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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
A thorough explanation of the mathematical theories, philosophies, and economics of catastrophes with a view to how humanity should be prepared for events with catastrophic consequences This book presents a holistic view of natural and man-made catastrophes, from mathematical theories and philosophy through to economics and policy. It is both academic and applied in its approach, offering both empirical evidence and academic reflections to give a new perspective on an ever-developing topic, and providing many examples of public policy and catastrophe responses from around the world. Natural and Man-made Catastrophes: Theories, Economics, and Policy Designs begins by introducing readers to numerous natural and man-made catastrophes and how catastrophe theories have played a pivotal role in designing policies and responses to them. It discusses hurricanes, earthquakes, nuclear disaster, asteroid collision, Large Hadron Collider, artificial intelligence, uncontrollable robots, global warming, infectious diseases without antibodies, and bioterrorism. It clarifies key mathematical and scientific theories--such as catastrophe theory, chaos, singularity, fractal, tipping point, unbounded variance, fat-tail, and Feigenbaum constant--on catastrophes. The book goes on to examine ancient and contemporary philosophies that have played critical roles in humanity's understanding of catastrophic outcomes. The book critically builds the economics of catastrophic events 1) by consolidating the catastrophe literature in natural sciences, scientific theories, and philosophy; 2) by constructing global empirical catastrophe data and analytical models using historical data on hurricanes and earthquakes; 3) and by critically reviewing policy experiences on the aforementioned catastrophic events. * Lays the foundation for the economic analyses and policy-making on potential humanity/universe threatening catastrophes * Includes many examples of public policy and behavioral responses to catastrophes from around the world * Provides a wide-ranging commentary on crucial implications of the studies, models, and concepts of catastrophes * Synthesizes the catastrophe literature in mathematical theories, philosophical traditions, economic analyses, policy studies, and contemporary concerns. Natural and Man-made Catastrophes: Theories, Economics, and Policy Designs is an important book for students, teachers, professionals, and policy makers who are involved in environmental research and disaster response.
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Table of Contents
Cover
List of Figures
List of Tables
About the Author
Preface and Acknowledgments
1 The Economics of Humanity‐Ending Catastrophes, Natural and Man‐made: Introduction
1.1 Fables of Catastrophes in Three Worlds
1.2 Feared Catastrophic Events
1.3 Global or Universal Catastrophes
1.4 A Multidisciplinary Review of Catastrophe Studies
1.5 Economics of Catastrophic Events
1.6 Empirical Studies of Behaviors Under Catastrophes
1.7 Designing Policies on Catastrophic Events
1.8 Economics of Catastrophes Versus Economics of Sustainability
1.9 Road Ahead
References
2 Mathematical Foundations of Catastrophe and Chaos Theories and Their Applications
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Catastrophe Theory
2.3 Chaos Theory
2.4 Fractal Theory
2.5 Finding Order in Chaos
2.6 Catastrophe Theory Applications
2.7 Conclusion
References
3 Philosophies, Ancient and Contemporary, of Catastrophes, Doomsdays, and Civilizational Collapses
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Environmental Catastrophes:
Silent Spring
3.3 Ecological Catastrophes: The Ultimate Value Is Wilderness
3.4 Climate Doomsday Modelers
3.5 Collapsiology: The Archaeology of Civilizational Collapses
3.6 Pascal's Wager: A Statistics of Infinity of Value
3.7 Randomness in the Indian School of Thoughts
3.8 The Road to the Economics of Catastrophes
References
4 Economics of Catastrophic Events: Theory
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Defining Catastrophic Events: Thresholds
4.3 Defining Catastrophic Events: Tail Distributions
4.4 Insurance and Catastrophic Coverage
4.5 Options for a Catastrophic Event
4.6 Catastrophe Bonds
4.7 Pareto Optimality in Policy Interventions
4.8 Events of Variance Infinity or Undefined Moments
4.9 Economics of Infinity: A Dismal Science
4.10 Alternative Formulations of a Fat‐tail Catastrophe
4.11 Conclusion
References
5 Economics of Catastrophic Events: Empirical Data and Analyses of Behavioral Responses
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Modeling the Genesis of a Hurricane
5.3 Indices of the Destructive Potential of a Hurricane
5.4 Factors of Destruction: Wind Speeds, Central Pressure, and Storm Surge
5.5 Predicting Future Hurricanes
5.6 Measuring the Size and Destructiveness of an Earthquake
5.7 What Causes Human Fatalities?
5.8 Evidence of Adaptation to Tropical Cyclones
5.9 Modeling Behavioral Adaptation Strategies
5.10 Contributions of Empirical Studies to Catastrophe Literature
References
6 Catastrophe Policies: An Evaluation of Historical Developments and Outstanding Issues
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Protecting the Earth from Asteroids
6.3 Earthquake Policies and Programs
6.4 Hurricane, Cyclone, and Typhoon Policies and Programs
6.5 Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons
6.6 Criteria Pollutants: The Clean Air Act
6.7 Toxic Chemicals and Hazardous Substances: Toxic Substances Control Act
6.8 Ozone Depletion: The Montreal Protocol
6.9 Global Warming: The Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement
6.10 Strangelets: High‐Risk Physics Experiments
6.11 Artificial Intelligence
6.12 Conclusion
References
7 Insights for Practitioners: Making Rational Decisions on a Global or Even Universal Catastrophe
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Lessons from the Multidisciplinary Literature of Catastrophes
7.3 Fears of Low‐Minds and High‐Minds: Opinion Surveys
7.4 Planet‐wide Catastrophes or Universal Catastrophes
7.5 Making Rational Decisions on Planet‐wide or Universal Catastrophes
7.6 Conclusion
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 01
Table 1.1 Deadliest cyclones, globally.
Chapter 02
Table 2.1 Pareto distribution of American wealth.
Table 2.2 Calculating the Feigenbaum constant for a nonlinear map.
Table 2.3 Calculating the Feigenbaum constant for a logistic map.
Table 2.4 Calculating the Feigenbaum constant for the Mandelbrot set.
Chapter 03
Table 3.1 A summary of topics covered.
Chapter 04
Table 4.1 Insured losses from catastrophes by world region in 2016.
Table 4.2 Growth of the US federal crop insurance program.
Chapter 05
Table 5.1 Projections of tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere by 2200.
Table 5.2 Projections of tropical cyclones in South Asia by 2100.
