Facing Catastrophe

The author argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection. His prescription boils down to three simple commands: Go green, be fair, and keep safe. He argues that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in managing natural infrastructure, distributional fairness, and public risk.--[book cover].

The landmark work on mindfulness, meditation, and healing, now revised and updated after twenty-five years Stress. It can sap our energy, undermine our health if we let it, even shorten our lives. It makes us more vulnerable to anxiety and depression, disconnection and disease. Based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this classic, groundbreaking work—which gave rise to a whole new field in medicine and psychology—shows you how to use medically proven mind-body approaches derived from meditation and yoga to counteract stress, establish greater balance of body and mind, and stimulate well-being and healing. By engaging in these mindfulness practices and integrating them into your life from moment to moment and from day to day, you can learn to manage chronic pain, promote optimal healing, reduce anxiety and feelings of panic, and improve the overall quality of your life, relationships, and social networks. This second edition features results from recent studies on the science of mindfulness, a new Introduction, up-to-date statistics, and an extensive updated reading list. Full Catastrophe Living is a book for the young and the old, the well and the ill, and anyone trying to live a healthier and saner life in our fast-paced world. Praise for Full Catastrophe Living “To say that this wise, deep book is helpful to those who face the challenges of human crisis would be a vast understatement. It is essential, unique, and, above all, fundamentally healing.”—Donald M. Berwick, M.D., president emeritus and senior fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement “One of the great classics of mind/body medicine.”—Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom “A book for everyone . . . Jon Kabat-Zinn has done more than any other person on the planet to spread the power of mindfulness to the lives of ordinary people and major societal institutions.”—Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin–Madison “This is the ultimate owner’s manual for our lives. What a gift!”—Amy Gross, former editor in chief, O: The Oprah Magazine “I first read Full Catastrophe Living in my early twenties and it changed my life.”—Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow of Google and author of Search Inside Yourself “Jon Kabat-Zinn’s classic work on the practice of mindfulness to alleviate stress and human suffering stands the test of time, a most useful resource and practical guide. I recommend this new edition enthusiastically to doctors, patients, and anyone interested in learning to use the power of focused awareness to meet life’s challenges, whether great or small.”—Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Spontaneous Happiness and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health “How wonderful to have a new and updated version of this classic book that invited so many of us down a path that transformed our minds and awakened us to the beauty of each moment, day-by-day, through our lives. This second edition, building on the first, is sure to become a treasured sourcebook and traveling companion for new generations who seek the wisdom to live full and fulfilling lives.”—Diana Chapman Walsh, Ph.D., president emerita of Wellesley College

This handbook explains the importance and practice of using a geographic information system (GIS) in designing and implementing an effective response to large-scale disasters, including wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks. The handbook is organized according to the accepted methodology of disaster management, which involves planning and identification, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The first three stages involve tasks that an organization or community can perform before a disaster occurs. The latter two tasks focus on postdisaster efforts. The spatial display and analysis tools of GIS are ideal for assessing disaster risks, consequences, and responses. GIS can display the location, size, value, and significance of assets that may be impacted by disasters. It can show the kinds of environmental, atmospheric, and other conditions that contribute to particular kinds of natural disasters. GIS can also juxtapose a particular kind of asset with specific hazardous conditions over a wide geographic area, thus allowing a precise calculation of potential loss in the immediate area. With this kind of graphic depiction, the choices about what to do and where to do it are clarified for those charged with making fast, cost-effective decisions. This handbook details how GIS software features can be used at each stage of planning and response. The use of GIS in a disaster is illustrated by its application in New York City in the days after September 11, where it was used to provide assistance to rescue and recovery teams. The manual also profiles GIS-based disaster modeling software packages now available at no cost to local communities.

Covering Western and Eastern Europe, this book looks at the Holocaust on the local level. It compares and contrasts the behaviour and attitude of neighbours in the face of the Holocaust. Topics covered include deportation programmes, relations between Jews and Gentiles, violence against Jews, perceptions of Jewish persecution, and reports of the Holocaust in the Jewish and non-Jewish press.

As Hurricane Katrina vividly revealed, disaster policy in the United States is broken and needs reform. What can we learn from past disastersÑstorms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and wildfiresÑabout preparing for and responding to future catastrophes? How can these lessons be applied in a future threatened by climate change? In this bold contribution to environmental law, Robert Verchick argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection. His prescription boils down to three simple commands: Go Green, Be Fair, and Keep Safe. ÒGoing greenÓ means minimizing exposure to hazards by preserving natural buffers and integrating those buffers into artificial systems like levees or seawalls. ÒBeing fairÓ means looking after public health, safety, and the environment without increasing personal and social vulnerabilities. ÒKeeping safeÓ means a more cautionary approach when confronting disaster risks. Verchick argues that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in managing natural infrastructure, distributional fairness, and public risk. He proposes changes to the federal statutes governing environmental impact assessments, wetlands development, air emissions, and flood control, among others. Making a strong case for more transparent governmental decision-making, Verchick offers a new vision of disaster law for the next generation.

Foreword / by Cynthia McKinney -- Introduction: Careening toward extinction -- We're all in this together -- Dismantling white supremacy -- Climate justice versus the anthropocene -- Humanity on the move : justice and migration -- Dismantling the ivory tower.

As Hurricane Katrina vividly revealed, disaster policy in the United States is broken and needs reform. What can we learn from past disasters - storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and wildfires - about preparing for and responding to future catastrophes? How can these lessons be applied in a future threatened by climate change? In this bold contribution to environmental law, Robert Verchick argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection. His prescription boils down to three simple commands: Go Green, Be Fair, and Keep Safe. “Going green” means minimizing exposure to hazards by preserving natural buffers and integrating those buffers into artificial systems like levees or seawalls. “Being fair” means looking after public health, safety, and the environment without increasing personal and social vulnerabilities. “Keeping safe” means a more cautionary approach when confronting disaster risks. Verchick argues that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in managing natural infrastructure, distributional fairness, and public risk. He proposes changes to the federal statutes governing environmental impact assessments, wetlands development, air emissions, and flood control, among others. Making a strong case for more transparent governmental decision-making, Verchick offers a new vision of disaster law for the next generation.

The modern ecological crisis, now visible in its many symptoms across the global landscape, appears as a looming nightmare, revealing more clearly with each passing moment the utterly destructive character of globalized corporate power.? Revisiting the famous Marxist injunction "socialism or barbarism", Facing Catastrophe focuses on how the crisis threatens the natural habitat more severely than even most environmentalists today are prepared to recognize.? That threat encompasses climate change but extends beyond to include shrinking natural resources (above all land and water), food and agricultural challenges, addiction to economic growth, geopolitical conflict and resource wars, and the assault on nonhuman beings.? This unprecedented challenge has inspired, more accurately forced, new ways of viewing not only economic development but political action, cultural norms, natural relations, and social change.? One conclusion is that unless new modes of production and consumption are globally adopted - and soon - the planet is sure to follow a path toward catastrophe.? Carl Boggs urges an ecological radicalism bold enough to move beyond a long record of historical failures, from liberalism to social democracy, Communism, and anarchism as well as mainstream environmental reformism.