations, and photos have been updated throughout. The book is designed for a course in natural hazards for nonscience majors, and a primary goal of the text is to assist instructors in guiding students who may have little background in science to understand physical earth processes as natural hazards and their consequences to society.

Cosmic Catastrophes

Cosmic Catastrophes PDF Author: Clark R. Chapman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The authors discuss such topics as "impacts with asteroids, the greenhouse effect, nuclear winter, fringe catastrophism, supernovae and an assessment of risks." (New Scientist)