victims of climate change kieran mundy
Tokiwa University, Mito, Japan
Victims of Severe
Environmental Assaul
Prof. Kieran Graham Mundy
Ph.D.
Victims of Severe Environmental
Assault
A PRE-ASSAULT PERSPECTIVE
Severe Environmental Assault (SEA)
Topic 1
What is it?
The Victimizing Force (Vf)
Topic 2
A Universal Concept
Awareness of the Vf
Topic 3
Imagined SEA, pre-SEA (short/long term awareness, actualized SEA)
Topic 4
Differential Victimization in aftermath of SE
A new perspective
Topic 5
Topic 6
The Victimizing Habitus & Operationalizin
A new perspective
Risk Management & Victimization
A new perspective
Issues to consider
Global environmental
change, climate
change,
environmental
victimology
Environmental Victimology:
Beyond the boundaries of the CJS?
•
EV is about understanding and
mitigating suffering and pain of all
sentient life due to environmental
degradation caused by the human
species.
•
Is about understanding and mitigating
human suffering and pain because of
global over-population, mostly in high
risk geographical areas of the planet.
•
Is a human centered, not socially or
legally constructed perspective.
•
It’s focus is the victim, not the type
and process of the ”natural disaster”
or environmental assault.
•
It is based on the premise that any
short term “natural disaster” (aJune rains turn the land near the village of
Tsunami) and any long term “natural
green, but too late. An uncle bears
disaster” (e.g., climate change)Sedeguge
must
the body of a 6-month-old who died of malnutriti
have some degree of human input
•Global Environmental Change is a potential deadly
catastrophe in slow motion, a series of critical natural
events over time, and imperceptible to most of
humanity.
Issues to consider before we begin
The biosphere defines
the limits of life on the
planet
The biosphere can also
be considered as a
victim of Man’s
misunderstanding of
its purpose and, at
times, deliberate
destruction.
Line plot of global
mean land-ocean
temperature index,
1880 to present,
with the base
period 1951-1980.
NASA Goddard Institute For
Space Studies, July 11, 2011
All short term (e.g.
tsunami) & long term
—disasters (e.g.,
climate change) have
some degree of
human input.
Climate change can
also be considered
as “self-harm.”
Severe Environmental
Assault
An Overview
Severe Environmental Assault
(SEA)
Humans are predisposed to survive in
hostile physical environments that
have only incidentally supported
sentient life over geological time.
In this sense, the ‘natural’ movement
of tectonic plates over 100s of millions
of years has no meaning unless that
meaning is imposed by some sentient
life-form.
Surging tsunamis, massive
earthquakes, raging firestorms,
typhoons, and droughts merely tear at
the fabric of an inanimate Earth—
unless human life is present to
observe, describe, and suffer their
impact.
While humans can influence the
frequency and intensity of some of
these natural events, it is axiomatic
that when there is no sentient life,
there is no threat to the survival of
that life.
•
A tsunami wave crashes over a street in Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture,
in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011
Severe Environmental Assault
(SEA)
•
Every so-called “natural
disaster” plays-out
differently, or does it?
•
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti
is different to Higashi Nihon
Daishinsai, just as it differs
from any climate change
associated event – or is it?.
•
Our focus is on the human
influence side of the equation,
not on the nature and severity
of the critical event itself.
•
SEAs unleash massive
victimizing forces—
characterized by differential
degrees of human input.
The Victimizing Force (Vf)
A Universal Concept
Victimizing Force (Vf)
The assumption that every natural disaster plays-out differently cannot logically be so.
•
V proposed transfers
understanding from the diverse
and wide range of severe
environmental assaults (i.e.,
short term/immediate assaults
such as tsunami & long
term/chronic assaults—played
out over years or decades, such
as climate change related
extreme weather events— to
the victim of those assaults
•
V in the pre-exposure phase of
the assumption of victimhood
(i.e., prior to the onset of the
severe environmental assault)
is independent of any
categorization or orientation of
that SEA.
