Past Disasters
This disaster shaped public perceptions of nuclear energy in the US
What is Three Mile Island?
Term explaining that different social groups experience differentiated (unequal) environmental risks and vulnerabilities in unjust (unfair) ways
What is environmental justice?
This global reality means that extreme weather events are going to continue increasing in frequency and severity
What is climate change?
When people are deciding how to respond to an impending extreme weather event that may cause a disaster, this aspect of their perceptions of public institutions matters.
What is trust in public institutions? (If people don't trust the messenger, they are less likely to respond to the message)
This disaster occurred in the gulf coast of the US in 2005 and is remembered for highlighting the racial disparities in disaster impacts
What is Hurricane Katrina?
Social vulnerabilities across demographic groups can be compounded through different identities and experiences
What is intersectionality?
These are four water related extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change.
What are floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, and landslides?
This federal emergency response agency bases reimbursement allowances on exactly what was damaged, preventing communities from proactively preparing for a future of more severe weather events.
What is FEMA?
This superstorm occurred in 2013 on the east coast of the US and resulted in over 8 million people losing access to electricity.
What is Superstorm Sandy?
The inability of experts to protect people from modern risks, even when they are tasked with doing so
What is recreancy?
Adverse impacts on the environment and human lives due to physical processes in the earth, increasing due to climate change
What are natural disasters?
This term is a way social scientists describe your social network (who you know) as another form of capital that people can rely on in disaster response.
What is social capital?
This disaster began in August 2026 due to glacial collapse and is still ongoing, with thousands of people still missing
What is the Rasuwa Flood?
The inherent contradictions of the Enlightenment - name the concept and the core contradiction
What is the Dialectic of the Enlightenment? (By aiming to manage risks, human activities have created risks that can't be managed)
Disparity in the distribution of power, opportunities, and resources among nations and peoples in the world
What is global inequity?
This term captures human mobility post-disaster, and it can be hard to measure its long term realities.
What is displacement?
In class, Dr. Schelly discussed this disaster as providing lessons regarding the value of localized social and technological systems that support local resilience (two potential answers)
What is the Fathers Day Flood in the UP? OR What is Hurricane Helene?
Explanation of how social systems support social cohesion
What is functionalism?
This is the cause of climate change.
This term captures people being in a precarious social position before, during, and after a disaster.
What is social vulnerability?