外刊精读87 / Scientific American / 应对灾害

Fix Disaster Response now (ineuity and capacity)

Related word:

1. record-breaking adj 破纪录
2. unable to cope with the disasters
3. disproportionately 过高，过多
4. fester 恶化
5. calamity = catastrophe 灾难
6. revamp enmergency management 修复危机管理体系
7. raise the damage threshold that triggers federal assistance.
8. mitigation or recovery funding
9. restore 修复，恢复，常用于被动语态
10. disparity 不平等，不一致 the growing disparity between rich and poor
11. remedy 补救，治疗
12. cost-benefit analysis 成本分析
13. well-to-do 有钱的

Vocabulary:

1. capacity n 容量，生产力 at full capacity 开足马力 within one's capacity 在某人的能力之内
2. bring sth to a head/ come to a head 迫在眉睫
3. bring into 使什么进入某种状态 bring sth into effect/ action/ use 开始生效/行动/使用
4. odds 机率，概率，good/ excellent 机率大
5. kick the can down the road 拖延， 回避
6. commit to 致力于 commit to the challenging work
7. be supposed to 应该做某事
8. end up 最终，可以搭配 in/up
9. prone 容易发生某种情况 be prone to sth
10. obsolete adj 废弃de
11. incorporate = include v 包含，合并
12. dedicated 专门的
13. navigate 引导，解决困难

Nice sentence：

1. Given record-breaking wildfires, hurricanes and other weather disasters that cost lives and billions of dollars during a pandemic that brought death to every corner of the world, the events in recent years stretched emergency management institutions in each country. Problems of capacity and inequity-people in low-income countries have been hit disproportionately hard- have been festering for decades to disaster preparedness. Now, with the climate crisis increasing the odds of calamities, we must stop kicking the candown the road and commit to the challening work of revamping emergency management.
2. (国际组织资源滥用）International organisations, like UN, are supposed to be the agency that steps in when disasters overwhelm local resorces, whereas countries and states handle smaller events. However, some southern countries have no specific emergency institutions, leaving them ill-equipped to prepare and respond to disaters. As a result, they form the habit of turning to international organisations easily, which ends up with fewer resources to spare when a major catastrophe does occur.
3. (解决问题的方法）To address the problem that all emergency agencies do little in advance to prepare for disasters, a certain proportion of international assistance could be as sustainable fundings to build and maintain local emergency management, earmarked for specific crucial mitigation work, such as elevating structures in flood-prone areas or building up basic hygienic services to control the cholera spread. Meanwhile, these efforts should incorporate the latest climate science, so they do not quickly become obsolete.
4. To free itself up, FEMA is now proposing to raise the damage threshold that triggers federal assitance. But that proposal simply leave local areas more vunlerable.
5. FEMA programs inadvertently entrench and exacerbate inequities because they focus on restoring private property. This approach favours high-income, typically majority white areas with more valuable homes and infrastructure over people of colour and low-income communities, which are both disproportionately affected bt diasaster and least able to recover from it. To remedy this disparity, emergency management agencies, cannot rely solely cost-benefit analyses to determine what projects to fund, because these weigh in favor of more expensive properties. They should also use other metrics, such as Socail Vulnerability Indes, which identifies the populations with the least capacity to deal with disaster.
6. Everyone, not just the well-to-do, should have the opportunity to build back their lives with the resources they need in the wake of disaster.