Natural Disasters At The End Of The Mayan Calendar

The modern apocalypticism I choose to focus on for this assignment was natural disasters. I want to find out why natural disasters are becoming more common in the world we live in today? Ever since I saw the movie 2012 I have always wondered what would happen if that actually did come true. And if that actually could come true someday, what as a society would do to prevent it from happening or what we would do to prepare for it to happen. The movie 2012 was about the end of the Mayan Calendar and the world actually coming to an end by the hands of natural disasters. During my research I found that my original question didn’t fulfill all of the knowledge that I was craving about the subject of natural disasters it just led to more questions after ever search I did, I needed to know more. So throughout this assignment my mind jumps from one aspect of natural disasters to another.

The first search was exactly my question for the assignment, why are natural disasters becoming more common?

I found a lot of useful information to include in this paper. A database I found really interesting was Natural News; it had a bunch of interesting facts. According to Natural News, the number natural disasters in the past 20 years have increased by four times the amount. The Earth experiences approximately 500 natural disasters per year compared to 120 a year in the 1980’s. In the 1980’s around 175 million people were affected by natural disasters per year and now it has increased by 70 percent to nearly 255 million people. The increasing number of natural disasters has primarily hurt third world countries the most. They don’t have the resources nor are they able to recover from such devastating tragedies (Natural

News).
After reading the article posted by Natural News, the thing that stuck with me the most was the fact that third world countries are really affected hard by these disasters. So I want to find out what third world countries were affected the most by a natural disaster. I searched most devastating natural disaster to ever happen and sure enough majority of them were in third world countries. List25 was the top database I could find on the matter, and the very first disaster listed was the Haiti earthquake of 2010. I remember being in either elementary school or middle school and there would be jar of money that would say funds for Haiti, it was a terrible earthquake that did so much damage to that beautiful island. It was a 7.0 earthquake that killed 200,000 people, left 2 million homeless, and 3 million people in need of emergency assistance. Over $3 million were sent to the country to help rebuild after the disaster (List 25). Terrible situation in Haiti at least the bigger countries sent in supplies and support to help them get back on their feet.
After reading what happened to Haiti, according to list25, all I could think about was how does someone get involved. Then I stumbled this website called World Vision, it is an organization that fund money for third world countries that were impacted by natural disasters. It has a lot of interesting information on the website, it provides world news, shows the progress they have made, and the areas that they have impacted. The organization has $2.6 million in relief goods ready at any moment for the next natural disaster response. They have assisted 10.7 million people who were in need. On the website it says that more than 90 percent of natural disasters happen in third world countries, and the purpose of this organization is to help those countries as quick as possible and supply them with as many resources as possible. Some of the areas of impact include: education, clean water, economic development, disaster relief, health, and food and agriculture (World Vision).
After reading that there is support for third world countries I was very relieved to say the least, how people help other in there times of need. Something that stuck with me from the previous database was the education standpoint. To what I remember I was never taught about hurricanes, tsunamis, floods I would only hear about these things on the news. I found this great website on the school database that states no kid was ever taught about natural disasters. That there needs to be a book on it and it should be present in all schools. The book would go into detail about each disaster, with pictures and then how to prepare for each one. This book would benefit kids in the future, this way kids don’t find out through the news or even worse finding out through actually experiencing a natural disaster (JSTOR). I remember when I was little I went to Disney World almost every year, but one time we were stuck in our room and we didn’t get to go to any parks for days. I would look up in the sky and it was purple and I could hear the wind outside blowing. I found out what a hurricane was by experiencing it first hand in Florida. I remember buying a shirt that said I survived hurricane Frances. This is exactly what the author was trying to avoid happening he wants to bring awareness to natural disasters to kids at a young age before they find out the wrong way.
After reading all of the serious articles my mind started to wonder about the hypotheticals of natural disasters. I found this article that has the top 10 U.S. disaster threats. It is actually pretty interesting to think about and also scary at the same time. The database is called Live Science and it does an amazing job talking about the “what if scenarios.” Apparently if just fault line occurs in the Golf Coast, a tsunami could happen leaving 35 million people in jeopardy of losing their lives. There hasn’t been a magnitude 8.0 earthquake in the Midwest for two centuries and it is bound to happen eventually. Now the Midwest is heavily populated and now they are making houses that are not up to standard earthquake regulations. You can only imagine how terrible this scenario would be. One of the most threatening natural disasters that could happen would be a tsunami to southern California. It could result in $42 billion in damage if this were to ever happen (Live Science).
In conclusion, I thought this was a great experience, I learned so much about natural disasters. Although my paper kind of strayed off of my initial question it ultimately was for the better because it made me research more into depth. I discovered that natural disasters are becoming more often, that third world countries get hit the hardest and the dangers of natural disasters in the U.S. All in all what I have learned is that the world is going to end at the hands of natural disasters.