Global Warming, Natural Hazards, and Emergency Management

Citation

(2009), "Global Warming, Natural Hazards, and Emergency Management", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 18 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2009.07318cae.015

Global Warming, Natural Hazards, and Emergency Management

Article Type: Book reviews From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 18, Issue 3

Jane A. Bullock, George D. Haddow and Kim S. Haddow,CRC Press,Boca Raton, FL,www.crcpress.com2008,282 pp.,ISBN 978-1-4200-8182-4,$59.95 (soft cover)

This book is heavy on Sierra Club influence – one of the authors is the club’s communications director and Executive Director Carl Pope co-wrote the introduction. Hence its subsequent direction: identify the problem, then solve it through political action.

After beginning with a brief examination of the onset of climate change and its impact, the authors look at several lengthy case studies describing how recurring hazards such as flooding and earthquake protection have been addressed at the community level.

The book’s case study of flooding in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is particularly instructive of the tenacity and long-term political involvement needed to deal thoroughly with even the most obvious and universally acknowledged hazard. The city has been plagued by life- and property-destroying flash floods since its founding, but development pressures and inertia made progress to defend against this hazard slow. The perseverance of community activists and a few courageous politicians finally addressed most of the issues, but it was not until 2002 that the authors felt comfortable designating the city’s flood plan “sustainable”.

The book offers a wide variety of additional resources on climate change and hazards, though not, curiously, the Natural Hazards Center. Heck, we mentioned them.