Megacatastrophes such as hurricane Katrina and the recent Sumatran tsunami often cause vastly more loss of life, disruption of human activities and damage than events orchestrated by terrorists. Equally or more destructive volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis have occurred throughout human history. On a longer time-scale--meteorite impacts, glacial-scale floods and massive rapid outpourings of volcanic magma have occurred on a scale to affect the entire planet and its life simultaneously. Rare, but high-consequence, events have occurred frequently enough in the evolution of human civilization to severely disrupt the fabric of lives and social structures, and will become more devastating as the population of the planet rapidly increases over the next century. We invite you to participate in an informal public forum on this timely topic. We have convened experts from our campus to address the scientific issues involved in predicting such events, how these events reveal preexisting social and economic disparities in the devastated area, practical aspects of implementing policies to plan for and recover from such events, and ways in which people and societies might cope with them.

Susan Kieffer (Geology), moderator

Sundiata Cha-Jua (African American Studies and Research Program), John Dwyer (Champaign County Public Health Department), Amr Elnashai (Mid-America Earthquake Center), Amy Gajda (Journalism and Law), Dianne Harris (Landscape Architecture), Ed Kieser (WILL) ,Greg McFarquhar (Atmospheric Sciences), Rob Olshansky (Urban and Regional Planning), Feniosky Peña-Mora (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Don Wuebbles (Atmospheric Sciences).

Images from Dianne Harris’s presentation were taken from Peirce Lewis, New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape, 2nd edition. (Santa Fe: Center for American Places; Charlottesville: Distributed by University of Virginia Press, 2003).