Suchergebnisse

This book assesses the current available information concerning the major scientific problems related to environmental consequences of a possible nuclear war. The contributors address a broad range of topics, among them the effects of blast, heat, and local radioactive fallout; the likely dispersal patterns and residence times of radioactive debris in the troposphere and stratosphere; the probable long-term effects on both the local and global biosphere and radiological consequences for humans; the effect on the global environment of widespread fires in urban and industrialized regions; and the likely significant decrease of stratospheric ozone with a resulting long-term increase in harmful UV radiation received at the ground. The authors point to problem areas where current information is inadequate or completely lacking and discuss the role of the scientist in developing such information as a contribution to the elimination of the nuclear war threat.

66 pages ; The distress and disruption caused by extreme natural events has stimulated considerable interest in understanding and improving the decision-making processes that determine a manager's adjustment to natural hazards. Technological solutions to the problem of coping with hazards have typically been justified by a computation of benefits and costs that assume the people involved will behave in what the policy maker considers to be an economically rational way. However, it has slowly become evident that technological solutions, by themselves, are inadequate without knowledge of how they will affect decision making. In reviewing the wide range of adjustments to Gangetic floods or Nigerian drought or Norwegian avalanche, it has been observed that attempts to control nature and determine government policy will not succeed without a better understanding of the interplay among psychological, economic, and environmental factors as they determine the adjustment process.

The Environment as Hazard offers an understanding of how people around the world deal with dramatic fluctuations in the local natural systems of air, water, and terrain.