In article , Steve Hayes says...
>
>On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 02:23:49 GMT, gospelhall81{at}yahoo.co.in (gospelhall) wrote:
>
>>Why god fail to save 30,000 lives in asian countries?
>
>Ask not why God did not save 30000 lives in Asian countries.
>
>Ask why George Bush and Tony Blair destroyed 30000 lives in Asian countries.

Are you taking the Lancet figures for granted? I would not recommend that.

>And then think on this:
>
>"Every year about 3m people die in southeast Asia from infectious and
>parasitic diseases  most curable with cheaply available medicines. In any
>fortnight more people will have suffered these preventable deaths than the
>total toll of the tsunami."
>
>The Sunday Times, January 02, 2005
>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2763-1423085,00.html

It does not do much good to give us an article that is accessible only to those
with registration.

>Remember, Asias old stealthy killers claim more victims than any
>catastrophe

>Calls for costly tsunami warning systems are misguided when 
>so many are dying of everyday diseases, says Bjorn Lomborg

Who is this guy, and why should we take his word for it? I suspect he is
misquoting statistics, a common enough practice among political 'scientists'. We
_know_ many are dying of "everyday diseases", but this is going
to get a lot
worse in those areas affected by the tsunami.

>The Asian tsunami disaster has dominated the global agenda since the
>first wave last Sunday. With such a high death toll it is only natural
>that we ask what went wrong, what we could have done better and demand
>that these changes take place. Moreover, the extraordinary outpouring of
>sympathy and financial support is an encouraging testimony that we care
>about the world and generally want to do good. 
>
>Yet, with a week passed, it is also time to try to put the events into
>perspective. Perhaps the most important lesson is that rich countries deal
>much better with catastrophes such as tsunamis.

But it is not the "rich countries" that do better with it. Look
at how badly
China dealt with earthquakes recently, or even at how badly Japan _used_ to deal
with them before MacArthur restructured their government.

Rather, it is those countries that have institutionalized a higher valuation of
human life -- even if it is still quite materialistically valued, as it is in
the US.

> Everyone agrees that a
>large number of the deaths could have been prevented because there were
>hours from when the initial quake was registered to the waves hitting the
>shores. 
>
>Reflecting a sentiment from many tsunami experts, Ted Bryant from
>Australia told us: There shouldnt have been one life lost in that
>tsunami. We should have had a warning system. Actually, Australia, the
>rich nation in the region, received ample warning and had a wave station
>south of the earthquakes epicentre registering tsunami activity less than
>2ft high heading south toward Australia. 
>
>The hardest-hit countries of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia,
>however, were caught off guard. Casualties were by far highest in three
>highly impoverished areas  the coasts of eastern Sri Lanka and
>southeastern India, and the northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia. These
>countries simply did not have the technology in place. As Budi Waluyo from
>Indonesias Meteorology and Geophysics Agency pointed out, the wave
>stations are very expensive and we dont have money to buy them. 

I think Mr. Waluyo is making excuses. They are not _that_ expensive. Besides:
you can do a lot with pure siesmology, without using a "wave
station" at all, as
the Soviets showed in the late 70s and 80s. NOAA did not need any
"wave station"
to warn the government of Thailand the tsunami was on its way.


[snip]

>The bottom line is that the best protection against catastrophes is a
>society that is rich enough to be well-prepared for all sorts of
>contingencies.

But you are leaving out something very imporrant: it must not only be rich
enough, but it must have a strong incentive for actually _directing_ its
resources in that direction, rather than frittering it away in some other way.
The US has that because despite all our democracy's flaws, the government IS
accountable to the people, who will be unforgiving when the government fails us
that badly.

> This brings us back to what we should do in the aftermath
>of the catastrophe. In the aftermath of the tsunami there is a strong
>sense that we should invest in wave stations and an elaborate alert
>system, making the Asian countries better able to deal with a potential
>tsunami. But however compassionate this may seem, it may not be our best
>first priority. First, strong tsunamis only hit rarely:

This is true, but we don't really know how rare they are.

> the last big one
>in the Indian Ocean was in 1883.

But there was another big one in the 1700s. So that would imply that they have a
tsunami big enough to do extensive damage every ~200 years. That is enough to
justify an early warning system.

> Second, there are many other pressing
>concerns.

Beware the tyranny of the urgent!

> Every year about 3m people die in southeast Asia from infectious
>and parasitic diseases  most curable with cheaply available medicines. In
>any fortnight more people will have suffered these preventable deaths than
>the total toll of the tsunami. Before we embark on a costly alert system,
>we should consider if the resources could be better spent. 

But you are forgetting something important here: by far the largest portion of
that cost is a one-time cost. Once the system is installed, it is quite cheap to
maintain. While the costs for public health measures for preventing everyday
diseases is a recurring cost.

But wait! There is something _else_ important you are forgetting! However poor
those nations already were, the damage done by the tsunami made them even
poorer. I have to suspect that it has made them poorer by far more than the
deaths due to everyday diseases, because this is the most expensive and deadly
natural disaster for more than a century.

>While talking about priorities is often seen as cynical, neglecting them
>does not make them go away. We do not do all good things, therefore we
>need to focus on doing best things first. 
>
>The challenge ahead is not focusing on the issues with the most buzz but
>on what will do the most good. 
>
>Some of the worlds leading economists  including three Nobel laureates
> answered this question at the Copenhagen Consensus in May,
>prioritising policies for improving the world. They found that dealing
>with communicable diseases such as Aids and malaria, malnutrition, free
>trade and drinking water should top the agenda. This is where we can do
>the most good for our pound. The experts rated urgent responses to climate
>change at the bottom  because they cost more than the good they do. 

That is going to change with global warming. They will change their tune when
they see what coastlines disappear under the rising sea level.

[snip]


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