Table 5.3 Earthquake statistics, worldwide.
Table 5.4 Estimates of intensity, income, and surge effects.
Table 5.5 An NB model for cyclone shelter program effectiveness (number of cyclone fatalities).
Table 5.6 Probit choice model of adopting a tropical cyclone adaptation strategy in southern hemisphere ocean basins. All figures are estimates.
Table 5.7 Probit adoption model of adaptation strategies to cyclone‐induced surges and cyclone intensity in South Asia.
Chapter 06
Table 6.1 Historical budgets for US NEO observations and planetary defense.
Table 6.2 Tropical cyclone RSMCs and TCWCs for ocean regions and basins.
Table 6.3 NFIP statistics on payments, borrowing, and cumulative debts.
Table 6.4 Treaties on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Table 6.5 NAAQS for criteria pollutants, as of 2017.
Chapter 07
Table 7.1 The top fears of average Americans.
Table 7.2 Nobel laureates' ranking of the biggest challenges facing humanity (2017). Note: Some respondents gave more than one answer.
Table 7.3 Global‐scale or universal‐scale catastrophes.
Table 7.4 Elements and functions of a rational decision on global‐scale catastrophes.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 Deadliest earthquakes during the past 2000 years..
Figure 1.2 Annual number of cyclone fatalities in the North Atlantic Ocean since 1900..
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Geometry of a fold catastrophe.
Figure 2.2 The Lorenz attractor, simulated with
σ
= 10,
γ
= 28,
β
= 2.5
from the interactive Lorenz attractor provided online by Cristersson (2017).
Figure 2.3 The first four iterations of the Koch snowflake, simulated from the interactive simulator provided by Shodor (www.shodor.org).
Figure 2.4 The Mandelbrot set, simulated using the simulator provided publicly by Maths algorithms (http://jakebakermaths.org.uk/maths/index.php).
Figure 2.5 Exponential growth under a power law utility function.
Figure 2.6 Population bifurcation.
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Number of victims from natural catastrophes since 1970..
Figure 4.2 Pareto–Levy–Mandelbrot distribution.
Figure 4.3 Annual insured catastrophe losses, globally..
Figure 4.4 The government cost of federal crop insurance.
Figure 4.5 Spreads for CAT bonds versus high‐yield corporate bonds..
Figure 4.6 Outstanding CAT bonds by peril (as of December 2016)..
Figure 4.7 A trajectory of carbon tax with uncertainty.
Figure 4.8 A family of Cauchy distributions with different scale parameters.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Hurricane frequency in the North Atlantic: 1880–2013.
Figure 5.2 Changes in power dissipation index (PDI) and sea surface temperature (SST) from 1949 to 2009 in the North Atlantic Ocean. Main Development Region (MDR) is defined as the region bounded by 6°N and 18°N, and 20°W and 60°W. SST data are from the HADISST1 dataset from the UK Hadley Center averaged from August through October of each year..
Figure 5.3 The fatality–intensity relationship of tropical cyclones in South Asia.
Figure 5.4 The surge–fatality relationship of tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 History of the sulfur dioxide allowance price of clearing bids from spot auction.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1 Catastrophes by the spatial scale of events.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
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E1
Natural and Man-made Catastrophes - Theories, Economics, and Policy Designs
S. Niggol Seo
Muaebak Institute of Global Warming Studies Seoul South Korea
Copyright
This edition first published 2019
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data has been applied for
ISBN: 9781119416791
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © Zloyel/iStockphoto; © Vladimir Vladimirov/iStockphoto;
© prudkov/iStockphoto; © Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock;
© Fotos593/Shutterstock
List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Deadliest earthquakes during the past 2000 years..
Figure 1.2 Annual number of cyclone fatalities in the North Atlantic Ocean since 1900..
Figure 2.1 Geometry of a fold catastrophe.
Figure 2.2 The Lorenz attractor, simulated with
σ
= 10,
γ
= 28,
β
= 2.5
from the interactive Lorenz attractor provided online by Cristersson (2017).
Figure 2.3 The first four iterations of the Koch snowflake, simulated from the interactive simulator provided by Shodor (www.shodor.org).
Figure 2.4 The Mandelbrot set, simulated using the simulator provided publicly by Maths algorithms (http://jakebakermaths.org.uk/maths/index.php).
Figure 2.5 Exponential growth under a power law utility function.
Figure 2.6 Population bifurcation.
Figure 4.1 Number of victims from natural catastrophes since 1970..
Figure 4.2 Pareto–Levy–Mandelbrot distribution.
Figure 4.3 Annual insured catastrophe losses, globally..
Figure 4.4 The government cost of federal crop insurance.
Figure 4.5 Spreads for CAT bonds versus high‐yield corporate bonds..
Figure 4.6 Outstanding CAT bonds by peril (as of December 2016)..
Figure 4.7 A trajectory of carbon tax with uncertainty.
Figure 4.8 A family of Cauchy distributions with different scale parameters.
Figure 5.1 Hurricane frequency in the North Atlantic: 1880–2013.
Figure 5.2 Changes in power dissipation index (PDI) and sea surface temperature (SST) from 1949 to 2009 in the North Atlantic Ocean. Main Development Region (MDR) is defined as the region bounded by 6°N and 18°N, and 20°W and 60°W. SST data are from the HADISST1 dataset from the UK Hadley Center averaged from August through October of each year..
Figure 5.3 The fatality–intensity relationship of tropical cyclones in South Asia.
Figure 5.4 The surge–fatality relationship of tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean.
Figure 6.1 History of the sulfur dioxide allowance price of clearing bids from spot auction.
Figure 7.1 Catastrophes by the spatial scale of events.
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Deadliest cyclones, globally.
Table 2.1 Pareto distribution of American wealth.
Table 2.2 Calculating the Feigenbaum constant for a nonlinear map.
Table 2.3 Calculating the Feigenbaum constant for a logistic map.
Table 2.4 Calculating the Feigenbaum constant for the Mandelbrot set.
Table 3.1 A summary of topics covered.
Table 4.1 Insured losses from catastrophes by world region in 2016.
Table 4.2 Growth of the US federal crop insurance program.
Table 5.1 Projections of tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere by 2200.
Table 5.2 Projections of tropical cyclones in South Asia by 2100.
Table 5.3 Earthquake statistics, worldwide.
