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...

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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. Thus - and here we come to the crux of this paper - in determininghow people are likely to react to disasters caused by human technology(such as Love Canal, the Exxon Valdez spill, the Chernobyl meltdown) wemust determine how people categorize these disasters. After a sudden powersurge, two explosions destroyed the reactor core and blasted a large holein the roof of the reactor building. We understand when faced withthem that we are (at least as a species if not as individuals) responsiblefor their occurrence. 33). What happened in the aftermath of the accident areslightly less clear, although still well documented. The settlement, covering civil and criminalclaims as well as restitution, totaled more than $1 billion (Campbell,1992, p. People havelearned to prepare for and how to respond to tornadoes (for example). It was concentrated in time and space. Thus the governmental reaction to thedisaster at least in some ways proved its undoing, demonstrating that whena technological disaster is as unambiguous as that at Chernobyl, thosesocial institutions that try to stand in the way of people's being able toaddress the problem will themselves be damaged in the fall-out. (1996). We shouldbe programmed to respond to the eruption of terrible events just as we areprogrammed to fight or flight by millennia of natural selection. But when they see a persondying from AIDS - or Ebola - they turn and flee, even when the risk tothemselves is far less. The response after the Exxon Valdez spill was dramatic and after aninitially chaotic period of several days, much more effective than hadinitially believed possible as volunteers and activists came from all overthe world, often at their own expense, to help rescue affected animals andhelp clean the beaches (Picou, 1996, p. 19). The second most important impact hasbeen the threat to surface water and groundwater. In 1991the state of Alaska and the federal government came to an agreement withExxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company regarding damages caused bythe Exxon Valdez oil spill. But when thetechnological disaster is like Love Canal, people will be more likely to beunable to meet the challenges involved. The golden century of oil: The depletion of a resource. Of course people have always had to cope with disasters such asearthquakes and hurricanes, and people and cultures as a whole have indeedproved to be remarkably resilient in the aftermath of such catastrophes.But the responses that we have developed as an aspect of all human culturesto such relatively infrequent and impersonal disasters may in fact notprepare us well for the kinds of disasters that people bring uponthemselves. (History should perhaps have clued them into the factthat failure to prepare for a disaster has never been an effective way tostave it off.) Left untreated for so long, the oil slick spread muchfarther than it would otherwise have been able to, eventually coating about11 miles of the Alaska shoreline, including numerous islands in thesound. This was followed byregular coverage focused on the cleanup efforts in the months thatfollowed. As a species wehave far less experience in dealing with them. Cutter makes this point throughout her book - thattechnological hazards are embedded in layers of cultural values andpractices, as are the remedies that we seek to use to mitigate them. (1992). 4 was operating at very low capacity (6 to 7 percent) during aplanned shutdown. There was the distinct difference that in this case entering intothe area might well pose immediate serious risk to those who went to help.But perhaps of even more importance in terms of the different ways in whichpeople reacted was the overall political and cultural climate in which theaccident too place. This is an example of what Brehm (1993) refers to asa conflict between private benefit and social good - at least on the partof Exxon. The accident was theworst nuclear power accident in history, resulting in the contamination oflarge areas of the Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Russian republics of theSoviet Union and the consequent evacuation and resettlement of roughly2 , people (Medvedev, 1992, p. It too had a remedy,if only a much more partial one. The Exxon Valdez disaster: Readings on a modern social problem. 191). These issueshave surrounded the debate over the causes of higher death rates among themore than half a million workers who participated in the Chernobyl'cleanup. 