Environmental disaster

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An environmental disaster is a man-made, sudden and extremely severe damage to the environment, resulting in the illness or death of many living things. This makes the clear difference to natural disasters , which are caused by purely natural processes that are not influenced by humans.

Burning Bergan oil well during the Gulf War in Kuwait in the Persian Gulf

An environmental disaster is usually triggered by an industrial accident (such as the dioxin accident in Seveso in 1976, the Bhopal accident in 1984, the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986, the oil tanker accidents Amoco Cadiz 1978, Exxon Valdez 1989 or Prestige 2002) and Traffic accidents z. B. of tank trucks with dangerous goods. But it can also be the consequences of creeping environmental pollution, which are then serious in a relatively short time or are perceived such. B. the greenhouse effect , the ozone hole , forest death or the drying up of the Aral Sea . In the field of air pollution , the smog disaster in London in 1952 is a well-known example.

There is some evidence that environmental disasters play a major role in developing environmental awareness . While environmental pollution is often creeping or imperceptible to the human sensory organs, environmental catastrophes, with their sudden and violent occurrence, trigger fears and worries in many people and thus increase environmental awareness and active environmental protection .

Environmental disaster as a cause and damage

Environmental disasters cause damage and this damage has causes that are only partially covered by liability insurance and property insurance (e.g. the damage covered by the building insurance due to falling satellite parts). Catastrophic environmental damage can be triggered by arson or carelessness and inattentiveness, such as a fire disaster or an accident involving a dangerous goods transport by land, air or sea , which leads to an environmental disaster . Minor causes can reach the extent of a natural disaster through the chain or domino effect . But already by climate change prepared catastrophic flood damage goes beyond the limits of conventional elemental damage .

To secure such damage beyond the z. For example , risks that are passively covered by building insurance or motor vehicle liability insurance are actively covered by insurance and reinsurance , so models for disaster insurance are being worked on.

Systematics

A distinction is made between:

See also

literature

  • Patrick Masius, Jana Sprenger, Eva, Mackowiak (eds.): Disasters make history. Environmental-historical processes in the area of ​​tension between resource use and extreme events. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-941875-21-0

Web links

Wiktionary: Environmental disaster  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations