The Real Disaster Is Above Ground

Author : J. Stephen Kroll-Smith
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813184738
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Real Disaster Is Above Ground written by J. Stephen Kroll-Smith and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1950s Centralia was a small town, like many others in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. But since the 1960s, it has been consumed, outwardly and inwardly by a fire that has inexorably spread in the abandoned mines beneath it. The earth smokes, subsides, and breathes poisonous gases. No less destructive has been the spread of dissension and enmity among the townspeople. The Real Disaster Above Ground tells the story of the fire and the tragic failure of all efforts to counter it. This study of the Centralia fire represents the most thorough canvass of the documentary materials and the community that has appeared. The authors report on the futile efforts of residents to reach a common understanding of an underground threat that was not readily visible and invited multiple interpretations. They trace the hazard management strategies of government agencies that, ironically, all too often created additional threats to the welfare of Centralians. They report on the birth and demise of community organizations, each with its own solution to the problem and its diehard partisans. The final solution, now being put into effect, is to abandon the town and relocate its people. Centralia's environmental disaster, the authors argue, is not a local or isolated phenomenon. It warns of the danger lurking in our own technology when safeguards fail and disaster management policy is not in place to respond to failure, as the examples of Chernobyl and Bhopal have clearly demonstrated. The lessons in this study of the fate of a small town in Pennsylvania are indeed sobering. They should be pondered by a variety of social scientists and planners, by all those dealing with the behavior of people under stress and those responsible for the welfare of the public.

Author : Lori Peek
Publisher : Temple University Press
ISBN 13 : 1592139841
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Behind the Backlash written by Lori Peek and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Muslim-American identity has been shaped by 9/11 and its after-effects.

Author : NA NA
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 134962201X
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Risk in the Modern Age written by NA NA and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental decision-making in recent decades has become increasingly dependent on scientific expertise. Grounded in universal principles of knowledge, these expert evaluations often depart from the assessments of ordinary members of the public. Whether the issue is nuclear power, genetic testing, food safety, or biodiversity, conservation lay people are increasingly charging experts with being ignorant of local contextual considerations. Scientists, as well as many policy-makers, in turn contend that the public is hopelessly irrational in gauging environmental risks. A growing group of social theorists has begun to take a keen interest in these disputes because risk captures central themes of late modernity. Increasing individualization, emerging new social movements, and declining public trust in key institutions are notions that loom large in these debates. Highlighting both theoretical and empirical perspectives, this volume brings together a distinguished group of environmental sociologists who critique and extend current thinking on what it means to live in a 'risk society'.

Author : David Dekok
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0762758244
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fire Underground written by David Dekok and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a modern-day mine disaster has turned a Pennsylvania community into a ghost town * For much of its history, Centralia, Pennsylvania, had a population of around 2,000. By 1981, this had dwindled to just over 1,000—not unusual for a onetime mining town. But as of 2007, Centralia had the unwelcome distinction of being the state's tiniest municipality, with a population of nine. The reason: an underground fire that began in 1962 has decimated the town with smoke and toxic gases, and has since made history. Fire Underground is the completely updated classic account of the fire that has been raging under Centralia for decades. David DeKok tells the story of how the fire actually began and how government officials failed to take effective action. By 1981 the fire was spewing deadly gases into homes. A twelve-year-old boy dropped into a steaming hole as a congressman toured nearby. DeKok describes how the people of Centralia banded together to finally win relocation funds—and he reveals what has happened to the few remaining residents as the fiftieth anniversary of the fire's beginning nears.

Author : Michael Edelstein
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429981023
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Contaminated Communities written by Michael Edelstein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this wholly revised second edition, Michael Edelstein draws or iis thiffy years as a community activist tc provide a much-expanded theoretical foundation for understanding the psychosocial impacts of toxic contaminagtion. Informed by social psychological theory and an extensive survey of documented cases of toxic exposure, and enlivened by excerpts drawn from more than one thousand Interviews with victims, Contaminated Communities, Second Edition, presents, a candid portrayal of the toxic victim's experience and the key stages in the course of toxic disaster. The second edition introduces dozens of new cases and provvides expanded considerations of environmental justice, environmental racism, environmental turbulence, and environmental stigma, as well as a fully articulated theory of "lifescape." The new edition moves past the well-charted role of reactive environmentalism to explore issues for a proactivist approach that employs a "third path" of social learning, sustainable innovation, consensus building, and community empowerment.