Victimizing Force (Vf)
•
Vf only becomes operational
when some threshold is
crossed– the threshold is that
point-in-time and/or in ones’
life experience when factors
other than the context in which
one leads ones’ life, act to
determine the impact or effect
of that victimizing force.
•
These factors are not
necessarily personality or
cultural factors, but may be
more deep-seated; i.e., there
may be some people
genetically programmed to
withstand the impact of the
victimizing force more than
others.
Awareness of the Vf
Imagined SEA, preSEA (short/long term
awareness, actualized
SEA)
Awareness of Vf
Awareness of victimizing
potential of V
Reactions based on options
available
Survivors of the 2004 Asian
Tsunami were aware of
the danger of the surging waters
but had the option of a tree
to cling to.
Differential Victimization in the
Aftermath of SEA
Even if a person is
exposed to victimizing
force unleashed by an
acute environmental
event, victimization is
not necessarily an
outcome.
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
NON-VICTIMS OR RESILIENT SURVIVORS
•
The overwhelming majority
•
Able to identify the risk early enough
•
•
VICTIMS OR NON-RESILIENT SURVIVORS
•
A small group of high-risk (vulnerable)
people.
•
Women, children or the elderly, but not
necessarily so
•
Are unable to identify the threat
•
Are unaware of its victimizing potential
•
Do not have the personal and social
resources to cope with Vf.
Aware that environmental assault like a
changing global climate is dangerous
Have the options available to avoid
death
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
The operationalization of V does not
apply to:
•Giseisha
(> 90% of deaths due to
natural disasters are in the developing
world!)
•Hisaisha
(survivors –an overwhelming
majority) because of their access to
buffer resources to avoid victimization.
•Non-resilient
victims (a small minority)
are those who do not have adequate
buffer resources.
•Vf
becomes operational when the V >
P-SCoping threshold
•To
illustrate, the achievement of UN
goals of human security is dependent on
raising the coping threshold by
facilitating access to options to cope
with any potential victimizing force ( V ).
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
Victimization depends on
buffering mechanisms of
psychosocial coping resources,
private property (including
property) and cultural and
religious resilience. That is, some
people are affected severely by
tsunamis (not including those
people who have died), while
others may not be so affected.
We need to be careful in how we
assess the lifeboat syndrome
approach (i.e., women, children,
elders) to vulnerability.
A more reasoned approach is to
use the concept of resilience .
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
•
Based on the magnitude of the
victimizing force and awareness of
that force, we can describe a
relatively low impact profile of
victimhood for those people who
survive as follows:
•
High V Magnitude + High V Awareness = Low
V Impact
•
•
Victims of SEAs are that relatively
small minority of vulnerable people
(possibly the elderly, or young
children) living in high risk areas who
are unaware of the victimizing
potential of the critical event or may
be unable to identify the threat early
enough and do not have the personal
or other resources available at that
time to avoid death.
Victimizing Habitus and
Operationalizing Vf
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
An analogy is the current radicalization
of dissident elements in Yemen because
of suppression by government forces.
This has created an “at high risk”
political habitus in any already
inequitable psychological and social
environment.
This is the most effective way of driving
the most vulnerable elements of Yemeni
society into radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The habitus is the outcome of
radicalization or the result of a
multiplier effect on structural
inequalities in Yemeni society.
The process driving the creation of a
radicalized environment—or the
multiplier —is the victimizing force.
A demonstrator stands above the crowd, screaming and waving a
graffitied national flag of Yemen on March 14, 2011.
Examples of victimizing habitus
•
Changes in rainfall
patterns leads to
increased food
insecurity and poverty
which leads to increased
political instability
through inequalities that
eventually culminate in
armed conflict.
Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
•
An increase of 54%
in the incidence of
armed conflict in
sub-Saharan Africa
is predicted by
2030 due to global
environmental
change.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
Different people have different levels of
coping with Vf dependent on the options
they have available to cope.
Pathways (or coping options) are restricted
by physical, political, psychological, social,
and cultural borders that define the
lifescapes of individual people.
