I'm re-reading the Discworld series for reasons, and honestly the most relatable part of reading these as an adult is how many of the protagonists start out being tired, used to their little routine and vaguely disgruntled by the interruption of the Plot. Sam Vimes wants to lie drunk in a gutter and absolutely doesn't want to be arresting dragons. Rincewind is yanked into every situation he's ever encountered, though he'd much rather be lying in a gutter too. (Minus the alcohol. Plus regretting everything he's ever done said witnessed or even heard about fourth-hand in his whole life.) Granny Weatherwax is deeply suspicious of foreign parts and that includes the next town over; Nanny has leaned into the armor of "nothing ever happens to jolly grannies who terrorize their daughters-in-law and make Saucy Jokes"
Only the young people don't seem to have picked up on this---and that's fortunate, because someone has to run around making things happen, if only so Vimes and Granny and Rincewind have a reason to get up (complaining bitterly the whole time) and put it all to rights. Without Carrot, Margrat, Eric, etc. these characters don't have that reason; they're likely to stay in the metaphorical gutter and keep wondering where it all went wrong or why anything has to change.
............well, that's not quite true. You get the sense that Vetinari knows how much certain people hate the Plot. And as the person sitting behind the metaphorical lighting board of Ankh-Morpork, he takes no small pleasure in forcing the Plot-haters specifically to stand up, and say some lines.
5K notes
·
View notes
Since the 1960s, the world has seen a spike in the number of natural disasters, largely due to rising sea levels and an ever gradually increasing global surface temperature.
The good news? We’re getting better at helping each other when disasters strike.
According to a recent study from Our World In Data, the global toll from natural disasters has dramatically dropped in the last century.
“Low-frequency, high-impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are not preventable, but such high losses of human life are,” wrote lead authors Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado.
To conduct their research, Ritchie and Rosado gathered data from all geophysical, meteorological, and climate-related disasters since 1900. That includes earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides, drought, wildfires, severe storms, and mass floods.
In the early-to-mid 20th century, the average annual death toll from disasters was very high, often climbing to over a million.
For example, the study cites that in 1931, 2.7 million people died from the Yangtze–Huai River floods. In 1943, 1.9 million died from the Bangladeshi famine of 1943. Even low-frequency events had extreme death tolls.
“In recent decades we have seen a substantial decline in deaths,” Ritchie and Rosado observed. “Even in peak years with high-impact events, the death toll has not exceeded 500,000 since the mid-1960s.”
Why has the global death toll from disasters dropped?
There are a number of factors at play in the improvement of disaster aid, but the leading component is that human beings are getting better at predicting and preparing for natural disasters.
“We know from historical data that the world has seen a significant reduction in disaster deaths through earlier prediction, more resilient infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and response systems,” Ritchie and Rosado explained in their study.
On April 6, [2024],a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked the city of Hualien in Taiwan. Days later, as search and rescue continues, the death toll currently rests at 16.
Experts have praised Taiwan for their speedy response and recovery, and attributed the low death toll to the measures that Taiwan implemented after an earthquake of similar strength hit the city 25 years earlier. Sadly, on that day in 1999, 2,400 people died and 11,000 were injured.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Wang Yu — assistant professor at National Taiwan University — said that event, known as the Chi-Chi earthquake, revolutionized the way Taiwan approached natural disasters.
“There were lots of lessons we learned, including the improvement of building codes, understanding earthquake warning signs, the development and implementation of earthquake early warning (EEW) systems and earthquake education,” said Wang.
Those same sensors and monitoring systems allowed authorities to create “shakemaps” during Hualien’s latest earthquake, which helped them direct rescue teams to the regions that were hit the hardest.
This, in conjunction with stronger building codes, regular earthquake drills, and public education campaigns, played a huge role in reducing the number of deaths from the event.
And Taiwan’s safeguards on April 6 are just one example of recent measures against disasters. Similar models in strengthening prediction, preparedness, and recovery time have been employed around the world when it comes to rescuing victims of floods, wildfires, tornados, and so on.
What else can we learn from this study?
When concluding the findings from their study, Ritchie and Rosado emphasized the importance of increasing safety measures for everyone.
Currently, there is still a divide between populations with high gross national income and populations living in extreme poverty.
Even low-income countries that infrequently have natural disasters have a much higher death rate because they are vulnerable to collapse, displacement, and disrepair.
“Those at low incomes are often the most vulnerable to disaster events; improving living standards, infrastructure, and response systems in these regions will be key to preventing deaths from natural disasters in the coming decades,” surmised Ritchie and Rosado.
“Overall development, poverty alleviation, and knowledge-sharing of how to increase resilience to natural disasters will therefore be key to reducing the toll of disasters in the decades to come."
-via GoodGoodGood, April 11, 2024
459 notes
·
View notes
The hero's sword arc of Frieren is only a single chapter but it's probably the chapter I think about the most... You have the classic sword in the stone that can only be pulled by the hero who is destined to save the world. So of course Himmel, the legendary hero, is the one who freed it.
Except: he didn't. He failed. He couldn't pull the sword from the stone. He wasn't the prophesied hero who would save the world.
And he went, okay, well, people really need a hero right now. So I'll just pretend to be one anyway. It doesn't really matter if I'm a fake or not if either way we're helping people.
And he did. He was a pretend hero. And they saved the world.
And now eighty years later there is no one left to remember that he never pulled the sword from the stone at all. It's easier to believe that he did, because he saved the world, so he must have been the destined hero. But he wasn't. The sword saw him and rejected him, and he simply went on anyway, because he wanted to help people, and that's what it takes in the end to be a hero, really. The four of them saved the world, and the true hero's sword sits quietly in a cave somewhere, rusting away, forever, unneeded.
340 notes
·
View notes