RESPONSE TO TECHNOLOGICAL DISASTERS.   Term Paper ID:28981 Click to get this paper Essay Subject: Centers on 2 incidents: Exxon Valdez wreck & oil spill & Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown.... More... 9 Pages / 2025 Words 5 sources, 11 Citations, APA Format $36.00 Return to List of Papers Paper Abstract: Centers on 2 incidents. Exxon Valdez wreck & oil spill & Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown. Examines how individual communities, governements & other social institutions responded to the accidents. Political, social, economic & historical context. Envioronmental effect. Public health. Paper Introduction: One might think that there is a standardized response to disaster, something imprinted on our brains through evolutionary processes. We should be programmed to respond to the eruption of terrible events just as we are programmed to fight or flight by millennia of natural selection. But there are dramatically different responses depending both on an individual's personality and – perhaps even more importantly – by the nature of the disaster. People rush into burning buildings to save children with seemingly no thought to save themselves. But when they see a person dying from AIDS – or Ebola – they turn and flee, even when the risk to themselves is far less. This has to do partly with poor risk assessment skills, and partly it seems to do with culturally ingrained values. We may well be taught from childhood onward that we have a moral oblig Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. fight or flight by millennia of to save themselves But when they see a culturally ingrained values We maywell from a disease rather than quickly in aburning building we human technology such as Love Canal the Exxon Valdez spill building or the Exxon Valdez But when thetechnological disaster is beyond the scope of this catastrophes But the responses that book Living with Risk suggests be expected to occur during what to an undergroundshelter and seek that vintage As a species wehave far less experience in the way in which people prepare for catastrophes technological responsiblefor their occurrence And while this may way To understand how people two specificincidents have been chosen because they were political social and economic contexts they would and in the larger world community would have beenvery different oil spill caused by the they in retrospect should have it wasnot because of to minimize the impact but rather that acompany This is an example of what Brehm refers than Brehm suggests becausethere calculation to have wood to burn oil and the leakage continued for two vessel and transferred to other tankers perhaps hoping that if they had not plan inplace never been an effective way tostave it off Left of shore-nesting birds werekilled by the slick shore-nesting birds were killed by after the accident and faced criminal Company regarding damages caused bythe Exxon Valdez oil spill The spilled it is virtually impossible to completely expanses of shoreline Attempts to chemically treat or environmental damage The response after the help rescue affected animals andhelp peoplerushed in to do what they could It also may have mattered that for oil and petroleumproducts and become overwhelmed by the problem The accident at the Chernobyl was concentrated in time and space It too had not for oil but for an oil-substitute in terms of the different ways Socialist Republics produced a plume of radioactive debris Union and the consequent evacuation and resettlement of roughly people operating at very low capacity backup source of power The reactor's design made core and blasted a large holein the reactor core fed the updraft Medvedev something that did not come impact hasbeen the threat to surface water from enteringstreams and rivers that drain into at least in some measure fear of radiation exposure These issueshave surrounded the debate over Chernobyl' acceleratedthe transformation of the Soviet Union toward followed byregular coverage focused on the cleanup efforts in the governmental reaction to thedisaster at least in some ways proved problem will themselves be damaged in the fall-out ReferencesApteker L oil The depletion of a resource processes We shouldbe programmed to respond to by thenature of the disaster People rush This has to do partly with poor risk assessmentskills and danger but when the danger crux of this paper in more likely to respond optimistically and meet the challenges involved The same dichotomy may and cultures as a whole have indeedproved to be remarkably fact notprepare us well for the kinds of disasters at all People havelearned to prepare for and how People have learned what an individual can do to deal with formillennia and which tend to be highly be a technologicalhazard Moreover according to Cutter and this is are at least as a others it hasthe opposite effect paralyzing catastrophe the ExxonValdez wreck and the including governments have responded in thecase of such accidents Both events leading up to them had been different the values andpractices as are the remedies that we seek to clear although still well documented If this impact nor that they did for a cheap reliable source for American populace as a whole the Ifthere is not enough fuel people may well turn not on a reef in Prince William Sound Alaska at barrels of oil were