Download Disaster, Security, and Governance

Disaster, Security, and
Governance
MAGG Spring 2014
Bin Xu
Assistant Professor
Florida International University
Security and Psychological and
Cultural Factors
• Risk perception and policy implications. Worst Cases
(Lee Clarke)
• Panic
1st Dimension of a worst case
• Inconceivable: the case overpowers our imagination by:
1. Death tolls
2. Devastation
•
But they are called “worst cases” not because of
the objective facts but through a comparison to a
template of similar cases.
Death toll?
•
•
•
•
•
9/11 attacks: about 3,000
The Tangshan earthquake in China: 240,000
Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989: 62
The Haiti earthquake in 2010: 316,000
The Challenger explosion in 1986: 7
The Deadliest Earthquakes in
History
Death toll
Time
Place
1
830,000
1556
Shaanxi, China
2
316,000
2010
Haiti
3
242,769
1976
Tangshan, China
4
230,000
1138
Syria
5
227,898
2004
Sumatra, Indonesia
6
200,000
856
Damghan, Iran
7
200,000
1920
Haiyuan, China
8
150,000
893
Ardabil, Iran
9
142,800
1923
Japan
10
110,000
1948
Turkmenistan, USSR
Source: USGS (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/most_destructive.php)
Inconceivable coincidence
• Japan’s triple disaster in 2011:
1. An earthquake with 9.0 on Lichter scale
2. A tsunami that killed about 18,000 people
3. The 2nd largest nuclear accident in history
2nd Dimension of Worst Cases
• Uncontrollable: the outcome of the disaster cannot
be controlled by us
• Comparison:
1. “Normal” car accident casualties (40,000 on
American highways) but not the “worst case”
2. Several 18-wheel trucks carrying chemicals crash
into each other on a highway
3rd Dimension of Worst Cases
• Social identification: one judges whether a disaster is the
worst case by his/her social identification with the place
and the victims
• E.g.: the same country; same historical period
• The small industry about Hurricane Katrina but not
others. (Comparison: Beichuan High School in the
Sichuan earthquake, China: 1,200)
A Riskier World: Two Trends
Contributing to More Worst Cases
• Globally relevant disasters
1. Think about the disasters we’re discussing: which
one is NOT globally relevant?
2. Near-earth objects (NEOs): a Tunguska-class
object in Manhattan?
3. Influenza
A Riskier World: Two Trends
Contributing to More Worst Cases
• Concentration and interdependence
1. Population growth and concentrates in dangerous
areas.
2. Interdependence among different parts of the
social system: e.g. a massive blackout; an Internet
virus/hacker; food industry; chemical plants
There’s nothing to fear but fear
itself ?
• Paranoid?
• Probabilistic thinking:
1. Disasters are cases of small probabilities.
2. Claim that probabilistic thinking is based on scientific
rationality.
3. Neglect the small probability cases to maintain your
mental health.
Problems with probabilistic thinking
• Disasters are not normally distributed; always odd,
rare, but cannot be neglected.
Think about the following scenario: A plane from MIA
crashes into the nuclear facilities in FloridaThe
Keys residents and tourists had no way to
evacuatea hurricane hits Miami
A real-world scenario: a historic earthquake offshore
Japana tsunami that devastated Sendainuclear
facilities meltdown in Fukushima
An everyday example
• Why do you buckle up your
seatbelt when you drive?
An everyday example
Probabilistic thinking: You don’t need. Accidents are
rare and often not lethal.
Possibilistic thinking (worst case thinking): For YOU,
probability doesn’t make sense!
0 OR 1
ONE serious accident without fastened seatbelt is bad
enough for you.
Political Uses of Probabilism
• Justify the danger within a system or a risky project: Think
about: “Is it OK to build a plant that produces toxic chemicals
in a residential area since explosion is very unlikely?”
• Use numbers (and experts/ “scientific research”) to justify them
• Equate probabilism to rationality and reason
• Probabilism tends to protect the powerful.
The Shell Game of Probabilism
• “Risk communication”: an organized effort by
corporations, governments, and experts to convince
people at risk there’s minimum risk.
• Principles of “risk communication”
1. People are irrational and emotional, but CEOs are not.
2. Risks are always minimum; deceptions are protections.
What the author does NOT suggest
• The author does NOT suggest that probabilistic
thinking is completely wrong.
• Instead, probabilistic thinking could be wrong in
some situations; we cannot ALWAYS think in a
probabilistic way.
Why is worst case scenario useful?
• Use worst case scenario (what if) to design better
projects and machines
E.g. Vehicle safety: What if the car rolls over?
E.g. Earthquake-resistant houses: What if we have a 9magnitude earthquake?
• Use simulation to be prepare for the worst cases
Proposed Solutions
• Use possibilistic thinking (think about 0 or 1 not
percentage) in designing and protecting critical
infrastructures
• Infrastructures in the traditional sense (electrical grid,
nuclear facilities, dams, etc.)
• Critical social infrastructures (schools)
Proposed Solutions
• Preemptive resilience: A bottom-up , citizen-based,
and local responses; empower local communities and
informal organizations
• Use counterfactual wisely to design projects and
infrastructure
• Fundamentally, NO HUBRIS; live with the nature
instead of abuse the nature.
Do people panic?
• People RARELY (NOT never) panic even in
disasters
Panic Myths
• Excessive fear
• Irrational behaviors
• Self-interest over regard for others
• Lee Clarke’s short speech about panic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R2yhWstuG0
Mutual helping
• AA 1420 flight incident in 1999
• Share limited resources
• Altruism
Why are there the myths?
• They fit into our (wrong) perceptions of human nature;
an easy explanation of bad results:
• Individuals
• Self-interested
• Irrational
When do people really panic?
• Physical conditions (e.g. inadequate exists) deteriorate
into a worst case situation
• Solution: not to use guns to keep order but to
redesign our facilities and perfect our response
system
The Myth of Looting (Tierney et al)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RVHDlPqZW
E
Views of Sociologists
• Consensus crisis
• Looting is unusual, sporadic in disasters
• In very few cases, large-scale looting happens:
1. Severe damages
2. Ineffective relief
3. No idea when the aids will come
Media Representations of Looting
• From The New York Times:
• August 31: “These are not individuals looting. These are large
groups of armed individuals.”
• . . . “Looting broke out as opportunistic thieves cleaned out
abandoned stores for a second night. In one incident, officials
said a police officer was shot and critically wounded.” (Treaster
and Kleinfield 2005)
• September 1: “Chaos gripped New Orleans on Wednesday as
looters ran wild . . . Looters brazenly ripped open gates and
ransacked stores for food, clothing, television sets, computers,
jewelry, and guns.” (McFadden and Blumenthal 2005)
Media Representations of Looting
• From The Washington Post:
• August 31: “Even as the floodwaters rose, looters roamed
the city, sacking department stores and grocery stories and
floating their spoils away in plastic garbage cans. . . .
• Looting began on Canal Street, in the morning, as people
carrying plastic garbage pails waded through waist-deep
water to break into department stores. In drier areas,
looters raced into smashed stores and pharmacies and by
nightfall the pillage was widespread.” (Gugliotta and
Whoriskey 2005)
Why did the looting image matter?
• False message
• Militarized response
The Myth of Looting (Tierney et al)
“Looting”
and
“Violence”
Inadequate
food and
supplies
Media
framed
“lawlessness
and anarchy”
FEMA w/
limited
resources and
authority
Troops with
combat
mission
Militarism
w/in the
government
Issues
• Not adequate data due to methodological issues
• The phrase “media distortion” should be more
carefully used