Tsunami Disaster - False Alternatives from Cultural Commentators
Warren Ross 

Capitalism Magazine, January 3, 2005

The tsunami disaster is generating a confusing cacaphony of voices from both the Left and the Right asserting what seem to be contradictory positions. Man caused the disaster say the environmentalists. Man is small compared to the awesome power of nature say voices on both the Left and the Right. Which is it? And how do we reconcile the two positions? 

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Do we really need a state sponsored warning system?
Jim Peron
Institute for Liberal Values, New Zealand, January 2, 2005

Seismologists said they knew within minutes that a tsunami was a real threat. In spite of that, people died hours later even though only a few minutes warning was all that was needed to save their lives. The consensus seems to be that no official warning system existed. 
That appears true. And many people see this as a failure of government. But more went on here than is first apparent. Why was an "official" channel of warning necessary? 

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Government-Enhanced Disaster
Timothy D. Terrell

Ludwig von Mises Institute, Posted December 31, 2004 

Many have noticed that poorer nations are more severely affected by natural cataclysms than developed nations. Earthquakes, tropical cyclones, tsunamis, and flooding strike the wealthiest as well as the poorest nations, but the loss of life can be much higher where income is low. 

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Why We Need Politics: The tsunami's sorrows will need more than pity 
Daniel Henninger 

The Wall Street Journal Online, Friday, December 31, 2004 
A very long time ago, before what we would call modern civilization, people ravaged by the sea, as in South Asia on Christmas Day, blamed it on the gods. The god of the sea, their poets might write, had lifted the water with his hands to rage at some mortal slight, and shaken it, like a quilt across a bed. 
Today, we know for a fact that these deaths in South Asia were caused by the violent movement of tectonic plates--dumb, unfeeling nature precisely measurable at 9.0--and by the failure of men to put in place for these coastal nations technologies that announce the onset of tsunamis. Because the gods didn't do this, the sense of loss is total. 

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Tsunami Exposes the Nihilism of Environmentalism
Eric Englund 

LewRockwell.com, 31 December 2004

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that set off the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami also set off Jeff McNeely – chief scientist of the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN). In Mr. McNeely’s December 27, 2004 interview with AFP – the Paris-based news service – he exposed himself as the nihilistic, anti-human, irrational, and biocentric hack so commonly found in the environmental movement. With such a monumental human tragedy unfolding, Jeff McNeely found this an opportune time to place undue blame on the victims themselves – because, in essence, the victims weren’t eco-friendly. 

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Are Tsunamis Good for the Economy?
Chris Westley

Ludwig von Mises Institute, Posted December 30, 2004

I didn't think anyone would dare to apply the Bastiat's Broken Window fallacy to the human tragedy that is still playing itself out along the rim of the Indian Ocean, but sadly, faith in economic fallacies is even more common than deadly tsunamis. That is why I was surprised to hear the Institute for International Economics' C. Fred Bergsten (December 29th) on National Public Radio's Morning Edition explain how this crisis would actually provide long-term benefit to that region of the world. Bergsten said , 

"Like any disaster, you get negative effects through destroying existing property and people's health, but you do get a burst of new economic activity to replace them, and on balance, that generally turns out to be quite positive." 

To be fair, Bergsten admitted this disaster is, above all, a human tragedy, but his comments ignore other effects that will result when positive economic growth results from any disaster, whether it occurs due to a matter of policy (wars) or to unanticipated changes in the physical environment (tsunamis). 

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How Tsunami shook Indian economy 
The Economic Times

INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK, Thursday, December 30, 2004 

Fishing villages have been wiped out and money-spinning tourist resorts wrecked, but the economic cost of the giant seismic waves that swamped coasts across south Asia will be much smaller than the human toll. 

Sri Lanka's economy will be hardest hit and Thailand's important tourism industry will have to pick itself up again after suffering setbacks. The immediate impact on Indian economy is seen as negligible. 

But overall, South Asia's economies and markets are likely to suffer the most from the disaster, in which more than 70,000 people died after the strongest earthquake in 40 years sent a wall of water surging across the Indian Ocean. 

India Inc felt that estimated losses will top Rs 3,000 crore (USD 700 million).

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A Tsunami to Our Priorities
Fredrik Segerfeldt 

TechCentralStation.com, December 29, 2004 

A few days after the Asian earthquake disaster, with perhaps as many as 100,000 casualties, the human losses and the struggle of the survivors are what occupy most of our minds. I myself have acquaintances who are still missing from the Thai beaches of Kao Lak. However, I cannot help but to ruminate on some political aspects of this huge tragedy. There are several thoughts that keep popping up in my mind. 

The first one is the importance of economic growth. In Hawaii, there are reportedly technical systems that allow countries in the Pacific, like Japan and the US, to receive warnings well in advance of tsunamis reaching their shores. In combination with well-developed infrastructure, it is likely that the system would have saved many lives, had these countries been hit.

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A Great Natural Disaster: Prosperity is the best defence against a tsunami. 

The Wall Street Journal Online, REVIEW & OUTLOOK, Tuesday, December 28, 2004

The world's thoughts are with the victims of the tsunamis that swept across South Asia Sunday, killing at least 23,000 and leaving millions homeless. In the coming weeks and months, the priority must be to render the survivors every possible assistance. The response so far has been admirably swift. 
One might think that a disaster of this scale would transcend normal national or political considerations. But in the world of environmental zealotry, even an event such as this is seen as an opportunity to press the agenda. Thus, the source of the South Asian tsunami is being located in global warming. 

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When Your Mother Kills 
Carlo Stagnaro

TechCentralStation.Com, December 28, 2004 

A tsunami killed more than 40,000 in six Asian countries. Hundreds of thousands are either injured or missing. Cold numbers, however huge, cannot give you an idea of what kind of tragedy occurred. Pictures do. Corpses are lying everywhere, families are destroyed, buildings fall down. 

All of this takes our mind away from today's comforts and technologies and gives us a glimpse of the world as it was centuries, if not millennia, ago. Namely, hostile: every single moment of the human adventure on Earth is part of a struggle between man and (mother) nature. Every step forward in our history has moved us toward a more humanized world: cold has been defeated by fire; difficulty to travel has been overcome by the wheel; food scarcity has been tackled by agriculture; the need for energy mitigated by the harnessing of fuel. 

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