Table 5.4 Estimates of intensity, income, and surge effects.
Table 5.5 An NB model for cyclone shelter program effectiveness (number of cyclone fatalities).
Table 5.6 Probit choice model of adopting a tropical cyclone adaptation strategy in southern hemisphere ocean basins. All figures are estimates.
Table 5.7 Probit adoption model of adaptation strategies to cyclone‐induced surges and cyclone intensity in South Asia.
Table 6.1 Historical budgets for US NEO observations and planetary defense.
Table 6.2 Tropical cyclone RSMCs and TCWCs for ocean regions and basins.
Table 6.3 NFIP statistics on payments, borrowing, and cumulative debts.
Table 6.4 Treaties on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Table 6.5 NAAQS for criteria pollutants, as of 2017.
Table 7.1 The top fears of average Americans.
Table 7.2 Nobel laureates' ranking of the biggest challenges facing humanity (2017). Note: Some respondents gave more than one answer.
Table 7.3 Global‐scale or universal‐scale catastrophes.
Table 7.4 Elements and functions of a rational decision on global‐scale catastrophes.
About the Author
Professor S. Niggol Seo is a natural resource economist who specializes in the study of global warming. Born in a rural village in South Korea in 1972, he received a PhD degree in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from Yale University in May 2006 with a dissertation on microbehavioral models of global warming. Since 2003, he has worked on various World Bank projects on climate change in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He has held Professor positions in the UK, Spain, and Australia from 2006 to 2015.
Professor Seo has published five books and over fifty international journal articles on global warming economics. He has been on the editorial boards of three international journals: Climatic Change (Stanford University), Food Policy (University of Bologna), and Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (Oxford University Press). Among the academic honors he has received is an Outstanding Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy Article Award from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in Pittsburgh in June 2011.
Preface and Acknowledgments
This book entitled Natural and Man‐made Catastrophes – Theories, Economics, and Policy Designs lays the foundation for the economic analyses of and policymaking on truly big catastrophes that may end humanity or even the universe but, at the same time, may occur randomly to utterly shock the world.
Such global‐scale or universal catastrophes analyzed in the book include blackhole‐generating strangelets, artificial intelligence that surpasses the human brain capacity, asteroids that may collide with Earth, killer robots, nuclear wars, global warming that could end all civilizations on the planet, ozone layer depletion, toxic chemicals, criteria pollutants, extreme tropical cyclones, and deadly earthquakes.
To build the economics of humanity‐ending catastrophes, the author takes a multidisciplinary approach. The book provides a critical review of the scientific theories of catastrophe, chaos, and fractals in Chapter 2 ; of the philosophical, environmental, and archaeological traditions of societal collapses and doomsdays in Chapter 3 ; of economic models and markets of catastrophic events in Chapter 4 ; of empirical global catastrophe data and empirical modeling experiences in Chapter 5 ; of past policy interventions and future policy areas on catastrophes in Chapter 6 ; and of surveys of opinions from varied social groups on fears and challenges, as well as practical insights in Chapter 7 . The book showcases many instances where a concept or theory developed in one discipline is appropriated by other disciplines in a revised form.
Of the aforementioned range of catastrophic events, the most catastrophic events during the past century to humanity have been tropical cyclones and earthquakes as far as the number of human fatalities is concerned. A single event of these catastrophes has killed as many as about half a million people. Besides these two catastrophes, humanity has gained substantial experience of other catastrophes caused by toxic chemicals, ozone layer depletion, air pollutants, and global warming. In building the economics foundation of humanity‐scale catastrophes, this book takes full advantage of the evolving literature on the empirical economic analyses of these recurring disaster events.
The first chapter starts with “The Economics of Humanity‐Ending Catastrophes,” although the book is multidisciplinary in character. Here, the economics broadly suggests that a decision‐making agent in market places, whether an individual, a community, a nation, or an international entity, makes its decisions on catastrophic events optimally, that is, by maximizing the net benefit from alternative solutions. At the heart of the economics, hence, lie the behavioral alterations of an economic agent faced with catastrophe situations, which are called by multiple names in the book, including adaptation behaviors, regulating mechanisms, policy interventions, and virus–antibody relationships.
In the final chapter, the book provides a set of practical guidelines for making rational decisions on a random catastrophe that may terminate humanity. After presenting multiple opinion surveys on people's greatest fears and challenges, the author provides a classification of catastrophic events based on the scale of damages. A rational decision making is then sketched which highlights the roles of science, psychology, religion, economics, an adaptive system, and an ultimate stop‐control.
In the preparation of the book, many individuals kindly provided advice, encouragement, and critical comments. The author must start by thanking the late Benoit Mandelbrot, Martin Weitzman (Harvard), and William Nordhaus (Yale) for their inspiring works on the economic aspects of catastrophe events. For the empirical models and data discussed in the book, I would like to thank Laura Bakkensen (University of Arizona), Kerry Emanuel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Robert Mendelsohn (Yale) for their work on hurricanes. I would like to acknowledge comments from Michael Frame (Yale) on fractal theory, Eli Tziperman (Harvard) on chaos theory, Guy D. Middleton (Newcastle University) on the archaeology of societal collapses, and Khemarat Talerngsri (Chulalongkorn University) on disaster events in Thailand.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation toward John Wiley & Sons' publishing team and especially Andrew Harrison who advised on the proposal of the book. I am also thankful to many anonymous referees who kindly read through the proposal and provided valuable comments.
S. Niggol Seo
Muaebak Institute of Global Warming Studies
Seoul, South Korea
1The Economics of Humanity‐Ending Catastrophes, Natural and Man‐made: Introduction
1.1 Fables of Catastrophes in Three Worlds
Since the beginning of human civilizations, humanity has feared catastrophes and has endeavored to prevent them, or cope with them if not stoppable. It is not an exaggeration to say that fears and horrors of catastrophes are deeply inscribed in the consciousness of human beings. As such, an enduring literature of catastrophes, natural and man‐made, is easily found in a rich form in virtually all fields of mental endeavors including science, economics, philosophy, religion, policy, novels, poetry, music, and paintings.
The author has grown up listening to many fables and myths of catastrophes, some of which will be told presently, and is convinced that the readers of this book have heard similar, perhaps the same, stories growing up. Many stories of catastrophes may have been culturally passed on from generation to generation, some of which are a local event while others are larger‐scale events.
