Interestingly, the process of innovation does not only help people evade threats identified in the past, but it also creates new hazards that sometimes cannot be predicted or eradicated. Some of the most common new threats that have to be considered are biological, chemical, nuclear, and terrorism-related (including cyberattacks as well). The scope of all these attacks might be different, but they are all equally damaging because more than half of these calamities cannot be prevented or predicted. Nevertheless, the amount of information that one might collect when assessing the threat has increased significantly since the 1950s. The increasing burden of responsibility is affecting people to an extent where they cannot cope with the complications caused by the newly identified issues. Emergency management nowadays represents a multi-agency collaboration that cannot be either evaded or simplified.
With the help of preparedness efforts, though, humans have significantly improved the validity and effectiveness of emergency planning, as responses became much more coordinated and intense. People interact with each other based on their fortes and make decisions regarding natural disasters only after communicating with all the possible agencies from the region. One of the calamities that only started affecting human life not so long ago is solar flares. The damage the latter can do to satellites is hard to recover because of the huge costs associated with space-related initiatives. Even the country’s national security could be eventually compromised if some of the satellites went down, so the implications of modern natural calamities seem to be even broader than expected. Humanity should remain vigilant because reliance on technology is not enough to prevent natural disasters and other threats, such as cybercrimes or terrorism.
