Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
Synopsis Living Resiliently on a Crowding, Turbulent Planet Andrew C. Revkin, Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding, Pace University, "Dot Earth" blogger, The New York Times (http://www.nytimes. com/revkin) Human communities will always be in harm's way even as we improve our technological and societal capacity for withstanding threats—either natural or of our own making. This is partly because history and geography have placed many of our centers of habitation and commerce in zones of implicit hazard. Just two examples are severe and recurring seismic activity in Istanbul and the inevitability of a calamitous storm surge in New York City. The superimposition of allure, utility, and danger led geographer Peirce Lewis to call New Orleans an "impossible but inevitable city." The inevitability of calamity also springs from another (and exceedingly uncomfortable) reality: The same technologies and collaborative skills that create civil, sophisticated societies can also be turned against them by those embracing the darker side of human nature. The coordinated and unprecedented tactics of the men who conceived and carried out the momentous and terrible attacks of September 11, 2001, illustrate how preventive strategies only go so far when countering the inventiveness that can accompany evil. Another critical metric amplifying the importance of preparing for inevitable disasters and their aftermath is the trajectory for human development in the next half century—which almost assuredly will add another two billion people to the seven billion alive today. Most of that growth will come in cities, both old and efficient and new-built, sprawling, and chaotic. Accompanying the growth in numbers is the projected construction of more new square footage of buildings in the next few decades than all of the structures erected through all of human history combined. Structures that are built well can be havens; those built poorly can be death traps. As Pace University President Stephen J. Friedman explained in opening the January Summit on Resilience, cities and nations have demonstrated some success in boosting vigilance, preparedness, and emergency responses, but appear to lag in developing the organizational, financial, and political tools needed for disaster-resistant planning and efficient and smart rebuilding and redevelopment after the worst has happened. In her plenary talk, Margareta Wahlström, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, noted how the damage from the 2011 flooding in Bangkok, which had global economic ramifications by disrupting the flow of vital components for computers (insured losses were $20 billion), was the result of the unplanned and sprawling canal network and footprint of the vast city. "We are building cities that actually generate the disasters that destroy their viability," she said. There are ample signs, particularly in Asia's fast-spreading industrial zones, that the lessons from the Thailand flooding have not been integrated in many other places facing identical, and inevitable, threats. In the discussion at the New York City meeting, which was co-sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., a range of panelists from academia, corporations, and agencies recognized that there are no simple templates or protocols for transferring lessons and innovations arising in one country's, or city's, disaster zone to others. 21