ABSTRACT
Over the past several millenniums we have been adapting ourselves to an ever-changing environment that has been wrought with natural dangers. This adaptation process as a survival mechanism has not been easy. As Malthus pointed out just over 100 years ago, we were kept in check by a trade-off of population growth with food supply and natural disasters. Once the food problem was more or less solved along with major breakthroughs in controlling infectious diseases, we were left with only one ‘‘restraint’’; namely, natural disasters. Who would have thought then that given our increasing control over our environments such natural disasters would have increased in number and intensity? Could it be that the ‘‘checks and balances’’ that Malthus spoke about are still in place despite all our efforts? Also despite all our efforts, we continue to seek ways of adding to our survival repertoire, and as I have pointed out, we now have organizations whose sole purpose is to minimize damage from various forms of disasters. These organization are for the most part bureaucratic in form and style. More recently, they have been populated by a new cadre of public servants called emergency or disaster managers, from which a whole new world of survival strategies has evolved.