8). It also may have mattered that it did not pose any immediateserious risk to those who went to help. 81). If people did notrespond as well and as promptly as they (in retrospect) should have, it wasnot because of the magnitude of the problem per se nor that they could nothave taken steps in advance to minimize this impact nor that they did notknow what to do afterwards to minimize the impact, but rather that acompany put its short-term profits of prudence and that the population as awhole, eager for a cheap, reliable source for oil, refused to acknowledgewhat might well occur. The principal environmental effect of the Chernobyl accident has beenthe accumulation of radioactive fallout in the upper layers of soil, whereit has destroyed important farmland. Theyknow where tornadoes may be expected to occur, during what time of theyear, what kind of weather produces them, how they sound when they areapproaching. People have learned what an individual can do to increase hisor her chances of survival, including having access to an undergroundshelter and seek that shelter rapidly when bad weather threatens. People rush into burning buildings to save childrenwith seemingly no thought to save themselves. The captain ofthe Exxon Valdez, who had a history of substance-abuse problems, lost hisjob after the accident and faced criminal charges for leaving command ofthe ship to an officer not certified to handle it inside the sound. history. 37). It too demanded people's attention becausethey understood the connections between their own lives (and the demandthey each made not for oil but for an oil-substitute, another energysource). Social psychology (2nd ed.). Susan Cutter, in her book Living with Risk, suggests thatpublic response to technological hazards is often ambiguous, resulting inover-reaction, under-reaction, and often no reaction at all. And if thehistorical events leading up to them had been different, the responses bypeople in the community (and in the larger world community) would have beenvery different as well. It was notambiguous. New York: Kendall/Hunt. 51). Legacy of Chernobyl. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant offers animportant and fascinating study in contrasts to that in Prince WilliamSound in terms of the way in which people responded to it. Environmental disasters in global perspective. The oil slick eventually coated about 11 miles of the Alaskashoreline, including numerous islands in the sound. Moreover, people cannotalways identify or anticipate what may turn out to be a technologicalhazard. Tens, possiblyhundreds, of thousands of shore-nesting birds were killed by the slick, aswere several thousand sea mammals, especially sea otters. Sovietofficials, unable to conceal the accident from the world, reluctantlyacknowledged the accident during an evening news telecast in Moscow onApril 28 and in brief newspaper accounts on April 3 . But there are dramatically different responses depending both on anindividual's personality and - perhaps even more importantly - by thenature of the disaster. Attempts to chemically treat or sink the oilmay further disrupt marine and beach ecosystems, but even so suchinterventions are usually the best response in terms of limiting theseverity of both short-term and long-term environmental damage. The Chernobyl nuclear power station was one of the largest in theSoviet Union. It too was concentrated in time and space. One might think that there is a standardized response to disaster,something imprinted on our brains through evolutionary processes. New York: G. It seems likely thatpeople will be more likely to respond optimistically and energetically whenthe disaster is like a burning building - or the Exxon Valdez. Radioactive debris moved up throughthis hole to heights of about half a mile and fires caused by the explosionand the heat of the reactor core fed the updraft (Medvedev, 1992, p. Moreover, according to Cutter (and this is a key element of thepsychological aspect of the way in which people prepare for catastrophes),technological disasters are human created. The facts surrounding the oil spill caused by the wreck of the ExxonValdez are fairly clear. It had a remedy, if onlya partial one. This has to do partly with poor risk assessmentskills, and partly it seems to do with culturally ingrained values. The cleanup of spilled oil was slow to be organized in largest measurebecause Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company were quite simplynot prepared for the disaster, perhaps hoping that if they had not plan inplace to deal with such an occurrence then it simply would not occur.(Picou, 1996, p. K. Tanker spills are an increasing environmental problem because once oilhas spilled, it is virtually impossible to completely remove or contain it.Even small amounts spread rapidly across large areas of water and becauseoil and water do not mix, the oil floats on the water and then washes up onbroad expanses of shoreline. New York: Kluwer.Medvedev, Z. It too was notambiguous. We maywell be taught from childhood onward that we have a moral obligation tointercede in the case of immediate danger, but when the danger is moreprotracted - someone dying slowly from a disease rather than quickly in aburning building - we are permitted by our cultural training to ignorethem. ReferencesApteker, L. 61). The nature of the disaster in PrinceWilliam Sound was of the type that invites such intervention. Incontrast to natural disasters - which humans have had to