Talk:Environmental disaster
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[edit] NPOV comments
Why are no non-man-made environmental disaster's mentioned? Volcano's, hurricane's, tsunami's, that sort of thing. At least on a regional scale, natural environmental disasters often far exceed what people have managed to do. Where people seem to excel at creating problems is with an accumulation of relatively small environmental insults that add up over time. Surely not as dramatic, as worthy of the word disaster, as the natural ones.
- The word "environmental" usually impies the negative effects of human activity on the environment. There is a seperate article for Natural disasters Alan Liefting 20:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
This article is hardly NPOV. As the above post says, natural disasters aren't even mentioned. Furthermore, Environmental degradation, which is actually a scientific term, redirects to this article, despite the fact that it is really a slightly different thing. I recommend that we heavily re-write this article and undo the redirect on Environmental degradation, and make that into a newer, better article. Bonus Onus 02:34, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Thats probably because the article starts with: "Man-made negative alteration of the ecosystem that has widespread or long lasting consequences." I would disagree with this as I believe that Environmental Disasters can be caused by things other than Humans. --Dumbo1 17:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
I have added a few natural disasters and tries to make it more NPOV. Alan Liefting 10:11, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
- The article should be rewritten to be specific disasters that are of concern to environmentalists. Alan Liefting 20:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh.
- Arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh appears to be natural. See [1] Alan Liefting 20:38, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] POV Disaster
I have reinstated the POV as the title alone is inflammatory.
Define 'environmental'. To the 'environment' of whatdoes this refer? Define 'disaster'. What standards are to be applied? How do we objectively measure 'disaster'? Disastrous to whom, or what, and how?
This article really needs to be a subsection of something larger concerning the negative impacts (both natural and 'man-made') on the Earth's environment. My initial reaction would be to tag AFD but there could be something worthwhile. Eddie.willers 01:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Environmental vs. Natural
What is the difference between environmental and natural disasters and who is going to clean the mess in links and categories? Right now I am lost to which one should I link the Bulgarian articles and categories but will go for "natural" as being closer to our Bulgarian term and meaning.
As I am not a native English-speaker I can only guess that one may consider natural ones to be nature-driven (not human-made), and the environmental to be affecting somehow the nature. If there is natual "revenge", it is a subset of natural disasters. Am I right, or totally wrong? Cheers, Goldie (tell me) 11:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Added new sections, links, and fixed grammar
Hi everyone, I added two new sections, especially one called "Difficult in Categorization" to point the debate around what can be considered an environmental disaster. However, this whole article leans toward human created environmental disasters so maybe someone should change the title to "Man-made environmental disasters" or something better. --205.250.250.154 21:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Classification issues
A hazard is the geophysical agent that can lead to disaster, e.g. an earthquake. A disaster is a case of a hazard impact, e.g. the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. See Emergency management.
Hazards and their resulting disasters are classified according to their main driving forces: natural, technological, or sociological. Human involvement is pivotal in all three classes for a hazard impact to be seen as a disaster. Earthquakes in uninhabited deserts cannot become disasters. However, natural hazards strike without human involvement whereas sociological hazards (like riots and stampedes) cannot strike without human involvement. What is in between, like this article is a greyzone. What is clear is that for instance, an oil spill, is a Environmental hazard, whereas the Exxon Valdez oil spill was an Environmental disaster.
The rest is open for discussion. --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 16:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
- Well said, but I would differ on some minor points... An 'emergency' is any unexpected event which poses an immediate threat of loss to life, property, or the environment. A 'disaster' is an emergency which overwhelms the local response capability. That's an important distinction to keep in mind within the Disaster/Emergency Management Project.
- An earthquake in an uninhabited desert is (also) not a disaster because the emergent threat to the environment does not overwhelm the local response capability -- which absent a human presence would be a geologic/ecologic response, and measured in eons. Thus earthquakes are never really any hazard at all without people -- there is no vulnerability to be expressed in the Risk equation. To be thorough, earthquakes are a natural part of the planetary geology and thus don't actually pose an environmental threat, because in the course of nature, the event is planned -- so to speak. (okay, I'm not a geologist...)
- Spilling oil is a hazard to be avoided, but an oil spill is an emergency with an environmental impact. (Certainly the Exxon Valdez emergency was a disaster, but it was man-made, not environmental!) ...See the new topic below, I'm on a roll... Parradoxx 08:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Rename as Environmental calamity?
The word calamity has less emotive and negative connotations than disaster. It could be used on this article as well as List of environmental disasters and Category:Environmental disasters. Alan Liefting 00:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] List of doomsday scenarios
Could use votes to save this article, thanks MapleTree 22:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cause vs. Effect
The problem here is simply a matter of perspective. In Emergency Management, emergencies and disasters are categorized by the cause (man-made, technical, natural) not the effect (environmental, financial, human). However, as people, we are drawn to the pathos of the effect: the impact, the damage, the devastation. In Emergency Management, the effect is known as loss. Loss of life. Loss of property. Loss to the enviroment. It is what mitigation seeks to prevent, and what preparedness seeks to minimize.
This article appears to be about a specific kind of loss: diminuation of the natural environment. If viewed from that perspective, it becomes clear that disaster is just one of several causes of Environmental Loss along with illegal dumping and introduction of non-native species for example. I agree with Alan Liefting's suggestion above in NPOV comments that this article should be rewritten to be about specific losses that are of concern to environmentalists.
As an example: the Three Gorges Dam is not a disaster under Emergency Management because it is neither unexpected nor immediate. However, if it were to collapse due to poor construction, people would probably call it both an environmental and a financial disaster (identifying the type of loss). Emergency Management would call it a man-made disaster (because of the unexpected and overwhelming emergent context).
Therefore, I recommend the following:
- This page be removed from the Disaster Management Project.
- The word "Disaster" be removed from the title,
- and replaced with the word "Loss", "Losses", "Diminuation", or whatever word an environmentalist would indicate be a better fit.
Parradoxx 10:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