If these borders limit the resources available
to cope, then a victimizing habitus is
created.
In current core UN terminology for disaster
reduction, these people are vulnerable and
are at risk [of being victimized] in high-risk
environments (e.g., coastal areas ‘at risk’ of
sea level rise, densely populated cities in
earthquake prone areas, homes in high
bushfire risk areas, and settlement around
high-risk nuclear power plants built in fragile
People living in a victimizing habitus.
and earthquake-prone rural areas].
Lagos, Nigeria, March 16, 2010.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
A V only comes into effect (or a SEA is
actualized) is a personally relevant
victimizing habitus .
The SEA is actualized when the
threshold, boundary, or border between
normal and abnormal biological,
psychological, and socio-cultural coping
mechanisms (B Coping threshold) of an
individual survivor (Hisaisha) is
breached.
This can be expressed as,
V (non-operational) < P Coping threshold
V (operational) > P Coping threshold
The hand of a man killed by the Japan earthquake juts out of jumbled
concrete sea barriers on March 14, 2011, Toyoma, Japan
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
•
If a victimizing habitus emerges for an
individual person as a result of a Vf, a
psychological threshold separates
those who can cope with trauma
(resilience) from those who cannot.
•
If a political, cultural, or social border
is raised (the natural flow of people
cross-borders is stopped or their
lifescapes are physically, socially, and
culturally constrained), the threshold
is lowered for the Vf, to come into
operation (i.e., the threshold is
lowered for individuals to make the
transition from being resilient to nonresilient).
•
As a result, the boundaries of the
victimizing habitus for that individual
person are extended.
Parents look for belongings of their loved ones that were recovered from the
rubble of a school their children attended in the devastated city of Ishinomak
northeastern Japan on Thursday March 24, 2011.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
V is a useful concept for understanding
“natural disaster” that shifts focus from the
SEA to the victim of that SEA.
Counter-intuitively, the potential threat of
becoming a victim due a short term
environmental assault (e.g., a tsunami) is
decreased because awareness of the V is
relatively low level.
This is because there is insufficient time for
“survivors” (not those who die) before the
onset of the assault (seconds/minutes) to
rationalize the threat—instinctive behaviors
“lock-in” to increase the chance of survival.
In contrast, the potential to become a victim
due to SEA associated with climate change
(long term environmental assaults) is
increased because awareness of the V is
relatively high level (i.e., there is time to
rationalize the threats and minimize
instinctive reactions like belief in climate
change being dependent on recent weather
patterns).
Eritrea. April, 2010
•Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing
Vf
In the Tohoku region, there are unconfirmed reports that local government had access to
hazard maps for tsunami of both 4 and 8 meters in height, but residents were only
provided with maps for a 4-meter tsunami scenario.
If such a risk management decision was made, key personnel in local governments
demonstrated a catastrophic failure in their duty of R2P residents of their communities.
Risk Management &
Victimization
Risk Management & Victimization
All SEAs are risk-free, or beyond the
event horizon, if there is no human
presence.
If human populations interact with
critical incidents, this interaction has
the potential to escalate to the level of
a disaster.
The more people involved, the higher
the density of the population
impacted, the more ‘at risk’ its
geographic location, and the fewer
options it has to escape the event, the
greater the intensity of the “disaster’.
People living in a victimizing habitus.
Lagos, Nigeria, March 16, 2010.
Risk Management & Victimization
Risk management failure at the highest
level—government complicity with the
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
at the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power
Plant— is illustrated in that data were
available to predict the level of care
necessary to safeguard the health of
plant workers and local communities.
The risk was managed by limiting
government/corporate responsibilities to
a magnitude 8 earthquake with a
tsunami no more than a few meters even
though much larger tectonic movements
had been experienced in the recent
history of the Tohoku region.
As this SEA unfolds, failure of
management has had, and is having
apocalyptic consequences for Japan and
neighboring countries.
