Abstract
The environment as hazard has been under intensive study for some 20 years, and has mostly focused on natural hazards. Industrialized countries exhibit a pattern of declining death rates and increasing damage, despite substantial investment in technical means for coping. In developing countries, both damage and deaths are high. A conceptual model in which hazard events and consequences arise from the interaction of environment and society and are mediated by coping actions helps to explain these divergences. The observed and perceived experience are described for each of the model elements.
The paper concludes with an observation that for most people everywhere, on balance, the everyday is more secure, the exceptional may be less so; and with a deep concern that the central role of experience as social learning in coping with the hazards of the natural environment is a missing ingredient in coping with the newly created or recognized hazards of technology.
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© 1976 Plenum Press, New York
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Kates, R.W. (1976). Experiencing the Environment as Hazard. In: Wapner, S., Cohen, S.B., Kaplan, B. (eds) Experiencing the Environment. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-4259-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-4259-5_7
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