EOSC 114 - The Catastrophic Earth

Natural Disasters
Just before the start of each class:
1) turn on your iClicker
2) introduce yourself to your neighbors

Tell your friends about our other courses:

EOSC 114: Disasters EOSC 116: Dinosaurs EOSC 118: Gold, Gems
Fragile Systems 3
 Goals
• Compare and contrast risk, perception of risk, hazard, and
vulnerability.
• Recognize how poor humans are at judging risk and how
your perceptions skew your ability to judge risk.
• Relate natural‐disaster risk & intensity to frequency,
return period, and consequences (costs).
• Describe population growth and explain why it is
important for natural disasters.
• Explain how Earth’s carrying capacity and overpopulation
are related to the fate of the human race, and anticipate
your role in it.
 Hazard vs Risk
Turn to your neighbour
What is the difference between
hazard and risk?
 Hazard vs. Risk
Hazard
Any event or situation that could
cause human (Deaths, injuries) or
economic harm (property and
prosperity)
 Hazard vs. Risk
Vulnerability – a weakness that
could be affected by a disaster and
(or how badly it could be affected)
 Hazard vs. Risk
Risk
Probability that any given
hazardous event might occur
(Chance of a potential loss)
Could be written as:
Hazard x Vulnerability = Risk
 Risk
Risk is usually expressed as a
probability

“Chance of x happening”
www.xkcd.com CC license
 Perception of risk
A problem.
Humans do not deal well with
probabilities
Human perception of risk is
flawed!
 LottoMax
7/7 numbers - 1 in 28,633,528
$5 to play
For even chances to win the jackpot
must be:
$143,167,640
But!
Importantly, humans are really bad
with big numbers too.
 Get in groups of 4 (ish)
Estimate how many Km high a stack of
28,633,528 lottery tickets would be

How thick is a ticket? Less than 1 mm,

more than 0.1mm

0.3 mm x 28,633,528 = 8590058 mm

= ~8.6 km
iClicker Question

Photo: flickr user Joe Szilvagyi CC License

www.xkcd.com CC license
iClicker Question

Photo Jason Puddephatt – CC License

Photo Yorkali Walters CC License
 Odds (U.S. Stats)
Type #Deaths/year Risk/year

Motor Vehicle 36676 1/7,700

Motor Cycle 3112 1/91,500
Train 931 1/30,600
Bicycle 695 1/410,000
Commercial Flights 138 1/2,000,000
www.xkcd.com CC license
 Odds (U.S. Stats)
Type #Deaths/ Risk/year Risk Exposure
year Deaths/distance
Motor Vehicle 36676 1/7,700 1.3 per 100,000,000
miles
Motor Cycle 3112 1/91,500 31.3 per 100,000,000
miles
Train 931 1/30,600 1.3 per 100,000,000
miles
Bicycle 695 1/410,000 ?
Commercial 138 1/2,000,000 1.9 per 100,000,000
Flights miles

Perspective. 2200 people die EVERY DAY from Heart Disease

 Walking near cars
US 2003-2012,
A pedestrian hit by a car every 8 mins
676,000 of those lived
47,025 did not
16X more than killed by floods,
earthquakes, or tornadoes
 Motorcycles
2015 motorcycles were 15% of all motor
vehicle fatalities
Less than 1% of all distance travelled
26 times more likely to die
Only 19 US states require helmets – your
mileage may vary
Helmets reduce chance of death by 37%
 iClicker Question
What is the most deadly animal, other
than humans, in North America (ie kills
the most people)?
a) Bear
b) Dog
c) Moose
d) Shark
e) Other
 Turn to your neighbour
What factors can skew human
perceptions of risk?
 Your list
?
 Risk?
Big M8 Earthquake
Here:

What is the risk? (high medium or low)

 Risk?
Earthquake?
Here:

What is the risk? (high medium or low)

 Risk?
What disaster?

What is the risk? (high medium or low)

Risk?
Population Issues
Are disasters increasing?
Historical Population Growth
 Population
Historically Exponential Growth!
Growth of 1.1%
Doubling time:
70
𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷 𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦 =
% 𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟/𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦

ONLY applies to exponential growth

 Population
If growth rate = 1.2%/yr, then DT = 70 /1.2 =
58.3 years

If growth rate = 1.1%/yr, then DT = 70/1.1 =

63.6 years
 Population

At this growth rate,

930 years from now,
529 trillion humans
would cover the
continents standing
shoulder to shoulder.
What can limit this growth?
 Population
Carrying Capacity
The population that can be sustainably supported
within a given domain (e.g., earth)
Depends on:
– Quantity of food,
– Habitat (living space),
– Natural resources (energy, water, clean air etc.)
– Sanitation,
– Medical care,
– etc.
 Population
Overpopulation
–Population that exceeds the
carrying capacity
–What happens then?
Hall & Day, 2009: Amer. Scientist, 97, p230.
 iClicker
What should we do to prevent this impending
disaster?
(A) Canada should hoard its resources and not sell
them to the rest of the world.
(B) The strong countries should bomb the weak
countries to reduce the total mouths to feed, so
the strong countries stay strong.
(C) We should colonize other planets or moons to
acquire more resources.
(D) We should genetically engineer crops so we
never run out of food.
(E) You need do nothing, because this disaster will
NOT affect you.
 Population
Luckily growth seems to be slowing
Now “only” linear
1 billion more people every 13
years
 Population
• Current* 2016 world
population is ≈
7,450,191,407

• Growth rate will 9.3 billion

continue to decrease
as earth’s carrying
capacity is
approached.

• Recent projections
are 9.3 billion people
By 2050.
* www.worldometers.info/world-population/
 Relation to Disasters?
At present:
• With warning, people can be saved
• But infrastructure is destroyed
In future:
• With more people, infrastructure becomes
more important and vulnerable and people
are less likely to be evacuated
 Fragile System
Earth – A Fragile System?
Earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, hurricanes,
tornadoes, floods, tsunami, asteroid impacts …
…are NOT disasters to the Earth. They are normal
components of the Earth System
But they are disasters to us

CONCLUSIONS?
• The Earth is not a fragile system, but the
Human population is
 The rest of the semester
Earth’s history

Long periods of calm punctuated by brief,

localized events of shear terror.

In this course, we will study that terror.

 Field Trip!
Oct 14th
More details coming soon.
 Upcoming Deadlines
• Due Sept 20th – Homework 1a (second chance)
• Due Sept 20th – Homework 1b+c
• Sept 27th Midterm 1!
• Due Sept 30th - Register your iClicker in Connect