Reactor Units 4, 3,2, 1. Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Tokiwa
University,
Mito,
Japan
Kieran G. Mundy
Victims of Severe
Environmental Assaul
Prof. Kieran Graham Mundy
Ph.D.
Victims of Severe Environmental
Assault
A PRE-ASSAULT PERSPECTIVE
Severe Environmental Assault (SEA)
Topic 1
What is it?
The Victimizing Force (Vf)
Topic 2
A Universal Concept
Awareness of the Vf
Topic 3
Imagined SEA, pre-SEA (short/long term awareness, actualized SEA)
Topic 4
Differential Victimization in aftermath of SE
A new perspective
Topic 5
Topic 6
The Victimizing Habitus & Operationalizin
A new perspective
Risk Management & Victimization
A new perspective
Issues to consider
Global environmental
change, climate
change,
environmental
victimology
Environmental Victimology:
Beyond the boundaries of the CJS?
•
EV is about understanding and
mitigating suffering and pain of all
sentient life due to environmental
degradation caused by the human
species.
•
Is about understanding and mitigating
human suffering and pain because of
global over-population, mostly in high
risk geographical areas of the planet.
•
Is a human centered, not socially or
legally constructed perspective.
•
It’s focus is the victim, not the type
and process of the ”natural disaster”
or environmental assault.
•
It is based on the premise that any
short term “natural disaster” (aJune rains turn the land near the village of
Tsunami) and any long term “natural
green, but too late. An uncle bears
disaster” (e.g., climate change)Sedeguge
must
the body of a 6-month-old who died of malnutriti
have some degree of human input
•Global Environmental Change is a potential deadly
catastrophe in slow motion, a series of critical natural
events over time, and imperceptible to most of
humanity.
Issues to consider before we begin
The biosphere defines
the limits of life on the
planet
The biosphere can also
be considered as a
victim of Man’s
misunderstanding of
its purpose and, at
times, deliberate
destruction.
Line plot of global
mean land-ocean
temperature index,
1880 to present,
with the base
period 1951-1980.
NASA Goddard Institute For
Space Studies, July 11, 2011
All short term (e.g.
tsunami) & long term
—disasters (e.g.,
climate change) have
some degree of
human input.
Climate change can
also be considered
as “self-harm.”
Severe Environmental
Assault
An Overview
Severe Environmental Assault
(SEA)
Humans are predisposed to survive in
hostile physical environments that
have only incidentally supported
sentient life over geological time.
In this sense, the ‘natural’ movement
of tectonic plates over 100s of millions
of years has no meaning unless that
meaning is imposed by some sentient
life-form.
Surging tsunamis, massive
earthquakes, raging firestorms,
typhoons, and droughts merely tear at
the fabric of an inanimate Earth—
unless human life is present to
observe, describe, and suffer their
impact.
While humans can influence the
frequency and intensity of some of
these natural events, it is axiomatic
that when there is no sentient life,
there is no threat to the survival of
that life.
•
A tsunami wave crashes over a street in Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture,
in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011
Severe Environmental Assault
(SEA)
•
Every so-called “natural
disaster” plays-out
differently, or does it?
•
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti
is different to Higashi Nihon
Daishinsai, just as it differs
from any climate change
associated event – or is it?.
•
Our focus is on the human
influence side of the equation,
not on the nature and severity
of the critical event itself.
•
SEAs unleash massive
victimizing forces—
characterized by differential
degrees of human input.
The Victimizing Force (Vf)
A Universal Concept
Victimizing Force (Vf)
The assumption that every natural disaster plays-out differently cannot logically be so.
•
V proposed transfers
understanding from the diverse
and wide range of severe
environmental assaults (i.e.,
short term/immediate assaults
such as tsunami & long
term/chronic assaults—played
out over years or decades, such
as climate change related
extreme weather events— to
the victim of those assaults
•
V in the pre-exposure phase of
the assumption of victimhood
(i.e., prior to the onset of the
severe environmental assault)
is independent of any
categorization or orientation of
that SEA.
