Transition Brockville archive
Tag : Emergency preparedness (51)
CBC News / Janet Davison / 18 July 2020
Across Canada, flooding has become the most expensive natural disaster, costing $1 billion annually in damage to homes, property and infrastructure, according to the federal Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
Insurers and many policy experts expect that number will go up. Sea levels are rising. A recent study by researchers at Environment and Climate Change Canada found that climate change has made rainfall more extreme and storms with extreme rainfall more frequent.
While experts see a variety of strategies to help deal with the situation, there is one potential solution people may not want to talk about: When might it be time to retreat from living on the riskiest waterfront properties altogether?
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists / Dawn Stover / 8 July 2020
Like climate change, the pandemic seemed distant and unreal until it was already upon us. Now both urgently require a society-wide response. Scientists have offered clear recommendations about how to solve these problems. However, the coronavirus won’t subside without broad social cooperation on behaviors such as physical distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing—an expanded version of the neighborly help that solved my electrical problem.
Similarly, the climate won’t heal without a new “healthcare system” for the planet that has strong support from the general public. It shouldn’t take another year of killer heat waves, mega-fires, and other disasters to convince Americans that we’ll never get back to “normal” by ignoring what’s happening around us.
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Globe & Mail / Nick Perry / 4 April 2020
Every year, the world contends with devastating typhoons, wildfires, tsunamis and earthquakes. The dynamic doesn’t change just because the globe also happens to be fighting a pandemic.
What has changed for the worse, however, is the ability of nations to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Not only that, but experts also fear the usual protocols for coping with the aftermath of such disasters could further spread the virus, compounding the death toll from both.
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Transition US / Don Hall / 30 March 2020
Due to accelerating impacts from climate change, as well as ongoing economic and political instability around the world, these crises will continue to periodically crash up against our shores, more and more frequently in coming decades, threatening to significantly erode our capacity to respond. In order to successfully counter this reality, those of us who are called to leadership will need to learn how to respond skillfully during these periodic crises and build local community resilience long-term.
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Toronto Star / Laura Osman / 28 March 2020
The last couple of years have taken on a biblical tone in the rural Pontiac region of Quebec.
The small community of about 6,000 has recovered from five natural disasters in just two years. Floods and microbursts have wiped out homes, roads and culverts. Last year’s tornado was the cherry on the cake.
“Our little municipality has become experts at managing crises,” said Mayor Joanne Labadie.
But nothing could prepare them for the possibility of fighting another flood with a global pandemic on their doorstep, she said.
Still, they’re getting ready as best they can.
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The Guardian / Oliver Burkeman / 28 March 2020
Many of the most fruitful techniques for coping with uncertainty involve a similar move: they are ways to refocus your attention away from your runaway fantasies. If you’re confined to your home at the moment, giving yourself some structure by drawing up an approximate schedule can reconnect you to the texture of the day. (“Even if we hate our jobs, having somewhere to be at 9am is very containing, psychologically,” Marchiano says.) You’ll get a related “grounding” effect by returning to the body through virtually any form of physical exercise. (As a specific antidote to anxious feelings, I highly recommend the “shaking practice” demonstrated by the coach Deepika Sheleff on her website, which is what it sounds like – and has the added benefit of being so ridiculous as to be incompatible with total misery.)
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Across Canada, flooding has become the most expensive natural disaster, costing $1 billion annually in damage to homes, property and infrastructure, according to the federal Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