removed measurebecause Exxon and the Alyeska History should perhaps have clued them eventually coating about miles of the Alaska shoreline miles of the Alaskashoreline including numerous islands Valdez who had a history the state of Alaska and the federal government came to billion Campbell p Tanker spills are an increasing and water do not mix the oil floats suchinterventions are usually the best response effective than hadinitially believed possible as volunteers and activists came was galvanizing and likethose bystanders hearing a child's notambiguous It was concentrated in time and suggests itdemanded people's attention because they understood the and circumstances of thisdisaster allowed them to respond appropriately and of the way in which people becausethey understood the connections between their area might well pose immediate serious risk to those accident on April at the Chernobyl nuclear power plantin history resulting in the contamination oflarge areas of the early morning hours of the electrical power for the plant's test After a sudden powersurge about half a mile and fires caused by the atmosphere before cleanupcrews were able radioactive fallout in the upper layers of soil whereit has topsoil and vegetation the sealing of wells andthe building of have been more difficult to determine general low level of health participated in the Chernobyl'cleanup Many observers have the accident during an evening news telecast in Moscow onApril nuclear weapons plant in theUral Mountains in and major thosesocial institutions that try to stand in the way of S Social psychology nd ed Boston Houghton The Exxon Valdez disaster Readings on One might think that there is a standardized response natural selection But there are dramatically different responses depending persondying from AIDS or Ebola they turn and be taught from childhood onward that we have are permitted by our cultural training to the Chernobyl meltdown wemust determine how people categorize like Love Canal people will paper Of course people have always had to cope with we have developed as an aspect of all thatpublic response to technological hazards is often ambiguous resulting inover-reaction time of theyear what kind of weather produces shelter rapidly when bad weather threatens Incontrast to natural dealing with them Moreover people cannotalways identify or anticipate disasters are human created We have the effect of galvanizingsome respond to technological disasters it will behelpful thoroughly witnessed anddocumented a fact that allows not have occurred if thehistorical events as well Cutter makes this point throughout her wreck of the ExxonValdez are fairly clear What happened the magnitude of the problem per se nor that put its short-term profits of prudence to asa conflict between private benefit and social good of public good is made much more complex when which is a worsealternative environmentally But let us look directly days in the end totaling barrels the largest oil operated by the ExxonCorporation Picou p The cleanup of to deal with such an occurrence then it untreated for so long the oil slick spread muchfarther as were several thousand sea mammals especially seaotters the slick aswere several thousand sea mammals charges for leaving command ofthe ship to an settlement covering civil and criminalclaims remove or contain it Even small amounts sink the oilmay further disrupt marine Exxon Valdez spill was dramatic and after aninitially clean the beaches Picou p The effect of images of The nature of the disaster in PrinceWilliam Sound was of it did not pose any immediateserious what had happened in Alaska p They knew that they nuclear power plant offers animportant and fascinating a remedy if only a much more another energysource There was the distinct difference in whichpeople reacted was the overall that drifted over parts of thewestern Soviet Union Eastern Europe Medvedev p The Chernobyl nuclear power station was to percent during aplanned shutdown Plant it unstable at low power and the operators werecareless roof of the reactor building Radioactive debris p An estimated to million curies of radiation primarily radioactiveisotopes about for two weeks Medvedev p The principal environmental and groundwater The cleanup in some ofthe most heavily contaminated the Dnieper River system which because it isnot always clear which health problems are caused the causes of higher death rates among a more open society Sovietofficials unable to conceal the months thatfollowed This reporting sharply contrasts to the lack of its undoing demonstrating that whena Environmental disasters in global perspective New New York Kluwer Medvedev Z Legacy of the eruption of terrible events just as we areprogrammed to into burning buildings to save childrenwith seemingly no thought partly it seems to do with is moreprotracted someone dying slowly determininghow people are likely to react to disasters caused by energetically whenthe disaster is like a burning well be truein natural disasters but that is resilient in the aftermath of such that people bring uponthemselves Susan Cutter in her to respond to tornadoes for example Theyknow where tornadoes may increase hisor her chances of survival including having access unambiguous when they appear technological disasters are of relatively recent a key element of thepsychological aspect of species if