Abstract: 
"It is Earth’s nature to be dynamic and unpredictable.  It is humanity and civilization that turn earthquakes, floods, volcanos, tsunamis, tornados, landslides, and other natural events into disasters.  Avoiding disaster requires society to work together on many fronts, engineering, forecasting, communication, and preparedness.  It is up to all of us to prepare for our survival and resilience when disaster strikes.” This was the introduction to our 2019 ELSI disaster preparedness discussion. Since then it seems that 2020 decided to test society’s preparedness on all of these fronts at once.  We experienced world travel halt, supply chains fail, trust in government and each other decline, portions of the Earth burn while other flood, political unrest across the globe, all while enduring a mysterious global pandemic.  In this year’s disaster preparedness theme “Prepare to be Scared”, the motivation for preparedness is clear.  Reacting to disaster amid confusion and uncertainty is not just unsettling, it is scary.  Let’s discuss what we can do now to prepare not only for disaster itself, but our emotional reaction in those tense moments.

Speaker: Dr. Christine Houser, ELSI.

Speaker bio: 
Dr. Houser lived near the San Andreas Fault in California and then the earthquake and volcanic hazards that threaten Tokyo.  She has worked for decades to educate the public about the causes of earthquakes, what we can and cannot know about their future occurrence, and how to prepare and respond when they happen.

Host: Harrison Smith, ELSI.

Date: Fri, 20 November at 15:30 JST (Fri, 20 November 2020 at 06:30 UTC)

Venue: Online