Catastrophic Effects of Environmental Damage and their Consequences

Abstract

considerably. Events such as the Flood, the intrusion of the North Sea into Holland that resulted in the formation of Lake Ijssel, the eruption of Vesuvius, Pinatubu and Mount St Helens, the droughts in Somalia and Eritrea, earthquakes like the recent ones in Italy, Japan, Afghanistan and Iran, epidemics such as leprosy and tuberculosis, were all perceived as catastrophic. The ten biblical plagues from the Pentateuch ‐ the turning of water into blood, the plague of locusts, frogs, mosquitoes and gnats, the cattle plague, the hailstorms, the pox, the darkness, and the death of the first-born ‐ were perceived as divine punishments. Nothing could be done to avert these events. They happened unaided by human beings. Catastrophes are indelible marks of time. Such events could not be prevented. They were thought to be inevitable. At best, one could arrange for warning, flight and after-care. Other than that, those affected were alone with their fears of death and loss. The events were suffered and coped with as a stroke of fate, as kismet. They threatened the foundations of many people’s existence, and sometimes even that of towns and entire regions. These events were perceived as catastrophes (from the Greek: ‘‘overturn’’, ‘‘change’’). Catastrophes are tragic and inevitable misfortunes for those affected. In addition to natural causes, catastrophes today can have technical, military, economic and political causes. This means that the actions of human beings can have catastrophic consequences for individuals or groups affected by them. The downfall of the aristocracy in Germany after World War II, the effects of the global economic crises in the 1930s in the U.S., the expulsion of Greeks from Turkey in the 1920s, and the forced displacement of Germans in Russia in the 1940s are cases in point. But we also know of many events that had disastrous effects on the environment. Remember the circumstances of the fire at the Sandoz company’s chemical factory at Schweizerhalle or the explosion disasters at Union Carbide in Bhopal and at Icmesa in Seveso and, finally, the various tanker oil spill incidents and the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. Catastrophes are comprehensive, extremely sudden and very demonic. Catastrophes have three dimensions: radicalness, rapidity and rituality. They are extreme forms of social change. Existing ways of organizing society often prove to be inadequately equipped to respond to them.