Victimizing Force (Vf)
•
Vf only becomes operational
when some threshold is
crossed– the threshold is that
point-in-time and/or in ones’
life experience when factors
other than the context in which
one leads ones’ life, act to
determine the impact or effect
of that victimizing force.
•
These factors are not
necessarily personality or
cultural factors, but may be
more deep-seated; i.e., there
may be some people
genetically programmed to
withstand the impact of the
victimizing force more than
others.
Awareness of the Vf
Imagined SEA, preSEA (short/long term
awareness, actualized
SEA)
Awareness of Vf
Awareness of victimizing
potential of V
Reactions based on options
available
Survivors of the 2004 Asian
Tsunami were aware of
the danger of the surging waters
but had the option of a tree
to cling to.
Differential Victimization in the
Aftermath of SEA
Even if a person is
exposed to victimizing
force unleashed by an
acute environmental
event, victimization is
not necessarily an
outcome.
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
NON-VICTIMS OR RESILIENT SURVIVORS
•
The overwhelming majority
•
Able to identify the risk early enough
•
•
VICTIMS OR NON-RESILIENT SURVIVORS
•
A small group of high-risk (vulnerable)
people.
•
Women, children or the elderly, but not
necessarily so
•
Are unable to identify the threat
•
Are unaware of its victimizing potential
•
Do not have the personal and social
resources to cope with Vf.
Aware that environmental assault like a
changing global climate is dangerous
Have the options available to avoid
death
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
The operationalization of V does not
apply to:
•Giseisha
(> 90% of deaths due to
natural disasters are in the developing
world!)
•Hisaisha
(survivors –an overwhelming
majority) because of their access to
buffer resources to avoid victimization.
•Non-resilient
victims (a small minority)
are those who do not have adequate
buffer resources.
•Vf
becomes operational when the V >
P-SCoping threshold
•To
illustrate, the achievement of UN
goals of human security is dependent on
raising the coping threshold by
facilitating access to options to cope
with any potential victimizing force ( V ).
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
Victimization depends on
buffering mechanisms of
psychosocial coping resources,
private property (including
property) and cultural and
religious resilience. That is, some
people are affected severely by
tsunamis (not including those
people who have died), while
others may not be so affected.
We need to be careful in how we
assess the lifeboat syndrome
approach (i.e., women, children,
elders) to vulnerability.
A more reasoned approach is to
use the concept of resilience .
Differential victimization in
aftermath of SEA
•
Based on the magnitude of the
victimizing force and awareness of
that force, we can describe a
relatively low impact profile of
victimhood for those people who
survive as follows:
•
High V Magnitude + High V Awareness = Low
V Impact
•
•
Victims of SEAs are that relatively
small minority of vulnerable people
(possibly the elderly, or young
children) living in high risk areas who
are unaware of the victimizing
potential of the critical event or may
be unable to identify the threat early
enough and do not have the personal
or other resources available at that
time to avoid death.
Victimizing Habitus and
Operationalizing Vf
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
An analogy is the current radicalization
of dissident elements in Yemen because
of suppression by government forces.
This has created an “at high risk”
political habitus in any already
inequitable psychological and social
environment.
This is the most effective way of driving
the most vulnerable elements of Yemeni
society into radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The habitus is the outcome of
radicalization or the result of a
multiplier effect on structural
inequalities in Yemeni society.
The process driving the creation of a
radicalized environment—or the
multiplier —is the victimizing force.
A demonstrator stands above the crowd, screaming and waving a
graffitied national flag of Yemen on March 14, 2011.
Examples of victimizing habitus
•
Changes in rainfall
patterns leads to
increased food
insecurity and poverty
which leads to increased
political instability
through inequalities that
eventually culminate in
armed conflict.
Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
•
An increase of 54%
in the incidence of
armed conflict in
sub-Saharan Africa
is predicted by
2030 due to global
environmental
change.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
Different people have different levels of
coping with Vf dependent on the options
they have available to cope.
Pathways (or coping options) are restricted
by physical, political, psychological, social,
and cultural borders that define the
lifescapes of individual people.
