The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer
Page 27
5.“Jury Convicts Blackwater Guards in 2007 Killings of Iraqi Civilians,” Guardian, October 22, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/22/us-jury-convicts-blackwater-security-guards-iraq.
6.Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014).
7.Jim Salter and Jim Suhr, Associated Press, “Ferguson Election Triples Number of Blacks on City Council,” U.S. News & World Report, April 8, 2015, http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/04/07/ferguson-voters-go-to-polls-to-elect-3-to-council-members.
Technical Appendix I: Simplified Socioeconomics of Natural Disaster Shocks and Their Consequences
1.All illustrations of this style are the author’s original drawings.
2.Binyamin Appelbaum, “U.S. Economic Recovery Looks Distant as Growth Stalls,” New York Times, June 11, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/business/economy/us-economic-recovery-looks-distant-as-growth-lingers.html.
3.The area is L(Ti–Te)/2, where i is either 1 or 2. Te can be made zero without loss of generality; then it is clear that the lower area is greater than the upper.
4.Jeremy Ashkenas and Alicia Parlapiano, “How the Recession Reshaped the Economy in 255 Charts,” New York Times, June 6, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/05/upshot/how-the-recession-reshaped-the-economy-in-255-charts.html?_r=0.
5.This figure and the previous are similar to those presented by Stéphane Hallegate and Michael Ghil, “Natural Disasters Impacting a Macroeconomic Model with Endogenous Dynamics,” Ecological Economics 68, nos. 1–2 (2008): 582–92. Their work provided significant inspiration for the discussion in this section.
Technical Appendix II: Disasters in Neoclassical Growth Theory
1.Robert M. Solow, “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1 (1956): 65–94; doi:10.2307/1884513; Trevor W. Swan, “Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation,” Economic Record 32, no. 2 (1956): 334–361, doi:10.1111/j.1475-4932.1956.tb00434.x. Robert M. Solow, “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function,” Review of Economics and Statistics 39, no. 3 (1957): 312–320, doi:10.2307/1926047.
2.According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in economics, the production function is an equation that expresses the relationship between the quantities of productive factors (such as labor and capital) used and the amount of product obtained. It states the amount of product that can be obtained from every combination of factors, assuming that the most efficient available methods of production are used.
3.Costas Azariadis and John Stachurski, “Poverty Traps,” in Handbook of Economic Growth, Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf, eds. (ed. 1, vol. 1, no. 1, Elsevier, 2005), 326. The Wikipedia entry under “Poverty Traps” is useful and refers to Sachs’s work. Also see Abhijit V. Banerjee and Ester Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (New York: Public Affairs/Perseus Book Group, 2011).
4.Stéphane Hallegatte and Michael Ghil, “Natural Disasters Impacting a Macroeconomic Model with Endogenous Dynamics,” Ecological Economics 68 (2008): 582–92, doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.05.022.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
aftershocks, 68, 88
see also earthquakes
agriculture
see farming
Ambraseys, Nicholas, 97
American Human Development Project, 160
Aquino, Benigno Simeon III, 157
Argentina, 12, 46
Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 85, 104–5
Army Corps of Engineers, 172
Aronson, Eliot, 172
Asian Development Bank, 80
atomic bomb, 25
Balko, Radley, 215
Bennett, Drake, 14
Berube, Alan, 160
Big Mac Index, 44
Big Truck That Went By, The (Katz), 83
Bilham, Roger, 71, 77, 97
Bío Bío River, 112, 122
Blanco, Kathleen, 157, 185–87
Bohr, Niels, 24
Bonanno, George, 22, 252n14
BP (British Petroleum), 19
Brazil, 48, 59, 143
Bronson, William, 32
Brookings Institution, 92, 160, 203
Broussard, Aaron, 163
Brown, Michael, 165, 173–74, 184, 213, 217
building assessment and rubble removal (BARR), 90–91
Bush, George H. W., 184
Bush, George W., 157, 163–65, 172–74, 176, 178, 184–85, 198, 201
Campanella, Richard, 206–7
Canizaro, Joseph, 195, 197–98
capital losses, 41–46