Author : Havidan Rodriguez
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 0387323538
Total Pages : 639 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Handbook of Disaster Research written by Havidan Rodriguez and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-11-14 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely Handbook is based on the principle that disasters are social constructions and focuses on social science disaster research. It provides an interdisciplinary approach to disasters with theoretical, methodological, and practical applications. Attention is given to conceptual issues dealing with the concept "disaster" and to methodological issues relating to research on disasters. These include Geographic Information Systems as a useful research tool and its implications for future research. This seminal work is the first interdisciplinary collection of disaster research as it stands now while outlining how the field will continue to grow.

Author : James Kendra
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030046915
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Disaster Research and the Second Environmental Crisis written by James Kendra and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 50th anniversary of the Disaster Research Center of the University of Delaware provoked a discussion of the field’s background, its accomplishments, and its future directions. Participants representing many disciplines brought new methods to bear on perennial problems relevant to effective disaster management and policy formation. However, new concerns were raised, stemming from the fact that we live today in a globally unfolding environmental crisis every bit as pressing and worrisome as that of the 1960s when the Disaster Research center was founded. This volume brings together ideas of participants from that workshop as well as other contributors. Topics include: the history and evolution of disaster research, innovations in disaster management, disaster policy, and ethical considerations of disaster research. Readers interested in science and technology, public policy, community action, and the evolution of the social sciences will find much of interest in this collection.

Author : Susan Park
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000897826
Total Pages : 118 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Politics of 21st Century Environmental Disasters written by Susan Park and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the main concerns for grappling with increasing environmental disasters and examines how environmental disasters are understood by states, corporations, and non-government organizations nationally and internationally. The focus of this book is threefold: first, to investigate what constitutes an environmental disaster and to identify the parameters for political responses nationally and internationally. Second, the chapters analyse contemporary state practices that exacerbate the impact of, and responses to, environmental disasters. They show how states promote extractivism based on limited understandings of nature drawn from Western philosophy. Finally, the book highlights the strengths and weaknesses in political and institutional responses at the local level to such disasters by state and non-state actors. This shows how both slow and fast violence of environmental disasters affects communities, but also how vulnerable subjects are based on people’s capabilities. The Politics of 21st Century Environmental Disasters is an indispensable resource for students and scholars in political science and environmental studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.

Author : E.L. Quarantelli
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134682255
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What is a Disaster? written by E.L. Quarantelli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-06-27 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are conflict situations such as the ethnic clashes in Yugoslavia or Rwanda, terrorist attacks and riots, the same kind of social crises as those generated by natural and technological happenings such as earthquakes and chemical explosions? In What is a Disaster?, social science disaster researchers from six different disciplines advance their views on what a disaster is. Clashes in conceptions are highlighted, through the book's unique juxtaposition of the authors separately advanced views. A reaction paper to each set of views is presented by an experienced disaster researcher; in turn, the original authors provide a response to what has been said about their views. What is a Disaster? sets out the huge conceptual differences that exist concerning what a disaster is, and presents important implications for both theory, study and practice.

Author : Ronald W. Perry
Publisher : Joseph Henry Press
ISBN 13 : 0309171970
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Facing the Unexpected written by Ronald W. Perry and published by Joseph Henry Press. This book was released on 2001-11-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Facing the Unexpected presents the wealth of information derived from disasters around the world over the past 25 years. The authors explore how these findings can improve disaster programs, identify remaining research needs, and discuss disaster within the broader context of sustainable development. How do different people think about disaster? Are we more likely to panic or to respond with altruism? Why are 110 people killed in a Valujet crash considered disaster victims while the 50,000 killed annually in traffic accidents in the U.S. are not? At the crossroads of social, cultural, and economic factors, this book examines these and other compelling questions. The authors review the influences that shape the U.S. governmental system for disaster planning and response, the effectiveness of local emergency agencies, and the level of professionalism in the field. They also compare technological versus natural disaster and examine the impact of technology on disaster programs.