Of the three fables, let me start with a fearful tale of a catastrophe that has been transmitted in the Mesopotamian flood tradition and the biblical flood tradition (Chen 2013). The great deluge myth goes that there was a great flood catastrophe a long time ago, which was caused by the fury of a heavenly being. All humans, animals, and plants were swept away to death by the deluge.
An old man, however, was informed of the catastrophic flooding days ahead, owing to the services he had rendered during his lifetime, and was instructed to build an ark. He built and entered the ark with his household members, essential goods, and animals. His family would be the only ones to survive the catastrophe, being afloat for 150 days in the deluge.
This myth of flood catastrophe has been passed down millennia as an early‐warning fable for an imminent catastrophe on Earth, called popularly a judgment day. In that fateful day, only a handful of people will be permitted to escape the doomed fate. This fable or myth has left enduring imprints on many cultures and civilizations, including academics (Weitzman 1998).
When it comes to the tales of catastrophes, not all of them are loaded with fear and invoke imminence of a judgment day. Some tales are rather humorous and even make fun of the doomsday foretellers.
In the Chinese literature Lieh‐Tzu, there was a man in the nation of Gi who was worried greatly that there was no place to escape if the sky fell. His panic was so much that he could neither eat nor sleep. On hearing his anxiety, a person who pitied his situation told him, “Since the sky is full of energy, how could it fall?” The man from the Gi nation replied, “If the sky is full of energy, shouldn't the Sun, Moon, and Stars drop because they are too heavy?” The concerned neighbor told him again, “Since the Sun, Moon, and Stars are burning with light, in addition to being full of energy, they will remain unbroken even if they should fall to the ground.” The man from the Gi nation responded, “Shouldn't the Earth be collapsed then?” (Wong 2001).
In the East Asian culture, there is a popular word “Gi‐Woo” which comes from the “Gi” nation and “Woo” which means worry and anxiety. The word is used in a situation in which someone is worried about something too much without a sound basis. The fable of Gi‐Woo is a humorous depiction of a human tendency to worry too much beyond what is reasonably needed.
In the third type of fable of catastrophes, tellers of the fable take a different approach from the two aforementioned fables – that is, a rational and intelligent approach on the catastrophic risk. Recorded in the Jataka tales, the Buddha's birth stories, there was a rabbit who always worried about the end of the world. One day, a coconut fell from a palm‐tree and hit the rabbit who, startled, started to run, screaming the world is breaking up. This intriguing tale goes as follows (Cowell et al. 1895):
Once upon a time, a rabbit was asleep under a palm‐tree. All at once he woke up, and thought: “What if the world should break up! What then would become of me?”
At that moment, some monkeys dropped a cocoanut. It fell down on the ground just back of the rabbit. Hearing the noise, the rabbit said to himself: “The earth is all breaking up!” And he jumped up and ran just as fast as he could, without even looking back to see what made the noise.
Another rabbit saw him running, and called after him, “What are you running so fast for?” “Don't ask me!” he cried. But the other rabbit ran after him, begging to know what was the matter. Then the first rabbit said: “Don't you know? The earth is all breaking up!” And on he ran, and the second rabbit ran with him.
The next rabbit they met ran with them when he heard that the earth was all breaking up. One rabbit after another joined them, until there were hundreds of rabbits running as fast as they could go.
They passed a deer, calling out to him that the earth was all breaking up. The deer then ran with them.
The deer called to a fox to come along because the earth was all breaking up. On and on they ran, and an elephant joined them.
This tale of a frightened rabbit does not end here: there is a remarkable turnaround in the tale, which the author has saved, along with the rest of the story, for the final chapter of this book. It is quite sufficient to point out that we all – that is, the author and the readers who picked up this book on humanity‐scale and universal catastrophes – are frightened rabbits. We are much scared about the possibility of the world's break‐up owing to numerous uncontrollable mishaps, including nuclear wars, a gigantic asteroid collision, strangelets, singularity, killer robots, and global warming (Dar et al. 1999; Hawking et al. 2014).
1.2 Feared Catastrophic Events
The list of catastrophic events that are feared by people and societies is hardly short (Posner 2004). Some of these events have received extensive attention from researchers and policy‐makers in the past, while others are emerging threats, therefore not‐well‐understood phenomena (for example, refer to the survey of American fears by Chapman University 2017). Some events have inflicted great harm on humanity over and over again historically, while other events are only a threat with a remote possibility. Some catastrophes are caused primarily by the force of nature, while others are primarily manmade.
Historically, catastrophic events are locally interpreted (Sanghi et al. 2010). A catastrophic event is one that wreaks havoc on a local community. The local community can be as small as a rural village, a town, or a city. A local catastrophe is most often a natural disaster, such as earthquakes, droughts, floods, heat waves, cold waves, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
Examples of a local catastrophe include an earthquake that strikes a city. Among the strongest earthquakes recorded are the 1960 Valdivia earthquake that hit the city of Valdivia in southern Chile, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Great Kobe earthquake in 1995 in Japan, the 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, and the 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku in Japan.
The numbers of fatalities that resulted from the deadliest earthquakes in history make it obvious to the reader why these events are catastrophic events. The Shaanxi earthquake in China in 1556 killed 830 000 people; the Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004 resulted in the deaths of 280 000 people in South Asia; the 2010 Haiti earthquake was reported to have killed about 220 000 people; the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 in Japan killed about 105 000; and the Kobe earthquake in Japan in 1995 killed 6434 people (Utsu 2013; EM‐DAT 2017).
The deadliest earthquakes recorded in history are shown in Figure 1.1. Labels are attached to the vertical bars with more than 100 000 deaths. It is noticeable that the high‐fatality earthquakes occurred most often at the centers of civilizations: Mongolian earthquakes at the time of the Mongol empire, Roman earthquakes during the time of the Roman empire. Also, high‐fatality earthquakes occurred in high population centers: the Indian Ocean earthquake, Kashmir, and Chinese cities such as Shaanxi and Tangshan.
Figure 1.1Deadliest earthquakes during the past 2000 years..
Source: Utsu (2013), EM‐DAT (2017)
As is clear in Figure 1.1, the high casualty events have not let up in recent decades despite progresses in technological and information capabilities. The 2011 Tohokhu earthquake in Japan claimed about 16 000 lives; the 2010 Haiti earthquake was reported to have killed about 220 000 people (according to the Haitian government); the 2008 Sichuan earthquake claimed about 88 000 lives; the 2005 Kashmir earthquake 100 000 lives; and the 2005 Indian Ocean earthquake 280 000 lives. As such, earthquakes remain one of the most catastrophic events that people are concerned about today.