If these borders limit the resources available
to cope, then a victimizing habitus is
created.
In current core UN terminology for disaster
reduction, these people are vulnerable and
are at risk [of being victimized] in high-risk
environments (e.g., coastal areas ‘at risk’ of
sea level rise, densely populated cities in
earthquake prone areas, homes in high
bushfire risk areas, and settlement around
high-risk nuclear power plants built in fragile
People living in a victimizing habitus.
and earthquake-prone rural areas].
Lagos, Nigeria, March 16, 2010.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
A V only comes into effect (or a SEA is
actualized) is a personally relevant
victimizing habitus .
The SEA is actualized when the
threshold, boundary, or border between
normal and abnormal biological,
psychological, and socio-cultural coping
mechanisms (B Coping threshold) of an
individual survivor (Hisaisha) is
breached.
This can be expressed as,
V (non-operational) < P Coping threshold
V (operational) > P Coping threshold
The hand of a man killed by the Japan earthquake juts out of jumbled
concrete sea barriers on March 14, 2011, Toyoma, Japan
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
•
If a victimizing habitus emerges for an
individual person as a result of a Vf, a
psychological threshold separates
those who can cope with trauma
(resilience) from those who cannot.
•
If a political, cultural, or social border
is raised (the natural flow of people
cross-borders is stopped or their
lifescapes are physically, socially, and
culturally constrained), the threshold
is lowered for the Vf, to come into
operation (i.e., the threshold is
lowered for individuals to make the
transition from being resilient to nonresilient).
•
As a result, the boundaries of the
victimizing habitus for that individual
person are extended.
Parents look for belongings of their loved ones that were recovered from the
rubble of a school their children attended in the devastated city of Ishinomak
northeastern Japan on Thursday March 24, 2011.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing Vf
V is a useful concept for understanding
“natural disaster” that shifts focus from the
SEA to the victim of that SEA.
Counter-intuitively, the potential threat of
becoming a victim due a short term
environmental assault (e.g., a tsunami) is
decreased because awareness of the V is
relatively low level.
This is because there is insufficient time for
“survivors” (not those who die) before the
onset of the assault (seconds/minutes) to
rationalize the threat—instinctive behaviors
“lock-in” to increase the chance of survival.
In contrast, the potential to become a victim
due to SEA associated with climate change
(long term environmental assaults) is
increased because awareness of the V is
relatively high level (i.e., there is time to
rationalize the threats and minimize
instinctive reactions like belief in climate
change being dependent on recent weather
patterns).
Eritrea. April, 2010
•Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing
Vf
In the Tohoku region, there are unconfirmed reports that local government had access to
hazard maps for tsunami of both 4 and 8 meters in height, but residents were only
provided with maps for a 4-meter tsunami scenario.
If such a risk management decision was made, key personnel in local governments
demonstrated a catastrophic failure in their duty of R2P residents of their communities.
Risk Management &
Victimization
Risk Management & Victimization
All SEAs are risk-free, or beyond the
event horizon, if there is no human
presence.
If human populations interact with
critical incidents, this interaction has
the potential to escalate to the level of
a disaster.
The more people involved, the higher
the density of the population
impacted, the more ‘at risk’ its
geographic location, and the fewer
options it has to escape the event, the
greater the intensity of the “disaster’.
People living in a victimizing habitus.
Lagos, Nigeria, March 16, 2010.
Risk Management & Victimization
Risk management failure at the highest
level—government complicity with the
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
at the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power
Plant— is illustrated in that data were
available to predict the level of care
necessary to safeguard the health of
plant workers and local communities.
The risk was managed by limiting
government/corporate responsibilities to
a magnitude 8 earthquake with a
tsunami no more than a few meters even
though much larger tectonic movements
had been experienced in the recent
history of the Tohoku region.
As this SEA unfolds, failure of
management has had, and is having
apocalyptic consequences for Japan and
neighboring countries.
Reactor Units 4, 3,2, 1. Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Tokiwa
University,
Mito,
Japan
Kieran G. Mundy