Natural disasters in the UK

[Nevermay]

From another thread......! I am seriously amazed, and pretty disturbed at the number of posters who seem to think the UK is somehow living a charmed life whereby no natural disaster will ever occur here!

I did think that some of the population have displayed a very entitled attitude in recent years when they have had to make adjustments for dangerous situation, such as feeling seriously hard done by, even "traumatised" by having to socially distance during lockdown, or expecting red carpet treatment and being looked after as a special case when caught up in wild fires, rather than just dealing with the situation as it is, as other populations more used to danger did.

Meteor strikes, for example - we have the technology, and the international cooperation, to predict and prevent an "extinction level event" such as the one which wiped out the dinosaurs. But there are millions of near earth objects, and we can't track them all. Small meteorites hit regularly, medium ones hit occasionally, and no one can predict when one the wrong size on the wrong trajectory will destroy a city or populated area, even a small country.

There are supervolcanoes and they do erupt - not sure why people seem to think it won't affect the UK if it happens, as we are directly in the firing line of one of those most likely to blow,

Tsunamis - massive tsunamis have hit the Uk in the past, and are likely to do so again, why would they not? Especially as their origin and cause is very unclear,

We are very lucky in that we have been relatively safe in the recent few hundred years, but its very naive to assume we can take it for granted we always will be. And what we gain in terms of relative geographical security, we lose in terms or resilience and preparedness, so in some ways are more vulnerable to natural disasters than societies that plan for and expect them

( and that is before we even begin on the possibilities of man made disasters.....)

Why have you got two threads running trying to get everyone panicking about natural disasters?

No one wants to worry about this shit! Sorry!

I’m kicking myself for even replying 🤦🏽‍♀️

No I am not - my other thread is about the fact that any one of us could be a refugee by this time next year, and was getting bogged down in whether or not the UK could have a devastating natural disaster, and I had assumed that everyone educated would realise that it could, however, apparently not, so I started another thread to explain that the UK can also have natural disasters separately to the discussion about empathy for refugees

not silly at all, it could be, and as I have explained, I have taught geography. This is a fact. This is in the geography GCSE - at least it was when I taught it

Frankly, I’m now concerned that you’ve taught geography but don’t seem to have much grasp of statistics - which is a big part of both human and physical geography.

Longshore drift and coastal erosion are also parts of the geography GCSE. And Favelas. Both more prevalent than any of the catastrophes you seem to be focusing upon.

Meanwhile, some 20,000 people a year die because of air pollution. We can do something about that, whereas we can’t prevent tsunamis, meteors or earthquakes. We can also do things to reduce the risk of flash flooding.

What is the point of this? Yes we are lucky, no we are not immune:
Forest/wild fires
we had them last year, and they will come back and be worse as the climate changes
No dangerous animals
that could change by this time next week if rabies gets into the urban fox and rat population
Earth quakes /volcanos (as not on fault lines)
earth quakes, yes, and volcanoes, the eruption does not have to be on our land to destroy our land
No very cold weather
see answer 1
No very hot weather
see answer 1
No hurricanes
see answer 1
No sink holes of any size
No insect plagues (locusts eyc)
see answer 1
No mosquitos/malaria
malaria was eradicated from UK relatively recently, and there is a constant, continuous effort to prevent malaria carrying mosquitoes reestablishing themselves here, which is becoming harder and harder, see answer 1
Minimal poisonous plants
We are an island so insulated from much illegal imigration compared to other countries so aren't forced to do an equal share of that aid.
neither of these are likely to force people to become refugees.

I don't worry about these things, but I dont take safety for granted either

The point I am trying to make is that so many posters see our luck as some form of moral superiority and don't realise that is is just luck, and will one day run out

Tsunamis, meteors and earthquakes...just another day of mild peril on MN. 🙄

As I explained, I started a thread pointing out any of us could be refugees by this time next year, and was so shocked that so many posters on that thread were saying no we couldn't nothing bad could possibly happen to us in the UK, and I didn't want to distract from that thread arguing about it there.

We don't have any sort of magical protection or charmed lives.

Come on @Nevermay it's so very unlikely and even it did we'd all be dead.

So the end.

There are no active volcanoes in the UK. The two nearest active volcanoes are a 1,000 miles away on Sicily and in Iceland.

The Icelandic volcano ash cloud in 2010 disrupted air travel in western Europe for 5 days. After that, apart from some effects on agriculture in part of Iceland, everything went back to normal.

Should a supervolcano erupt, thousands of miles away, where any possible such features might exist, any effects on the UK would be equalled or surpassed in other countries and UK citizens would be going nowhere.

🍿

So what do you want us to do? Spend our lives worried about meteor strikes and tsunamis? Become peepers for some reason?

🙄

Enjoying a good degree of geological stability it just a matter of fact, it's not an expression of moral superiority.

I reckon OP thought they'd found a novel? /convincing? argument for welcoming asylum seekers, but it was based on incorrect claims about facts. This was pointed out.

Now OP doesn't want to admit to being wrong, on either thread they started, and is doubling down.

I guess we are overdue a sharknado too.

We do have wildfires, which are destructive to ecology and property, but I don't recall any deaths in wildfires in the UK.

Extreme heat does kill people in the UK and such weather events are likely to become more common. But the same is true in other countries. Studies of heat related deaths in 2022 showed that figures were worst in southern Europe but surprisingly high in the Baltic states, for instance.

Sharknado 6: Fish and Brits.

If you're trying to persuade people to be more empathetic to refugees, I don't think proposing scenarios that may possibly happen long after we are all dead is the way to do it.

It's not a very relatable scenario.

I agreed with some of your basic premise about luck and compassion etc, but you lost me at volcanoes and 30,000 year timelines.

Might not get a tsunami, but another East Coast Inundation would cause a huge amount of damage!

UK has flooded many times before.
www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/north-sea-flood-1953#:~:text=The%20scale%20of%20the%20flooding,killed%2C%20and%20307%20people%20died.

You mean like the Mt Tambora eruption of 1815?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora

it is fascinating how this volcano had such a significant impact eg Irish potato famine, impact on napoleonic wars, changing US settlement patterns etc

So where is this super volcano that we are apparently in direct firing line of?

We have had forest but it's not a common occurence. floods are a risk. Last hurricane was 1987. There have been minimal sinkholes, not on a large scale. So I do agree with you for the most part.