Catastrophe in the Making
The Engineering of Katrina and the Disaters of Tomorrow
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Narrated by:
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Clinton Wade
About this listen
When houses are flattened, towns submerged, and people stranded without electricity or even food, we attribute the suffering to "natural disasters" or "acts of God." But what if they're neither? What if we, as a society, are bringing these catastrophes on ourselves? That's the provocative theory of Catastrophe in the Making, the first audiobook to recognize Hurricane Katrina not as a "perfect storm," but a tragedy of our own making - and one that could become commonplace.
The authors, one a longtime New Orleans resident, argue that breached levees and sloppy emergency response are just the most obvious examples of government failure. The true problem is more deeply rooted and insidious, and stretches far beyond the Gulf Coast. Based on the false promise of widespread prosperity, communities across the U.S. have embraced all brands of "economic development" at all costs. In Louisiana, that meant development interests turning wetlands into shipping lanes. By replacing a natural buffer against storm surges with a 75-mile long, obsolete canal that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they guided the hurricane into the heart of New Orleans and adjacent communities. The authors reveal why, despite their geographic differences, California and Missouri are building - quite literally - toward similar destruction.
Too often, the U.S. "growth machine" generates wealth for a few and misery for many. Drawing lessons from the most expensive "natural" disaster in American history, Catastrophe in the Making tells why thoughtless development comes at a price we can ill afford.
©2009 William R. Freudenburg, Robert B. Gramling, Shirley B. Laska, and Kai T. Erikson (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs running dry and reservoirs emptying, where is your water going to come from in the future? In Drinking Water, Duke professor James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time.
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By: Andrew T. Guzman
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Why Geography Matters
- More Than Ever
- By: Harm de Blij
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In recent years our world has seen transformations of all kinds: intense climate change accompanied by significant weather extremes; deadly tsunamis caused by submarine earthquakes; unprecedented terrorist attacks; costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a terrible and overlooked conflict in Equatorial Africa costing millions of lives; an economic crisis threatening the stability of the international system.
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A book that needs more than just narration
- By Organic Design on 06-10-15
By: Harm de Blij
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Let There Be Water
- Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
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More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
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Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
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Jared Diamond Downs You in Explanation
- By Rob on 07-20-18
By: Jared Diamond
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Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster
- By: Susan Stranahan, David Lochbaum, The Union of Concerned Scientists, and others
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to knock the earth from its axis sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Over the following weeks, the world watched in horror as a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe: fail-safes failed, cooling systems shut down, nuclear rods melted.
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Internal workings of the NRC
- By Eduards J. Vucins on 05-11-14
By: Susan Stranahan, and others
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The Well-Tempered City
- What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life
- By: Jonathan F. P. Rose
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Cities are birthplaces of civilization; centers of culture, trade, and progress; cauldrons of opportunity - and the home of 80 percent of the world's population by 2050. As the 21st century progresses, metropolitan areas will bear the brunt of global megatrends such as climate change, natural resource depletion, population growth, income inequality, mass migrations, and education and health disparities, among many others.
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The best way to save the future is to look at the past
- By Kate on 10-01-22
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Dark Winter
- How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell
- By: John L. Casey
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next 30 years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.
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Global Warming Is A Hoax
- By Catamount on 11-20-17
By: John L. Casey
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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated
- The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
- By: Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald Walsch - associate editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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While everything appears to be collapsing around us - ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, water shortages, global famine, wars - we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's feature documentary movie The 11th Hour, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture's blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem.
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One of the Most Important Books of our Time
- By Jana on 04-24-20
By: Thom Hartmann, and others
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Nature's Metropolis
- Chicago and the Great West
- By: William Cronon
- Narrated by: Jonah Cummings
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking work, William Cronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history of nineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.
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Moving
- By JB on 02-09-18
By: William Cronon
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The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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Brilliant Beacons
- A History of the American Lighthouse
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation's hardscrabble coastlines.
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Great book about Lighthouses
- By Anastasia on 04-25-21
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Simply Electrifying
- The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk
- By: Craig R. Roach
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Simply Electrifying: The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael Faraday, Samuel F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, Elon Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time the complete, thrilling, and often dangerous story of electricity's historic discovery, development, and worldwide application.
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decent, but ended up disappointing.
- By Alexander Douglass on 12-28-18
By: Craig R. Roach
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Warnings
- Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
- By: Richard A. Clarke, R.P. Eddy
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?
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On prediction, catastrophe and mitigation
- By S. Yates on 02-28-18
By: Richard A. Clarke, and others
What listeners say about Catastrophe in the Making
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lifeisshort
- 12-18-13
The Back Story of Katrina
The behind the scenes story of Katrina and the things that policy did to make the problem worse. It speaks to all the decisions made in order that some already ridiculously wealthy men and corporations could further enhance their bottom lines.The dredging of the canal, the loss of the estuaries and the increased vulnerability created by policies that helped only a few at the expense of an american city. It also exposes the utter incompetence that was exhibited by the political cronies appointed to positions far above their qualifications. A fast moving, highly informative study on the consequences of a lack of foresight created by the policy of government by greed.
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