Capital in the Twenty-first Century (Piketty), 42, 220
Caracol, 118–22
Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), 118
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), 51
Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), 28, 31, 39
Centers for Disease Control, 34, 80
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 42, 122, 140
Chayes, Sarah, 97
Cheney, Dick, 163, 201
Chertoff, Michael, 164, 184
Chess, Caron, 182
Children’s Blizzard of 1888, 31, 33
Children’s Blizzard, The (Laskin), 31
Chile, 6, 12, 60, 65, 88, 109–15, 121–22, 150
chimeres, 87
civil rights, 185, 205
Clarke, Lee, 182
Clarkson, Jackie, 179
climate change, 3–4, 25–28, 58–59, 78, 131, 173–74, 213, 222
Clinton, Bill, 116–19, 174
Clinton Foundation, 119
Clinton, Hillary, 118–19
Colbert, Stephen, 26
Collier, Paul, 116–17
Condon, Emmit, 32
corruption
death reporting and, 91
disaster and, 71, 76–77, 97, 122, 137, 202
Haiti and, 95–96, 99, 109–10
Hurricane Katrina and, 1
militarization and, 223
Myanmar and, 140, 145
New Orleans and, 162–63, 173
Philippines and, 157
poverty and, 26, 48
Coyle, Diane, 42, 45
creative destruction, 13–14, 110, 131–32, 154, 192, 205
Cuba, 49
Culture of Calamity (Rozario), 193
cyclones
Bohla, 64
death tolls and, 35–37
measuring, 63
meteorology and, 61, 63–65
Nargis, 31, 141, 145–50, 154–56, 158, 163, 217
poverty and, 77–79
Saffir-Simpson scale, 63
Sidr, 64
Superstorm Sandy compared to, 80–81
study of, 30, 35–37, 58–59
tracks of, 58–59
Dacy, Douglas, 14
Daley, Richard M., 31, 150
Davis, Mike, 196–97
De Bernardinis, Bernardo, 69–70
death tolls
Cyclone Nargis and, 146–48
disaster recovery and, 19
economic loss and, 16
Haiti earthquake and, 89–90, 101, 109, 122
Hurricane Katrina and, 166–68, 171, 197
Indian Ocean tsunami and, 128
poverty and, 8
1, 101, 136–37
reporting, 30–34, 37, 39–41
Superstorm Sandy and, 208
Deep Water Horizon, 17
Denial of Disaster (Hansen and Condon), 32
disease, 34–36, 59, 80
disaster risk reduction (DRR), 4, 23, 30, 220
displacement, 37–39, 64–65, 103, 125, 135, 156, 219
DMORT (Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team) facilities, 89
Doctors Without Borders, 35, 89
Dominican Republic, 54, 120
donations, relief efforts and, 92, 117, 122, 129, 131, 137
drought, 12, 19, 35, 37–38, 45, 59, 222, 256–7n29
Duvalier, Papa Doc, 87, 104, 117, 141–42
Earth Shook, the Sky Burned, The (Bronson), 32
earthquakes
death tolls Haiti and, 89–90, 101, 109, 122
GDP and, 42, 86, 110, 116, 121
Japan and, 28, 64–65, 74–75, 132–38
predicting, 2–3, 61, 64–70, 77, 94, 97–98
wealth and, 56–58, 64–77
see also Haiti; seismology
Ebola, 17, 36, 48
economic loss, 16–17, 39–40, 42, 231
Einstein, Albert, 24
Eisenhower, Dwight, 185
elite panic, 182–83
Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), 28
famine, 19, 26, 35, 252n29
farming
China and, 96
Cyclone Nargis and, 147
drought and, 38
Haiti and, 85–86, 119
Japan and, 134
Myanmar and, 147, 155–56
New Orleans and, 161, 210
Okeechobee hurricane and, 166–67
recovery and, 96, 219
Farmland Law, 155
faults, 66–70, 75, 93, 98, 135–36
Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault, 66, 119–20
Paganica Fault, 98
San Andreas Fault, 66
Septentrional Fault, 119–21
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 18, 30, 164–66, 174–78, 194, 202, 209
Ferguson, Missouri, 213–15, 221
Ferris, Elizabeth, 92
Feynman, Richard, 2, 5, 24–26, 224
floods
cyclones and, 63, 157
death tolls and, 33–35
disasters and, 17–19, 21, 45, 59, 221
displacement and, 37–38
Haiti and, 121
Hurricane Katrina and, 161–62, 165–72, 175, 179, 182–83, 199–200
injuries and, 35
Pakistan and, 92
positive aspects of, 10, 12–13, 59, 147
Superstorm Sandy and, 208–9
foreshocks, 68–69
Fraiman, Keren, 173
French Quarter, 1, 179, 196, 203–4
Fukushima nuclear power plant, 132–34
Galveston Flood, 167, 170–71
GDP (gross domestic product)
calculating, 42
disasters and, 10–11, 14, 47, 226
flaws as measurement tool, 45
Haiti earthquake and, 42, 86, 110, 116, 121
inequality and, 42–46
Japan and, 133
maps and, 51, 53, 55, 57
Sri Lanka and, 131
wealth and, 140
U.S. and, 228–29, 233
World Bank assessment of, 122
GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History (Coyle), 42
genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 3
Global South, 53
Greatest Hoax, The (Inhofe), 27
Greely, Adolphus, 32
Gregory, Jesse, 201
Haiti
