When Bad Things Happen

A short [funny] guide to nine big things to worry about—and what you can do about them.

Read more: When Bad Things Happen - What to Do in Case of Disaster http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/14985/

Smallpox Attack
Chlorine Release
Blackout
Dirty Bomb

Earthquake:

What the city would do: Dig survivors out of crumbled tenements and town houses and race to extinguish blazes fueled by broken gas lines. A minimum 5 on the Richter scale would level homes all over the five boroughs, and more deaths would result later as destabilized buildings are toppled by aftershocks and pedestrians are pummeled by falling air conditioners and other debris. Though two major fault patterns run under Manhattan, experts say a big quake is unlikely.
Worst-case scenario: A high-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter within the five boroughs. Aboveground subway lines and bridges crack, and airports are disabled.
What you can do: Live in a steel-framed high-rise built after seismic codes were adopted in 1996. At the first tremor, grab a cell phone and take cover in a doorway or under a solid piece of furniture. Protect your head. If you can, turn off natural gas, water, and electricity, but beware of aftershocks. Cover your nose and mouth with clothing to avoid breathing toxic dust.

Indian Point Explosion
Avian-Flu Pandemic

Hurricane:

What the city would do: Issue evacuation orders 48 hours before the storm hits, urging people in vulnerable zones (see map) to flee those areas by public transportation or catch an MTA bus to Madison Square Garden or one of 22 other intake centers.
Worst-case scenario: A storm closes in on the city faster than expected. Evacuees are stuck in cars on closed roads; the subways and Hudson River tunnels flood. Though a death toll would likely be low, damage could be extensive.
What you can do: Keep three days’ worth of food, water, diapers, medication, and other supplies in a safe place. If you’re in a hurricane zone, buy flood insurance and snap photos of your house for future reference. Keep a prescription stash handy and pack a bag with copies of important documents, extra keys, rain gear and shoes, nonperishable foods, and at least $100.
As the storm approaches, nail plywood over windows and bring balcony furniture and garbage cans inside. If you’re evacuating, unplug appliances, turn off pilot lights and water, and put valuables you can’t take along in watertight containers. Fill your tank, grab a map, and get out of town—with your pets.

Nuclear Bomb:

What the city would do: Pray for help from the Feds because city hospitals, police precincts, and firehouses could be destroyed. If the prospect of a fema-managed catastrophe isn’t scary enough, a nuclear bomb would kill millions, and the lucky ones would get vaporized instantly. Others would be burned, blinded, or poisoned by radiation sickness in subsequent weeks and months. Bodies would litter the streets, and the water supply would be contaminated. The city would be too radioactive for outside emergency workers to enter, so those left alive would have to improvise.
Worst-case scenario: A bomb in the center of midtown. It doesn’t get worse than this.
What you can do: You could try to get your hands on some potassium iodide tablets in case you survive. Or, you might consider investing $200,000 in a “safe room”—a sealed, gamma-radiation-proof space with positive pressure, oxygen, food, necessary medicine, and other supplies—preferably underground. If you’re in a tall building, there’s no harm in heading for the center of the middle floors, which will put more mass between you and the radiation outside. But really: Kiss your ass good-bye.

How Climate Change Can Alter NY

By Sung Bin Park

The Sea Of People project combines the dynamics of a mass rally with the expressive power of an interactive artistic installation. Following a 12 Noon Rally in Battery Park on Saturday, April 14, 2007, thousands of participants, dressed in blue, will stretch north in two columns along the projected eastern and western 10-foot waterlines that may one day redefine lower Manhattan under the ten-foot sea level rise scenario.

Those living in New York City and its boroughs especially in those many areas only ten feet above sea level could notice changes in the form of more frequent and intense storms, hurricanes, damaging coastal floods and damages to homes and wetlands. Extreme cases of heat waves and droughts, and already rising sea levels are also on the list. With close to 600 miles of coastline, even city homeowners living in “risky” areas most prone to storm damage are getting heated with insurers denying some low lying areas, including greater metropolitan New York, coverage. Beyond the threat to existing infrastructure there are also concerns about public health effects including poor air quality leading to respiratory ailments and asthma, and rising heat temperatures that could potentially be hazardous to the elderly and young children. According to a recent study by the New York Climate and Health Project, if the current climate change trend continues “summer heat-related mortality could increase by 55% by the 2020’s, more than double (129% increase) by the 2050’s”.

The best case scenario is still possible but only with collaboration and collective efforts. Increase in energy produced means increase in burning of fossil fuels. Population increases mean changes in land-use which directly affect the amount of carbon levels. Can the city learn to make the necessary changes to mitigate the problem? Can small changes to our growing and substantial lifestyle have any impact? As New Yorkers, we are already remarkably sustainable, living in a dense, compact and efficient city. We account for a mere 2% of emissions in the U.S. and though the actions we take may not have a big enough impact on global warming, the city is certainly poised to lead the charge and set the standard for others to follow in curtailing carbon emissions. And a slow down of those emissions can play a large role in buying more time, time that is valuable and necessary to find ways to adapt effectively. If New York City can provide the best possible model for carbon efficiency and still maintain a quality of life, it can probably be repeated just about anywhere. Many experts are foreseeing a major damaging hurricane due for New York City. And all inhabitants will have to be prepared for this. The secret to keeping parts of New York from going underwater in the next 50 years is in understanding ways we can lessen our impact, by preparing for the future and getting involved.