deal with formillennia and which tend to be highly unambiguous when they appear -technological disasters are of relatively recent vintage. The tanker - which stretched nearly 1 feet -- started toleak oil, and the leakage continued for two days, in the end totaling26 , barrels, the largest oil spill in U.S. But let us look directly at what happened when the Exxon Valdez oiltanker went aground on a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska at night onMarch 24, 1989. Plant personnel intended to monitor the performance ofturbine generators, which supplied electrical power for the plant's ownoperation, during a changeover from standard to a backup source of power.The reactor's design made it unstable at low power and the operators werecareless about safety precautions during the test. In the early morning hours of the day of the accident,reactor No. Hall.Brehm, S. Ifthere is not enough fuel, people may well turn not to solar alternativesbut may instead cut trees to have wood to burn, which is a worsealternative environmentally. Both of these disasters were embedded in political,social and economic contexts; they would not have occurred if thehistorical events leading up to them had been different. The cleanup in some ofthe most heavily contaminated areas within the evacuation zone involved thestripping and burying of topsoil and vegetation, the sealing of wells, andthe building of structures designed to prevent surface water from enteringstreams and rivers that drain into the Dnieper River system, which providesKiev's water supply. The effect of images of theblacken oil spilling over Alaska's pristine lands was galvanizing, and likethose bystanders hearing a child's cry from a burning building, peoplerushed in to do what they could. (1993). 29).An estimated 1 to 15 million curies of radiation (primarily radioactiveisotopes of iodine and cesium) escaped into the atmosphere before cleanupcrews were able to bring the fires under control and stabilize thesituation - something that did not come about for two weeks (Medvedev,1992, p. And, as Apteker (1996) suggests, itdemanded people's attention because they understood the connections betweentheir own lives (and the demand they each made for oil and petroleumproducts) and what had happened in Alaska (p. (1992). New York: W.W. Effects on public health have been more difficult to determine and aresubject to considerable controversy at least in some measure because it isnot always clear which health problems are caused directly by radiation andwhich are caused by poor nutrition, the general low level of health, andanxiety and stress produced by fear of radiation exposure. The accident on April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plantin the Ukrainian republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,produced a plume of radioactive debris that drifted over parts of thewestern Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Campbell, C.J. And while this may have the effect of galvanizingsome people into more energetic and committed responses, in others it hasthe opposite effect, paralyzing them and making them unable to respond inany meaningful way. Many observers have argued that the accident at Chernobyl' acceleratedthe transformation of the Soviet Union toward a more open society. This reporting sharply contrasts to the lack of coverage ofprevious catastrophic events (an accident at a nuclear weapons plant in theUral Mountains in 1957 and major earthquakes in Central Asia in 1948 and1964) (Medvedev, 1992, p. 47). Norton.Picou, S. The same dichotomy may well be truein natural disasters, but that is beyond the scope of this paper. (1996). (The tanker'sremaining 1 million barrels of oil were removed from the hold of thedamaged vessel and transferred to other tankers operated by the ExxonCorporation.) (Picou, 1996, p. These two specificincidents have been chosen because they were thoroughly witnessed anddocumented, a fact that allows us to examine how individuals, communities,and social institutions - including governments - have responded in thecase of such accidents. Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of shore-nesting birds werekilled by the slick, as were several thousand sea mammals, especially seaotters (Picou, 1996, p. They knew that they werein part responsible, but the specific nature and circumstances of thisdisaster allowed them to respond appropriately and with a relatively highdegree of effectiveness rather than become overwhelmed by the problem. To understand how people respond to technological disasters it will behelpful to examine two specific instances of such a catastrophe, the ExxonValdez wreck and the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown. In terms of the American populace as a whole, the issue is mostcomplex and even more difficult to resolve than Brehm suggests, becausethere calculation of public good is made much more complex when energy andproduction concerns have to be balanced against environmental ones. 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.