An earthquake occurs as a result of the movements and collisions of the lithosphere's tectonic plates (Kiger and Russell 1996). The Earth's lithosphere, i.e. a rigid layer of rock on the uppermost cover of the planet, comprises eight major tectonic plates and many more smaller plates. By connected plates, an earthquake in Japan can induce another earthquake in New Zealand. Therefore, an earthquake catastrophe can occur at a regional or subglobal scale.
A hurricane is another catastrophic natural event that is feared and has received much policy attention (Emanuel 2008). It is another example of a local catastrophe. A hurricane, or a tropical cyclone as it is called in South Asia and the southern hemisphere and a typhoon in East Asia, is generated in an ocean, moves toward a landmass, and makes landfall on a coastal zone; many also dissipate in the ocean. As soon as it reaches the land, a cyclone weakens and quickly dissipates.
A hurricane's catastrophic potential is often characterized by wind speeds (McAdie et al. 2009). A category 1 tropical cyclone moves at the speed of over 74 mph (119 km h−1) measured as the maximum sustained wind speeds (MSWSs); a category 2 tropical cyclone moves at the speed of over 96 mph; and a category 3 tropical cyclone moves at the speed of over 111 mph. A category 3 tropical cyclone is classified as a severe tropical cyclone, along with category 4 and 5 tropical cyclones.
The destructive potential of a hurricane is approximated by the rate of spinning of the cone of the storm, as well as the size of the cone of winds. Both variables are determined by the minimum central pressure of the hurricane. At sea‐level altitude, the pressure stands at 1000 hPa (hectopascals or millibars). The lower the pressure at the center of a tropical cyclone, the faster the rate of spin motion of the cyclone. The lower the minimum central pressure, the more destructive a tropical cyclone becomes.
A catastrophic hurricane event is measured by the number of human deaths as well as the magnitude of economic damages (Seo 2014, 2015a). Economic damages occur most often in the form of destruction of houses and buildings or structural damages to them. As such, damages are larger in low‐income coastal zones with structurally weak houses (Nordhaus 2010; Mendelsohn et al. 2012).
The strongest hurricanes resulted in the number of deaths as large as those from the deadliest earthquakes shown in Figure 1.1. Cyclone Bhola that made landfall along the Bangladesh coast in 1970 incurred 280 000 human fatalities; the 1991 Bangladesh tropical cyclone killed 138 000 people; the 2008 Cyclone Nargis that hit the southwestern coast of Myanmar killed 84 000 people (Seo and Bakkensen 2017).
Cyclone fatalities are relatively much smaller in advanced economies such as the US, Japan, and Australia (see Figure 5.3). Since 1973, there has been no hurricane event in the US that has resulted in the deaths of over 100 people, with the exception of hurricane Katrina which killed more than 1225 people (Blake et al. 2011; Seo 2015a; NOAA 2016; Bakkensen and Mendelsohn 2016).
Another local‐scale catastrophic event that is cyclically occurring and is a major concern for countries in the Asian monsoon climate zone is flooding. A monsoon climate is a climate system characterized by an exceptionally high rainfall during the monsoon season and an exceptionally low rainfall during a nonmonsoon season (Meehl and Hu 2006; Goswami et al. 2006; Chung and Ramanathan 2006; Seo 2016d). Overcoming this cycle of heavy rain and drought is an important policy endeavor in the monsoon climate‐zone countries such as Thailand and India (Maxwell 2016).
In Thailand, flooding is a regularly occurring natural disaster attributed to the monsoon climate system. A severe flooding event occurs once every few years and often results in a large number of human deaths. The 2017 southern Thailand flooding resulted in over 85 deaths; the 2011 flooding caused 815 deaths; the 2010 floods killed 232 people; the 2013 South Asian floods killed 51 people; and the 2015 South Asian floods killed 15 people in Thailand (EM‐DAT 2017).
The total number of deaths caused by floods in 2004 amounted to 7366 globally, 5754 in 2005, 8571 in 2010, 3582 in 2012, and 9819 in 2013. During the 2004–2013 period, the total number of deaths globally caused by floods amounted to 63 207, of which 71% occurred in the Asian continent (IFRC 2014).
Other catastrophic events have a scale of consequences at the national level as well as at the global level. A national‐scale catastrophe would affect the population of an entire nation in a direct way. A severe drought event that befalls an entire nation over a sustained period, for example, a year or several years, is one example of such a national catastrophe. All communities across the nation will experience the consequences of the severe drought in a direct way.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s in the US is one example of a national catastrophic event caused by a severe drought coupled with other factors such as farming practices and storms (Warrick et al. 1975; NDMC 2017). An exceptionally long period of severe and extreme droughts in Ireland during the 1854–1860 period resulted in a nationwide famine and the great Irish migration period to the US (Noone et al. 2017).
Catastrophes caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, and severe drought are primarily naturally occurring. Another type of catastrophe is primarily caused by humankind's activities – examples include toxic substances and chemicals, criteria pollutants, nuclear accidents, and ozone depletion.
Toxic chemicals and substances are a national health issue, the productions and uses of which can lead to a serious public health crisis as well as a damaged ecosystem (Vogel and Roberts 2011; Carson 1962). Toxic substances are chemical substances and mixtures whose manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment (US Congress 1978).
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created an inventory of existing chemicals, relying on the authority given by Congress through the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) (Noone et al. 2017). The inventory listed 62 000 chemicals in the first version and has grown to more than 83 000 chemicals to date.
Relying on the authority specified by Section 1.6 on the Regulation of Hazardous Chemical Substances and Mixtures of the TSCA, the EPA attempted to restrict toxic chemicals such as asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), dioxin, mercury, radon, and lead‐based paint.
However, the US federal agency failed to regulate these toxic chemicals, halted by a series of lawsuits filed by chemical companies as well as a high burden of proof placed on the EPA by Section 1.6 for demonstrating substantial evidence of unreasonable risk (Vogel and Roberts 2011).
Notwithstanding the failures of the federal agency, US state‐level regulations on toxic chemicals have increased. Since 2003, state legislatures passed more than 70 chemical safety laws for limiting the use of specific chemicals such as lead in toys, polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) in flame retardants, and bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles (NCSL 2017).