2010 earthquake and, 88–99
aftermath of earthquake, 102–9
building codes in, 94–97
Cité Soleil, 85–88
class and, 83–85
compared to earthquake in Chile, 109–16, 121–23
death toll in wake of 2010 earthquake, 88–90
donations to, 92–93
factors contributing to post-quake disaster, 99–102
fault lines and, 119–21
NGOs and, 87–88
profiteering and, 83–85
recovery, 116–19
social inequality, 88
unemployment and, 86
variation in damage from earthquake, 97–99
Halliburton, 201
Hansen, Gladys, 32
hazard, 23
High Plains blizzard of 1888
see Children’s Blizzard
Human Development Index (HDI), 111, 140, 160, 226
Hurricane Andrew, 14, 166
Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender, and the Sociology of Disaster (Morrow), 14
Hurricane Katrina
accountability and, 157
disasters and, 1–2, 5, 147
evacuation and, 149
militarization and, 113
poverty and, 149
rebuilding after, 131
victims, 37, 39, 41, 81, 89
violence and, 104–5, 113
see also New Orleans
India, 46, 48, 63, 67, 71, 79, 148, 227, 252n29
Indian Ocean, 89, 127–28, 132
Inhofe, James, 27
Institute for International Economic Studies, 29
Institute for Seismic Research, 80
Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, 178
Insurrection Act, 184–85
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), 119
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), 127
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 42
Italy, 43, 69, 94, 98
Jackson, Alphonso, 196, 200, 204
Japan
disasters and, 6, 11–12
earthquakes and, 28, 64–65, 74–75
growth, 46
Kanto earthquake, 188
Korea and, 188–89
Myanmar and, 80, 140–41
“the Thing” and, 215, 218
Tohoku earthquake, 132–38
tsunamis and, 60, 123, 126
Typhoon Warning Center, 145
Kahneman, Daniel, 4, 178
Karan, Donna, 120
Katz, Bruce, 160
Katz, Jonathan, 83, 86, 94–95
Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), 201–2, 216
Kennedy, John F., 185
King, Rodney, 184–85, 213
Klinenberg, Eric, 31, 41
Kouchner, Bernard, 154
Kunreuther, Howard, 14, 116
L’Aquila earthquake, 69–70, 72, 98, 103
LA riots, 184–85, 213
Larkin, Emma, 150
Laskin, David, 31
Leadership Dispatches (Urseem, Kunreuther, and Kerjan), 116
liquefaction, 74–75
Lisbon earthquake of 1755, 99, 186, 193
Logan, John, 194–95, 198, 202, 204
Loma Prieta earthquake, 35, 74, 101, 104
looting, 18, 20, 105–9, 111, 113–15, 178–84, 186–88, 209, 217–19
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), 176
LTL Strategies, 90–91
Manhattan Project, 25
McClelland, Mac, 101
Meigs, Montgomery, 30–32, 39
meteorology, 13, 27–28, 33, 61, 80, 148, 171
militarization
Ferguson and, 213–14
Rodney King riots and, 213
Mill, John Stuart, 21
MINUSTAH, 87–88
Mismeasuring Our Lives (Stiglitz), 42
Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), 169–71
moral hazard, 23, 252n16
Morial, Marc, 197
Morrow, Betty Hearn, 14
Mother Jones magazine, 101, 196
Myanmar
Cyclone Nargis and, 145–48
economic situation, 143–45
history, 154–55
land management, 154–56
military government, 150–52
overview, 139–43
poverty and, 149–50
reaction to Nargis, 148–54
Nagin, Ray, 157, 162–63, 165, 180, 195, 197
National Guard, 180–81, 184–84, 214
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 30, 32, 147
National Public Radio (NPR), 96
natural disasters
analysis of, 17–21
capital losses and, 41–46
defined, 15–16
economy and, 11–15
efforts to predict, 9–10, 22–24
fatalities and, 29–32
GDP and, 10–11
hazard and, 23
individuals “affected” by, 38–39
injuries and, 35–38
overview, 9, 48–49
phases of 17–21
politics and, 30–34
rebuilding following, 21–22
science and, 22–24
social change and, 15–17
social harm and, 39–48
statistics on, 27–29
study of, 24–27
Natural History of Destruction, The (Sebold), 22
Nemcova, Petra, 120
neoclassical growth theory, 46
Nepal, 87, 118
New Orleans
corruption, 162–63
elite panic and, 182–87
FEMA and, 174–76
framing of disaster, 176–78
impact of Katrina on, 167–72
Katrina and, 162–72
media coverage of, 178–82
Myanmar and, 172–74
overview, 159–60
poverty and, 160–62
race and, 187–90
waterways, 169–72
see also Hurricane Katrina
New Zealand, 74, 76, 207
night light maps, 53–57
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 10, 33, 87, 103, 129–30, 144, 151–52
Nordhaus, William D., 53, 78
North Korea, 31, 54, 256–7n29
Obama, Barack, 214, 273n2
Okeechobee hurricane, 166–67
Other Side of Sadness, The (Bonanno), 22