Disclaimer: The entirety of this post is composed of personal perceptions and experiences. It is advised to the reader to consume the contents with caution.
I have grown up in Istanbul, which is a megacity with an estimated population of around 15.5 million (unofficial numbers go as high up as 20 million). This is a monstrous city laden with different kinds of uncertainties ranging from daily violence (including mugging, casual harassment and road-rage) to natural hazards. However, one prominent hazard with a high degree of uncertainty has, and always will, dominate Istanbulites’ lives: Earthquake. The western-most part of North Anatolian Fault (NAF), which is an active fault system, crosses Marmara Sea and known to generate devastating earthquakes in Istanbul throughout the history. Apart from the inherent uncertainties of a multicultural, densely packed megacity, a constant threat of a significant earthquake would be expected to shape its inhabitants’ perception of risk and uncertainty. It did not.
The last great earthquake NAF produced was a 7.6 moment magnitude earthquake on 17.09.1999 in Izmit, an industrial city east of Istanbul. Approximately 17.000 people have lost their lives, the economy and infrastructure took heavy tolls. After this devastating earthquake, building codes, disaster funds of the government and insurance schemes have undergone a comprehensive renovation. Earthquake preparedness was integrated into public education system starting from the elementary level. All was good, on paper.
Fast forward 20 years, any Istanbulite one asks on the street about earthquake preparedness will give more or less the same answer: “Well, earthquake will hit us at some point in life, that’s for sure. But we don’t know exactly when, do we?”. This seemingly simple answer holds a fundamental essence of our perception of large scale events of high uncertainty. The complex structure of NAF at the bottom of Marmara Sea makes it hard to observe but nevertheless geologists and geophysicists are saying that statistically, there is a 60% probability of an earthquake with a moment magnitude greater that 7 happening in the vicinity of Istanbul by the end 2030. Even from an uneducated point of view, this is a high probability of occurrence for a hazard, which drives the risk point of it in high values (remember that risk is calculated as H*E*V, where H is probability of the hazard occurring, E is the exposure of the community to that hazard and V is the vulnerability of the community in the face of the hazard). Given all the facts, one would expect that under the weight of an uncertainty of a devasting event, people would take adequate measures. Unfortunately, that is not the case. My mother is an architect and my father is a geologist, so in theory they are the perfect mix of assessing the risks of an seismic event. However, even though they are very well aware of the risk, they take minimal actions towards mitigation. Unfortunately, they are one of the least risk aware persons I have ever known regarding this situation. Let me try to summarize the thought patterns behind this “uncertainty ignorance”, which I believe can be a primitive insight into the problematic relationship between humans and a large scale event. Again, I have to warn the readers that these are purely empirical assumptions.
Uncertainty is high enough: This line of thought is the most familiar one, as it hides behind the uncertainty of the event and justifying its inability to take action with the large time dependent uncertainty of the event. Their main argument is: “Well, the earthquake can hit tomorrow but it can also hit 100 years from now, doesn’t it? Why prepare now?”. It is a perfect example of political idleness towards climate change mitigation. An adversity is due to happen in 80 years which, mind you, has a high uncertainty. Why bother?
Does it matter?: Members of this school of thought has to get some credit, as they have some kind of reason. Basically, their argumentation is funded upon the fact that the government should lead the way in large scale mitigation efforts and personal mitigation efforts are rendered microscopic compared to city or country wide mitigation efforts. They believe that unless the government take action, personal efforts of mitigation, no matter how aggressive they are, makes no sense. They say that even though they move to a more resilient house, have a family evacuation plan and keep an emergency supply bag in the bedroom, earthquake could hit while they are in a building other than their house and since they can’t chose the place they are when earthquake hits, it’s the government’s job to improve the building stock.
Earthquake is a high uncertain, low probability, one-hit event. Climate change, on the other hand, is an event that has diverse effects spread out in different timescales and magnitudes. A society reacting laxly to a one-hit event with a high sample size of past occurrences is surely bound to ignore a event that is hard to quantify in terms of evident effects (not including the paleoclimatic records). The focus, then, should be on how to deal with this ignorance.
Thank you for sharing your personal perceptions Deniz! I really enjoyed reading about your personal experience of how uncertainty negatively impacts the risk awareness towards earthquakes. In my essay I looked at a similar problem but on a different scale. Your post made me realize that the problem of not acting due to forecast uncertainty is a problem on many scales and needs respective solutions. The fear of acting in vain has a similar paralyzing effect on individuals as it does for instance on governments or humanitarian organizations. This fear of acting in vain is often coupled with a lack of clear responsibility division and a misinterpretation of forecast uncertainty.
I think that one solution to deal with the risk ignorance of extreme events could be a clearer communication to reach a mutual understanding between the different actors involved. In my opinion, one of the biggest challenges is to bring all actors involved into precautionary action together to discuss topics such as the forecast accuracy, willingness to act in vain, possible actions and their time scales and available financial resources. In this discussion, suitable actions, and clear responsibilities to implement them could be defined. It is also essential to communicate the information to the public and explain to them what their options and possible consequences are.
This is just one idea to deal with the “uncertainty ignorance” you mentioned. I think that one can find many parallels between the ignorance towards risk from extreme events and the risk from climate change. It remains a challenge, but I think that clearer communication is part of the solution for both problems.
I really like the post and thank you for sharing your perception with us !
As you did, the comparison towards chlimate change can be clearly made and one can see a lot of similiarities how mitigation is hindered by the same uncertainties in both cases. However, I think the problem lies again with the spatial and temporal scope of the Climate crisis.
Earthquakes hit local areas mostly (neglecting large-scale tsunami waves) and eventhough the damage can be high near the epicentre, the rest of the world is not really affected. Worldwide cumulative damages and losses due to ongoing global warming however may exceed those by far. It’s the local damage however that gets the attention and may result in action.
Furthermore, earthquakes could be seen as single large events that have high impacts. Global temperatures rise however slowly (but steadily). Neglecting extreme weather events, the impacts of global warming will not be visible from one day to another: The climate crisis creeps away until it is already too late for strong mitigation.