Another category of manmade catastrophes could occur through numerous air and water pollutants. Through repeated exposures to smog, acid rain, particulate matter, lead, and other pollutants, an individual may suffer from various chronic diseases for a sustained period, and even face death. Particularly vulnerable to pollutants are those with existing health conditions, the elderly, children, and pregnant women (Tietenberg and Lewis 2014).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around seven million people die annually as a result of air pollution exposure, of which three million are due to exposure to outdoor pollution and four million due to exposure to indoor pollution. Of the seven million deaths, about six million deaths occur in South‐East Asia and West Pacific regions (WHO 2014, 2016).
The US Clean Air Act (CAA), the signature legislation for regulating air pollutants, which was passed in 1970 and has been revised since then, defines the six most common pollutants as criteria pollutants. These are ground‐level ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead, and carbon monoxide (US EPA 1977, 1990). The CAA defines and enforces the ambient air quality standards for the six criteria pollutants, which are explained in depth in Chapter 6.
The sources of emissions vary across the pollutants. Coal‐fired, oil‐fired, and gas‐fired power plants which generate electricity for numerous economic activities are primary sources of air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and ammonia (Mendelsohn 1980). A variety of vehicle uses is another primary source of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter. Agriculture and forestry as well as manufacturing are also major sources of air pollution (Muller et al. 2011).
A nuclear power plant is another way to produce electricity and energy (MIT 2003). Through human mistakes or an unforeseen series of events, accidents at nuclear power plants have occurred, which led to one of the most catastrophic outcomes in human history. Leaks of nuclear radiation or contacts with radioactive materials led to a large number of immediate deaths or prolonged deaths through cancer.
There have been two catastrophic nuclear accidents categorized as an International Nuclear Events Scale (INES) level 7 event: the Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi accident (NEI 2016). The Chernobyl disaster in Ukrainian SSR in 1986 caused 56 direct deaths and cancer patients estimated as ranging from 4000 to 985 000.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan in 2011 was caused by the above‐mentioned 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. The earthquake was itself once‐in‐a century magnitude. The earthquake–tsunami–nuclear disaster event destroyed more than one‐million buildings. The government of Japan declared a 20‐km evacuation and exclusion zone, from which 470 000 people were evacuated.
Nonetheless, the reality of producing enough energy to support the national economies is that a large number of countries rely heavily on nuclear power plants for energy production. Countries that supply at least a quarter of national energy consumption through nuclear energy are France (76.9%), Slovakia (56.8%), Hungary (53.6%), Ukraine (49.4%), Belgium (47.5%), Sweden (41.5%), Switzerland (37.9%), Slovenia (37.2%), the Czech Republic (35.8%), Finland (34.6%), Bulgaria (31.8%), Armenia (30.7%), and South Korea (30.4%) (NEI 2016).
The permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and other major countries rely on nuclear energy significantly: the US (19.5%), China (2.4%), Germany (15.8%), Spain (20%), Russia (18%), and the UK (17%).
1.3 Global or Universal Catastrophes
The categories of catastrophic events introduced in Section 1.2 may wreak havoc on the communities that these events befall, but the scale of impacts is limited to a local area or to an entire nation even in a larger‐scale shock. It does not mean, however, there would be no indirect effects on neighboring nations or trade partners.
Having said that, concerned scientists have often noticed that the possibility of an even larger‐scale catastrophe may be increasing since the middle of the twentieth century. Notably, the ending of World War II through the first use of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima may have signaled at the same time both rapid scientific and technological advances and the possibility of potentially global‐scale catastrophic events.
Many observers also noted that truly catastrophic events that can challenge human survival on Earth or even end the survival of the universe itself may be becoming more likely in tandem with the increase in scientific and technological capacities of humanity (Posner 2004; Kurzweil 2005; Hawking et al. 2014).
A catastrophic event that could end life on Earth is a global‐scale catastrophe, while a catastrophic event that could end the existence of the universe as we know it now is a universal catastrophe. A global or a universal catastrophe is what humanity is most concerned about when it comes to a probable future catastrophe.
What are global or universal catastrophes? Is a global catastrophe likely at all? As a matter of fact, several such events have been proposed by concerned scientists. Nuclear warfare, a large‐size asteroid colliding with the Earth, a high‐risk physics or biological experiment for scientific purposes, and artificial intelligence (AI) and killer robots are recognized as causes for a likely global‐scale or universal catastrophe.
An asteroid collision with the planet is a probable global catastrophe event (Chapman and Morrison 1994; NRC 2010). It is widely supported that a single asteroid led to the extinction of dinosaurs on Earth 66 million years ago by hitting “the right spot” with oil‐rich sedimentary rocks (Kaiho and Oshima 2017).
An asteroid is a small planet that orbits the Sun, most of which is located in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids, meteorites (fragments of asteroids), and comets (an icy outer solar system body) refer to different near‐Earth objects (NEOs) against which the US' planetary defense activities are directed to prevent a possible collision with the Earth (NASA 2014).
When asteroids, meteorites, or comets are within 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of the Earth's orbit, they are called NEOs. According to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a 0.6‐mile (1‐km)‐wide NEO could have a global‐scale impact and a 980‐ft (300‐m)‐wide NEO could have a subglobal impact (NASA 2014). The dinosaur‐extinction asteroid was 7.5 miles wide (Kaiho and Oshima 2017).
According to NASA, as of 2016, about 50 000 NEOs have been discovered, but it is estimated that three‐quarters of the NEOs existent in the solar system are still undiscovered. The discovery of an asteroid is the first and critical step in planetary defense against it, which is done mostly by ground‐based telescopes. Deflecting or destroying an asteroid is another stage of the planetary defense mission, the possibility of which increases dramatically when it is discovered early (NRC 2010).
Reflecting the rising concern on possible asteroid collisions, the US government established the Planetary Defense Coordinating Office (PDCO) in 2016 under the leadership of NASA (NASA 2014). Of the total NEOs discovered globally, about 95% of them are discovered by NASA.
Nuclear warfare is cited as another probable global‐scale catastrophe (Turco et al. 1983; Mills et al. 2008). A nuclear war between two nuclear powers, e.g. between the US and Russia or between India and Pakistan, has the potential to devastate entire civilizations on Earth.