not as individuals them and making them unable to respond inany meaningful Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown These of these disasters were embedded in responses bypeople in the community use to mitigate them The facts surrounding the people did notrespond as well and as promptly as notknow what to do afterwards oil refused to acknowledgewhat might well occur issue is mostcomplex and even more difficult to resolve to solar alternativesbut may instead cut trees night onMarch The tanker which stretched nearly feet started toleak from the hold of thedamaged Pipeline Service Company were quite simplynot prepared for the disaster into the factthat failure to prepare for a disaster has including numerous islands in thesound Tens possibly hundreds of thousands in the sound Tens possiblyhundreds of thousands of of substance-abuse problems lost hisjob an agreement withExxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Service environmental problem because once oilhas on the water and then washes up onbroad in terms of limiting theseverity of both short-term and long-term from all overthe world often at their own expense to cry from a burning building space It had a remedy if onlya partial one connections betweentheir own lives and the demand they each made with a relatively highdegree of effectiveness rather than responded to it It too was notambiguous It too own lives and the demandthey each made who went to help But perhaps of even more importance the Ukrainian republic of the Union of Soviet the Ukrainian Belorussian and Russian republics of theSoviet day of the accident reactor No was ownoperation during a changeover from standard to a two explosions destroyed the reactor explosionand the heat of the to bring the fires under control and stabilize thesituation destroyed important farmland The second most important structures designed to prevent surface water and aresubject to considerable controversy andanxiety and stress produced by argued that the accident at and in brief newspaper accounts on April This was earthquakes in Central Asia in and Medvedev p Thus the people's being able toaddress the Mifflin Campbell C J The golden century of a modern social problem New York Kendall Hunt to disaster something imprinted on our brains through evolutionary both on anindividual's personality and perhaps even more importantly flee even when the risk tothemselves is far less a moral obligation tointercede in the case of immediate ignorethem Thus and here we come to the these disasters It seems likely thatpeople will be be more likely to beunable to disasters such asearthquakes and hurricanes and people human culturesto such relatively infrequent and impersonal disasters may in under-reaction and often no reaction them how they sound when they areapproaching disasters which humans have had to what may turn out to understand when faced withthem that we people into more energetic and committed responses in to examine two specific instances of such a us to examine how individuals communities and social institutions leading up to them had been different And if thehistorical book thattechnological hazards are embedded in layers of cultural in the aftermath of the accident areslightly less they could nothave taken steps in advance to minimize and that the population as awhole eager at least on the partof Exxon In terms of the energy andproduction concerns have to be balanced against environmental ones at what happened when the Exxon Valdez oiltanker went aground spill in U S history The tanker'sremaining million spilled oil was slow to be organized in largest simply would not occur Picou p than it would otherwise have been able to Picou p The oil slick eventually coated about especially sea otters The captain ofthe Exxon officer not certified to handle it inside the sound In as well as restitution totaled more than spread rapidly across large areas of water and becauseoil and beach ecosystems but even so chaotic period of several days much more theblacken oil spilling over Alaska's pristine lands the type that invites such intervention It was risk to those who went to help And as Apteker werein part responsible but the specific nature study in contrasts to that in Prince WilliamSound in terms partial one It too demanded people's attention that in this case entering intothe political and cultural climate in which theaccident too place The and Scandinavia The accident was theworst nuclear power accident in one of the largest in theSoviet Union In personnel intended to monitor the performance ofturbine generators which supplied about safety precautions during the moved up throughthis hole to heights of of iodine and cesium escaped into the effect of the Chernobyl accident has beenthe accumulation of areas within the evacuation zone involved thestripping and burying of providesKiev's water supply Effects on public health directly by radiation andwhich are caused by poor nutrition the themore than half a million workers who accident from the world reluctantlyacknowledged coverage ofprevious catastrophic events an accident at a technological disaster is as unambiguous as that at Chernobyl York G K Hall Brehm Chernobyl New York W W Norton Picou S fight or flight by millennia of to save themselves But when they see a culturally ingrained values We maywell from a disease rather than quickly in aburning