Tag Archives: volcanoes

The Big Ones book

I recently read The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them). It was very good. The author covered 11 past disasters, and one future disaster that is most likely going to happen.

The 12 events are discussed chronologically. They are: Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius back in the year 79, the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, the Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783-84, California central valley flooding in 1861-62, the Tokyo and Yokohama earthquake of 1923, Mississippi flooding in 1927, Multiple earthquakes in China in the 1970s, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, L’Aquila Italy earthquake of 2009, The 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that affected the Fukushima nuclear plant, and lastly, she talks about the earthquake that will eventually hit the Los Angeles area along the San Andreas fault some year in the future.

The Earth really does want to kill us. It has many ways that it tries to kill the animals living on the surface.

She does a great job of discussing how humans react to natural disasters (both rationally and irrationally), and ways that scientists can talk to the public to plan for such events. She recommends staying away from statistics and probabilities, since people don’t understand statistics very well. (For example, with 100 year floods, some people think that they occur once every 100 years, but that is not really the case. Each year, there is a 1% chance of a 100 year flood occurring, so 100 year floods can occur close to each other chronologically.) She has also worked with politicians and policy makers on how to frame the discussion so that governments can be better prepared to deal with natural disasters and catastrophes.

I already knew about most of the disasters, but I think I learned the most about the Laki volcano in Iceland, and on the great flood in central California.

If you are interested in science communication, in human behavior, or on natural disasters in general, this book is highly recommended.