A series of nuclear explosions will destroy living beings and built structures on the local area of explosions, which itself would not lead to a global‐scale catastrophe. However, such nuclear explosions can alter the global atmosphere to cause global‐scale freezing, which results in a global catastrophe (Turco et al. 1983). Alternatively, it is projected that nuclear explosions could destroy the ozone layer in the stratosphere, which possibly could result in a global‐scale catastrophe (Mills et al. 2008; UNEP 2016).
A handful of countries in the world may have the capability to stage a nuclear war against their foes. As of 2018, nine countries are recognized, at different levels, to have the capabilities to own or build nuclear weapons. Among them are five permanent members of the UN Security Council: the US, Russia, the UK, France, and China. Additionally, four countries are known or believed to have nuclear weapons or have the capacity to make them: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel (UNODA 2017a,b,c,d).
However, many other countries are reported to have the scientific and technological capacities to build nuclear arms, but have complied with the international nuclear treaty (explained below) and withheld their ambitions for developing them (Campbell et al. 2004). The international treaty refers to the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT), at the UN which aims to contain the competitive buildup of nuclear weapons and prevent a nuclear war.
The NPT entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995. As of 2018, the NPT has been signed by 191 nations, which is an over 99% participation rate (UNODA 2017a,b,c,d). The NPT has established a safeguards system with responsibility given to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA verifies compliance of member nations with the treaty through nuclear inspections.
However, the threat of a probable nuclear war has not been eliminated. It is notable that many nuclear‐weapon regimes have not joined or not complied with the NPT, e.g. India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, while other nations are on their way to developing them, e.g. Iran.
Further, whether the nuclear‐weapons regimes including the US and Russia will commit to the NPT's grand bargain for a complete and full disarmament of nuclear weapons has yet to be confirmed, that is, by ratifying the treaty of a complete ban of further nuclear tests (Graham 2004).
Many researchers, but not all, have also cited global warming and climate change as a probable global catastrophe. The observed trend of a globally warming Earth may continue in the centuries to come, and if some of the worst projections of future climate by some scientists were to be materialized, a global‐scale climate catastrophe should be unavoidable (IPCC 1990, 2014). However, these worst case scenario projections are treated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as statistically insignificant (Le Treut et al. 2007).
The most dismal outlook with regard to the phenomenon of a globally warming planet is that global average temperature would rise by more than 10° C or even up to 20° C by the end of this century (Weitzman 2009). Such levels of global climate change would certainly force the end of human civilizations on Earth, as we know them (Nordhaus 2013).
However, this dismal outlook is in sharp contrast to the best‐guess prediction or mean climate sensitivity presented by the IPCC, which has been in the range of 2 to 3° C by about the end of this century (Nordhaus 2008; IPCC 2014; Seo 2017a).
Also, several scientific hypotheses exist on catastrophic climatic warming, of which the author introduces several here. A hockey‐stick hypothesis states that global average climate temperatures will run away in the twenty‐first century as in the blade of a hockey‐stick (Mann et al. 1999; IPCC 2001). The second hypothesis is that an abrupt switch in the global climate system may occur, shocking everyone on Earth, including scientists (NRC 2010). The third hypothesis is that a global catastrophe may occur by way of crossing the threshold or reaching the tipping point of various climate system variables, e.g. a reversal of the global thermohaline circulation in the ocean (Broecker 1997; Lenton et al. 2008).
However, projections of the future climate system by climate scientists are highly uncertain, and are expressed as a wide range of divergent outcomes from a large array of future storylines or scenarios (Nakicenovic et al. 2000; Weitzman 2009). Further, many scientific issues remain unresolved in the climate prediction models called in the literature Atmospheric Oceanic General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) (Le Treut et al. 2007; Taylor et al. 2012).
Notwithstanding the range of uncertainties and scientific gaps that exist even with more than four decades of admirable scientific pursuits, there is a silver lining with regard to the future of global climate shifts. If the Earth were to warm according to the IPCC's middle‐of‐the range predictions or the most likely projections, people and societies will find ways to adapt to and make the best of changed climate conditions (Mendelsohn 2000; Seo and Mendelsohn 2008; Seo 2010, 2012a, 2015c, 2017a).
The magnitude of damage from global warming and climatic shifts will critically hinge on how the future climate system unfolds and how effectively and sensibly individuals and societies adapt (Mendelsohn et al. 2006; Tol 2009; Seo 2016a,b,c).
Existing technologies as well as those developed in the future will greatly enhance the capacities of individuals and societies (Seo 2017a). Some of these technologies are breakthrough technologies that can replace fossil fuels entirely or remove carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or engineer the Earth's climate system, which include, inter alia, nuclear fusion power generations, solar energy, carbon capture–storage–reuse technology, and solar reflectors (ITER 2015; MIT 2015; Lackner et al. 2012; NRC 2015).
These mega technologies are broadly defined as a backstop technology in the resource economics literature. Although many of these breakthrough technologies can be employed to tackle climate change for the present period, the cost of relying on any of these technologies is more than an order of magnitude higher than the least‐cost options available now to achieve the reduction of the same unit of carbon dioxide (Nordhaus 2008).
A catastrophe whose scale of destruction goes beyond the planet has been suggested by scientists (Dar et al. 1999; Jaffe et al. 2000). A salient example is a probable accident in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) for the purposes of testing various predictions or theories of particle physics. It is a 27‐km‐long (in circumference) tunnel built under the France–Switzerland border at a depth of 175 m (CERN 2017).
The LHC is a particle accelerator built to test theories on the states of the universe during the short moments in the origin of the universe. More specifically, it tests the initial states of the universe right after the Big Bang (Overbye 2013). It was suggested by scientists that the experimental process may create a strangelet or a black matter unintentionally, through which a black hole is created. The entire universe would be drawn to the black hole, if it were to be stable, bringing an end to the universe (Plaga 2009; Ellis et al. 2008).
Scientists overwhelmingly reject the possibility of such a universal catastrophe. A group of researchers called the probability of it absurdly small (Jaffe et al. 2000). An impact analysis group of the CERN experiments reported that there is no possibility at all of the universe‐ending catastrophe (Ellis et al. 2008). Many groups of scientists argue that such collisions of particles occur naturally in the universe, leaving no impacts on the universal environment (Dar et al. 1999; Jaffe et al. 2000; Ellis et al. 2008).
