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Natural and Mtiada Diasms

W. G. V. BALCHIN, Swans&

All natural energy disasters are related to the rapid movement of either air or land or water. Within the atmosphere the effect of hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, and other tropical cyclones, whlrlwinds, gales and thunderstorm s are well known alone with the resulting river and coastal fboding. On land earthquakes, avalanches, landslkies and volcanic eruptbns provide dramatic evidence of Nature’s instability in this sector, whilst at sea ocean storms and tsunami add to the toil of human suffering. It is reli- ably estimated that these natural and recurrl~ disasters m&ht have caused up to 30 million deaths within historic time and that

l Prof. W. G. V. BALCHIN, Department of Geography, University College of Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea, Glam, U.K.

with the present population explosion the casualty rate is currenfly approaching one million per decade..

Disease and famine also produce natural disaster situations. Bubonic plague, influenza, cholera and malaria are the main diseases causing disasters, whilst climatic oniilatbn and rapidly increasing popula- tions near subsistence level are the root causes of famine. It is difficult to estimate total casualties through historic time from these disasters but the fiiure certainly exceeds a thousand million. There is little doubt that disease, famine and natural energy dir, sters have been important factors in the control of past populations.

Organized societies have only recently recognized many disasters as natural and recurring, and thereby rulised the need to maintain standby orpanizatbns to deal with situations as they arise. There is still, however, a need for an efficient lntematbnal Relief Orgmi- zation to work with a Gmal Disaster Monitoring and Warning System. The newly created UNDRO (United Nations Disaster and Relief Organization) set up in Geneva in 1972 and the work of the Smithsonian Centre on Disasters published in july 1971 are steps in this direction.

It is sometimes yued that Man is rapidly gaining control of his environment and that future casualty rates from natural dlsasur situations will MI. It is certainly true that the impact of many natural disasters has been reduced, some disease has been eiimi- nated, and many potential famine sltuatbm averted in the present century. Pudoxiully, however, success in these fktds combined with the technoigkal environment being created by Man con- tains the potential of even larger man-made disaster situations in future.

Simple man-made divnrn may range from the collapse of bridges, tunnels, dams and buildings, to subsidence and mining accidents, to road, nil, air and ship disasters, and fire risks. Most of these situations are usually regarded as accidents ad are tacitly accep- ted as such by the public. Collectively, however, thara accidents add up to some thought provoking totals. Road casualties for instance am assuming epidemic proponbns in many advanced civiiintbns - the USA now has an annual rod death toll of over 50,000 whilst for the world as a whole in this century there is a road death toil of up to 5 million. Road casualty figures for the world now exc& natural energy disaster casualty figures each year. Organized societies regard most of these situations as accident incidents and have reasonably good strategies to deal with them r;mllin8 from ambulance services, fire brigades and police to COW guards and life boat services.

The problem of Man against Nature, control of the environment and of life in the industrial and urban society, however, pales into insignificance when we consider Man’s biggest problem - Man him- self. There are two major man-mde disaster situatbm - war and over-population. Man‘s inability to live at peace with his neigh- hours has exacted a heavy toll of life but whereas in the past professional armies only were involved the present century has witnessed total warfare involving both civil and military forces, With total involvement, increasing destructive powers and rapidly increasing populations casualty figures have grown exponentially. Thus medieval wars were often conducted with casualty rates below 1,000 but the nineteenth century wars produced death rates around 200,000 whilst the twentieth century reach 8 milibn in World War I and 54 million in World War II. There is little doubt that an atomic world war could produce a casualty rate of 500 million (Fig. 1).

An even larger and more ominous problem, however, lies ahead in the prospect of world over-population. Nature equipped Man to survive her own disasters by giving him a htgh reproductive rate. High death rates have been matched and exceeded by high birth

a4 Geoforum 13173

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Fig. 1

Trends in war casuaitks in the iast two centuries

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The growth in world population 1750-l 970 and the projection to the year 2000

rates. Now that Man is mastering so many natural disaster situa- tions his inbuiit capacity for survival could well be the cause of his ultimate downfall. it was not until about A 0 1810 that a world population of 1000 million was reached. it took another century before the 2,000 million mark was passed in 1920 but only another 40 years to reach 3,000 million in 1960. The 1970 world population figure is 3,632 million. The growth is thus exponential. This means that the world population in A 0 2000 will certainly exceed 7,000 miiiion and could theoretically reach 50,000 million by A D 2100. Unrestricted growth of this kind on a finite base is cieariy impossible and must inevitably lead to mass mortaiity through famine and social disintegration unless numbers are brought into balance with resources (Fig. 2).

There are two upsets to this problem in one of which Mankind already has experience. Hunting, pastorai and agriculturai societies have long been part of an ecological system cycled in with Nature and they have learnt that population racing ahead of available food supplies can only lead to famine. An industrial society, however, is a new and recent development which has yet to experience fail- ure, it also completely upsets the rhythm of the steady state ecolo- giai system as it achieves its high standard of living by consuming Nature’s capital nther than by existing on Nature’s income. For energy suppiies the industriai rockty consumes past capltai accu- mulations of coal, oil and natural gas, for its fabrications it consumes non-renewable mineral resources and in the process creates vast rubbish dumps of inomanic waste, poiluti~ the air, water and land. Here then are three limiting parameters to populttion growth in an industrial society but additionally food supplies may eventually be difficult to obtain as industrial production falls, ,or society may disintegrate through malaise with increased affiuence anti urbani- sation.

The rcalisation of the magnitude of the problem of possible world overpopuiation has only dawned in the post World War Ii period and it has culminated in the Stockholm Conference of 1972 and the Great Doomsday debate between the pessimists and the optimists. Ail would agree however that if Man is to survive on Earth he must advance beyond his present strategies for dealing with natural disasters and evolve a major globai strategy to meet his own poten- tial man-made disaster situations.

Any long term strate8y for survival must clearly aim at changing in the first instance the exponential curve of population growth into a straight line parallel with the time axis. At the same time standards of living must be related more closely to environmental resources. The aim must be for stable societies with a minimum disruption of ecological proc~s and maximum conservation of materials and energy.

Unfortunately the logic of this argument is contrary to much of our current religious, political, economic and industrial thought. Much religious dogma is against population control. Politicians see the answer to most of their problems in increased growth rates whereas it would appear that we need immediatelyZero growrth rates and beyond that very likely a voluntary reduction. Econo- mists are mainly concerned with gross national product and the quantity of living standards whereas it would appear that we should be concerned with the quality of life. Our industrial philosophy has been based on obsolescence, short life and throw away products ivhereas it now appears fhat we should aim at long lasting products, recycling of materials, recovery rather than dis- posal, and reclamation rather thah elimination.

Neither the communist world, nor the capitalist worid, nor the developing world will find it easy to adjust to this way of thinking but the world cannot ignore much longer the fact that an infinite expansion of population and standards of living are incompatible with a finite base and finite resources