Social Science Disasters

Natural disasters bedevil our planet, and each appears to be a unique event. Leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer shows how all disasters are connected. In 2011 there were fourteen natural calamities that each destroyed over a billion dollars' worth of property in the United States alone. In 2012 Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast and major earthquakes struck in Italy, the Philippines, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Drawing on maritime stories from various languages and continents – from Brazil and Southeast Africa to India and the Philippines – Wreckers shares dramatic tales of the sea and the events on land that followed. This offers an alternative timeline for the century after Columbus’ 1492 voyage and sheds light on the fractures and fault lines that accompanied the increasing geographical range of European ships.

On the morning of 26 April 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. The outburst put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. In the end, less than 5 percent of the reactor's fuel escaped, but that was enough to contaminate over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.

It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and if your anxiety about it is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today.

If you want to continue your lifestyle AND make smart money moves, then The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide is the book for you. Saving money and profiting means understanding the many aspects of life where problems can strike, and this book will be your guide. In the face of disaster it is better to plan than panic. A bulletproof plan will protect you from the disastrous surprise of a mishap-from shakeups in the stock market to the next oil crisis to fires and floods.

We are in the midst of a global refugee crisis. Sixty-five million people are fleeing for their lives. The choices are urgent, not just for them but for all of us. What can we possibly do to help? With compassion and clarity, David Miliband shows why we should care and how we can make a difference. He takes us from war zones in the Middle East to peaceful suburbs in America to explain the crisis and show what can be done, not just by governments with the power to change policy but by citizens with the urge to change lives.

On Shishmaref Island in Alaska, homes are being washed into the sea. In the South Pacific, small island nations face annihilation by encroaching waters. In coastal Louisiana, an area the size of a football field disappears every day. For these communities, sea level rise isn’t a distant, abstract fear: it’s happening now and it’s threatening their way of life. In The Rising Sea, Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young warn that many other coastal areas may be close behind.

The true story of a resilient circle of shrimp boat captains who faced and withstood the wreckage of Katrina but now find their courage tested by a greater threat: the disappearance of their livelihood and their centuries-old bayou culture.

On December 3, 1999, the call crackled in to the men of the Worchester, Massachusetts Fire Department: a three-alarm warehouse blaze in a six-story windowless colossus of brick and mortar. What happened next, and how their lives and community were changed forever, offers an unprecedented look at these heroic men whose job it is to rush into burning buildings when everyone else just wants out.

Tony Redmond is one of the few truly good people you will ever meet. His is a story of tireless hard work and astonishing bravery across wars, refugee crises, air crashes, earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes and disease outbreaks for more than 30 years. Featuring stories of hope and redemption, as well as untold suffering and mismanagement, this unique account could only have been written one who has for decades performed incredible feats of altruism.

In Americans at Risk, Dr. Irwin Redlener draws on his broad experience as a pediatrician working with mobile emergency units both for children and adults, his time making recommendations to legislators about the vulnerabilities of children to biological and chemical agents and his regular meetings with Tom Ridge of the office of Homeland Security over a period of four years to write this urging a plan for a coordinated plan between government and the private sector.

Entre los escombros del huracan Maria, los puertorriquenos y los "Puertopians" ultra-ricos estan atrapados en una batalla campal sobre como reconstruir la isla. Autora Naomi Klein revela como las fuerzas de las politicas de "shock" y del capitalismo del desastre, buscan minar la vision radical y resiliente de una recuperacion justa. El cien por ciento de las regalias por la venta de este libro iran directamente a JunteGente, un espacio de encuentro entre organizaciones en resistencia al capitalismo del desastre y que luchan por una recuperacion justa y sostenible de Puerto Rico.

On March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compañía de Santa Gertrudis may have committed murder. The alert was first raised at six in the morning: A fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that “no more than 10” men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all 10 were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death toll was not 10 but 87. And there were seven survivors.

American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over 1000 miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called "natural disasters" continue to strike the Mississippi basin as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico.

A riveting account of the greatest small-boat rescue in American history.

From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity's struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created.

Dr Matt Winning is a stand-up comedian and environmental economist with a PhD in climate change policy, which means he's the sort of doctor who will rush to your side if you fall ill on a plane, but only to berate you for flying. We are currently facing a global climate emergency. You've probably noticed. But why does the end of the world need to be so depressing? Hot Mess aims to both lighten the mood and enlighten listeners on climate change. This is an audiobook for people who care about climate change but aren't doing much about it.

This audiobook attempts to answer as many of those questions as possible through an informal, narrative style. It focuses on the overall experience and the feelings and emotions of the people going through it rather than just on facts and figures. It covers every aspect of the Titanic saga from inception and construction to the recent rediscovery of the ship. It also examines the impact of the disaster on society and culture.

The bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers was the pivotal event of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed. Ever since the bankruptcy, there has been heated debate about why the Federal Reserve did not rescue Lehman in the same way it rescued other financial institutions, such as Bear Stearns and AIG. The Fed's leaders from that time, especially former Chairman Ben Bernanke, have strongly asserted that they lacked the legal authority to save Lehman because it did not have adequate collateral for the loan it needed to survive.

Build a no-nonsense survival kit to keep your family alive after a disaster or when SHTF. A quality bug out bag is the first item any prepper needs to put together. In this new series of books, Bob Clark takes the listener through prepping basics.