According to Columbia University’s Climate Change Information Resources website: www.ccir.ciesin.columbia.edu/nyc, a helpful information hub: “Individual actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can help to slow climate change. Many actions have synergistic, or "win-win" effects.” While skeptics may believe it is futile to try to lessen our carbon emissions impact, the choices we make and actions we take in a city of 8 million can certainly have a ripple effect.

Future Scenarios

http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-grand-place.html

2036, the Internet is 50 years old ! Democracy has spread in real time and knowledge is within everyone’s reach. Lies by the State and condoned genocide are no longer possible. We are moving towards world peace. Information and communication technologies have considerably modified the layout of public spaces, the consumer society of the 20th century and citizen movements. The economy of this cyberdemocracy is no longer based on money, but on the intangible exchange of information.

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Forecast2009.html

The big theme for 2009 economically will be contraction. The end of the cheap energy era will announce itself as the end of conventional "growth" and the shrinking back of activity, wealth, and populations. Contraction will come as a great shock to a world of conventionally programmed economists. They will toil and sweat to account for it, and they will probably be wrong. Unfortunately, this contraction will do its work in unpleasant ways, driving down standards of living, shearing away hopes and expectations for a particular life of comfort, and introducing disorder to so many of the systems we have depended on for so long. People will starve, lose their homes, lose incomes and status, and lose the security of living in peaceful societies. It will become clear that the Long Emergency is underway.

Major Driving Forces Affecting Life in 2030
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/scenario.htm

1. Increasing threat of the 2008 Financial Collapse
   to the stability of the global economy
   
   
2. Increasing threat of global economic meltdown caused by uncontrolled globalization.
   
   
3. Increasing Globalization
   
   
4. Increasing population growth
   
   
5. Increasing demand for fossil fuels
   
   
6. Increasing divisions between the
   First and Third Worlds
   
   
7. Increasing immigration from the
   Third World to the First World
   
   
8. Increasing collapse of global ecosystems
   
   
9. Increasing global warming and climate change
   
   
10. Increasing growth of Failed States
    
    
11. Increasing threat of Terrorism
    
    
12. Increasing growth of the internet and
    instantaneous global communication
    
    
13. Increasing development of renewable energy
    
    
14. Increasing outsourcing of jobs from the
    First World to the Third World
    
    
15. Increasing threat of global pandemics caused
    by the growth of anti-biotic resistant viruses
    in the Third World
    
    
16. Increasing division between the Globalized World
    and the Islamic World
    
    
17. Increasing threat of bankruptcy by the United States.
    
    
18. Increasing threat that OPEC will switch the global reserve currency from Dollars to Euros.
    
    
19. Increasing concern about the rising number of
    immigrants in the First World.
    
    
20. Increasing scarcity of natural resources.
    
    
21. Increasing costs of scarce natural resources and
    fossil fuels.
    
    
22. Increasing growth of a global consumer culture.
    
    
23. Increasing threat of WMDs threatening global
    society and economic stability
    
24. Increasing threat of war and violence in the declining Third World countries.
    
    
25. Increasing threat to societal stability caused by
    economic insecurity and the growing division between the very wealthy and the vast majority.
    
    
26. Increasing threat of global environmental collapse caused by Global Warming and the destruction of
    Global ecosystem.
    
    
27. Increasing global insecurity caused by the interaction of environmental collapse and
    economic insecurity.
    
    
28. Increasing fear of economic and societal breakdown.
    
    
29. Increasing distrust of political and economic leaders.
    
    
30. Increasing fear that our political and social
    institutions aren't working
    
    
31. Increasing fear that the future will be worse
    than the past.

2bcont'd...

Northwest Passage

http://geology.com/articles/northwest-passage.shtml

The Northwest Passage is a sea route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. In the past the Northwest Passage has been virtually impassable because it is covered by thick, year-round sea ice. However, satellite and other monitoring confirm that the Arctic sea ice is declining in both thickness and extent.

The potential benefits of a clear Northwest Passage are significant. Ship routes from Europe to Japan, China and other eastern destinations would be 4000 kilometers (2500 miles) shorter. Oil produced in Alaska could move quickly by ship to eastern North American and European markets. The vast mineral resources of the Canadian North will be much easier and economical to develop. This opportunity for expedient shipping between the Atlantic and Pacific is one of just a very small number of benefits that global warming might produce.

What Global Warming Looks Like

By Clayton Sandal, Sept 14, 2007

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/TenWays/story?id=3602227&page=1

Goodbye Boston, Manhattan, Hollywood, Florida, Miami, Parts of Honolulu, etc.
Renderings of before-and-after shots of each city if there was a 2-3 metre rise in sea level
Mazria's Architecture 2030: An organization that looks at the amount of Greenhouse has emissions that buildings sectors contribute to global warming. Carbon neutral footprint for buildings.