Although no actions have been taken to reduce the risk of this universe‐ending catastrophe, the forecast of it has not materialized yet. The experiments at CERN led to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS [A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS] and CMS [Compact Muon Solenoid] experiments at CERN's LHC” (Nobel Prize 2013).
The list of catastrophes presented up to this point paints quite a dismal picture for the survival of humanity and even the universe. Nonetheless, there seems to be a more feared and more likely catastrophe in the minds of many concerned scientists, that is, AI. AI, i.e. intelligent robots and machines, may become more intelligent and powerful at some point and kill all the living beings, i.e. beings with life, including humans (Hawking et al. 2014).
The all‐life‐ending catastrophe may be brought on by the lifeless machines and robots. In some areas of human activities and dimensions, robots are already more efficient and intelligent than humans and have replaced human laborers. The day may come quite quickly according to many experts when the brain capacity of robots, measured by such indicators as IQ, surpasses that of humanity. This would be the moment of singularity (Kurzweil 2005).
When the singularity arrives, it would be the greatest marvelous achievement of humanity, but the last one, according to the physicist Hawking (Hawking et al. 2014). The AIs will control humans and may end up killing all humans and even all living beings in the universe, intentionally or unintentionally.
Not all the experts on AI share this perspective. Optimists would argue that robots who are lifeless beings or insentient beings may become friendly neighbors to humanity, all‐smiling and supportive as they are at present.
The world's notable entrepreneurs have been pursuing competitively advanced AI machines and robots and their applications to various business fields, examples of which include a self‐driving automobile by Tesla motors, an AI healthcare software system by Softbank, and an intelligent personal assistant Siri by Apple.
In many ways, many nations are investing competitively in the development of AI based on the conviction that gaining superiority in AI would make the nation a military superpower in the world. The downside of this competition lies in the fear that the killer robots may become uncontrollable, or even the war robots could start a war without a human order.
In fact, war robots already play a pivotal role in war army combats as well as local police battles. Ethical issues and banning the use of such robots were taken up for discussion at the UN experts meeting on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWSs) (UNODA 2017b).
1.4 A Multidisciplinary Review of Catastrophe Studies
Having presented the first impressions of the range of catastrophic events that this book is concerned with in establishing the economic perspectives, the author, perhaps the reader as well, needs to consider how the book should proceed and what approach should be taken to achieve the goals of the book.
Of the many possible ways that the book can be written, the author has determined to emphasize the generality of the concept of catastrophe across many academic fields of catastrophe studies. This book, consequently, takes a multidisciplinary approach, which should also be appealing to a wide range of academic disciplines and in a wide range of policy circles.
On the other hand, the book is also positioned to make the clearest and the most direct presentation of the economic issues and analyses with regard to catastrophic events. This means that the background of the economic analyses presented in the book will be market places in which an economic agent, whether an individual or a community, weighs the benefit against the cost incurred over a long period of time of a decision for the purposes of achieving an optimal outcome resulting from the decision (von Neumann and Morgenstern 1947; Koopmans 1965).
Studies of and stories about catastrophic events are perhaps as old as the birth of human civilization or humanity's invention of letters. The three tales and fables introduced above were recorded in some of the oldest books that human civilization compiled and transmitted through time until today. Further, catastrophe concepts and studies are quite pervasive across the sciences, mathematics, philosophy, economics, psychology, policy sciences, and even literary works, which will be made clearer in this book.
Scientific descriptions and mathematical formulations of catastrophe and chaos emerged during the latter half of the twentieth century. Taking advantage of his predecessor's works on structural stability, catastrophe theory was presented during the 1960s and 1970s by French mathematician René Thom who formulated it in the context of structural stability of a biological system (Poincaré 1880–1890; Thom 1975). Catastrophe was defined as a sudden dramatic shift of a biological system in response to a miniscule change in a certain state variable (Zeeman 1977).
Thom's works became known as the catastrophe theory because he presented a list of seven elementary catastrophes that would become widely appropriated by applied scientists and economists of catastrophes. Seven generic structures of catastrophe, each of which is expressed as a form of a potential function, were fold catastrophe, cusp catastrophe, swallowtail catastrophe, butterfly catastrophe, hyperbolic umbilic catastrophe, elliptic umbilic catastrophe, and parabolic umbilic catastrophe (Thom 1975).
In another literature, the chaos theory surfaced by a stroke of serendipity and was developed to depict the systems that are in chaos or disorder, in which chaos was defined as the absence of an order in the system, or a disorderly system, or an unpredictable system (Lorenz 1963; Strogatz 1994).
As it has turned out over the course of its development, the literature of the chaos theory has become as much about the scientific endeavors to find an order in a chaotic, disorderly system as it was about the absence of order, disorder, or unpredictability of a certain system (Tziperman 2017).
Edward Lorenz is generally credited with the pioneering experimental works that led to the establishment of the field of chaos theory. As a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was working to develop a system of equations that can predict the weather of, say, Cambridge, Massachusetts a week ahead of time (Lorenz 1963). Through his experiments with the computer simulation of the weather system, he came across the finding that a miniscule change in an initial point or any point in the system leads to a widely strange outcome in the predicted weather, a phenomenon that he later called “butterfly effects” (Lorenz 1969).
Continuing to work on his weather system, Lorenz presented a simplified system, that is, a system of three ordinary differential equations, the set of outcomes of which has been known to represent the chaos theory. The Lorenz attractor, i.e. the solutions to the Lorenz system, is deceptively simple mathematically; however, it so richly expresses a disorderly system or an unpredictable system (Gleick 1987; Strogatz 1994). The Lorenz attractor is the system with the absence of order in that it shows neither a steady state nor a periodic behavior, i.e. two known types of order in a system (Tziperman 2017).
Another important contribution to the theory of catastrophe or chaos came from the theory of a fractal developed separately by Benoit Mandelbrot (Mandelbrot 1963, 1967, 1983, 1997). From the studies of crop prices, coastal lines, financial prices, and others, Mandelbrot defined a fractal to be a figure that has a self‐similar figure infinitely as its component or at a larger scale and in which this self‐similarity is repeated in ever‐larger scales of the figure (Frame et al. 2017).
In the fractal image, you can zoom in on the figure over and over again and find the same figure at a smaller scale forever. It is interpreted that a fractal is an image of an infinitely complex system and a fractal is often described as a “picture of chaos” (Fractal Foundation 2009