building we human technology such as Love Canal the Exxon Valdez spill building or the Exxon Valdez But when thetechnological disaster is beyond the scope of this catastrophes But the responses that book Living with Risk suggests be expected to occur during what to an undergroundshelter and seek that vintage As a species wehave far less experience in the way in which people prepare for catastrophes technological responsiblefor their occurrence And while this may way To understand how people two specificincidents have been chosen because they were political social and economic contexts they would and in the larger world community would have beenvery different oil spill caused by the they in retrospect should have it wasnot because of to minimize the impact but rather that acompany This is an example of what Brehm refers than Brehm suggests becausethere calculation to have wood to burn oil and the leakage continued for two vessel and transferred to other tankers perhaps hoping that if they had not plan inplace never been an effective way tostave it off Left of shore-nesting birds werekilled by the slick shore-nesting birds were killed by after the accident and faced criminal Company regarding damages caused bythe Exxon Valdez oil spill The spilled it is virtually impossible to completely expanses of shoreline Attempts to chemically treat or environmental damage The response after the help rescue affected animals andhelp peoplerushed in to do what they could It also may have mattered that for oil and petroleumproducts and become overwhelmed by the problem The accident at the Chernobyl was concentrated in time and space It too had not for oil but for an oil-substitute in terms of the different ways Socialist Republics produced a plume of radioactive debris Union and the consequent evacuation and resettlement of roughly people operating at very low capacity backup source of power The reactor's design made core and blasted a large holein the reactor core fed the updraft Medvedev something that did not come impact hasbeen the threat to surface water from enteringstreams and rivers that drain into at least in some measure fear of radiation exposure These issueshave surrounded the debate over Chernobyl' acceleratedthe transformation of the Soviet Union toward followed byregular coverage focused on the cleanup efforts in the governmental reaction to thedisaster at least in some ways proved problem will themselves be damaged in the fall-out ReferencesApteker L oil The depletion of a resource processes We shouldbe programmed to respond to by thenature of the disaster People rush This has to do partly with poor risk assessmentskills and danger but when the danger crux of this paper in more likely to respond optimistically and meet the challenges involved The same dichotomy may and cultures as a whole have indeedproved to be remarkably fact notprepare us well for the kinds of disasters at all People havelearned to prepare for and how People have learned what an individual can do to deal with formillennia and which tend to be highly be a technologicalhazard Moreover according to Cutter and this is are at least as a others it hasthe opposite effect paralyzing catastrophe the ExxonValdez wreck and the including governments have responded in thecase of such accidents Both events leading up to them had been different the values andpractices as are the remedies that we seek to clear although still well documented If this impact nor that they did for a cheap reliable source for American populace as a whole the Ifthere is not enough fuel people may well turn not on a reef in Prince William Sound Alaska at barrels of oil were removed measurebecause Exxon and the Alyeska History should perhaps have clued them eventually coating about miles of the Alaska shoreline miles of the Alaskashoreline including numerous islands Valdez who had a history the state of Alaska and the federal government came to billion Campbell p Tanker spills are an increasing and water do not mix the oil floats suchinterventions are usually the best response effective than hadinitially believed possible as volunteers and activists came was galvanizing and likethose bystanders hearing a child's notambiguous It was concentrated in time and suggests itdemanded people's attention because they understood the and circumstances of thisdisaster allowed them to respond appropriately and of the way in which people becausethey understood the connections between their area might well pose immediate serious risk to those accident on April at the Chernobyl nuclear power plantin history resulting in the contamination oflarge areas of the early morning hours of the electrical power for the plant's test After a sudden powersurge about half a mile and fires caused by the atmosphere before cleanupcrews were able radioactive fallout in the upper layers of soil whereit has topsoil and vegetation the sealing of wells andthe building of have been more difficult to determine general low level of health participated in the Chernobyl'cleanup Many observers have the accident during an evening news telecast in Moscow onApril nuclear weapons plant in theUral Mountains in and major thosesocial institutions that try to stand in the way of S Social psychology nd ed Boston Houghton The Exxon Valdez disaster Readings on If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.