Catastrophic Misconceptions

Since Japan's earthquake/tsunami/radiation accident there has been much speculation about dangers and hazards resulting from the disasters and impacts on the rest of the planet. I'd like to address some of those concerns briefly.

• Radiation: Some background radiation was detected earlier this week at detection stations on the West Coast of the United States. The sensitive monitoring equipment picked up trace amounts of radioactive particles that are 100,000 times less powerful than the radiation we encounter each day from sources such as the sun, bricks, rocks, and our planet itself. More Information.
• What to Do During an Earthquake: Some report that during an earthquake individuals should find the "triangle of life" but this is wholly inappropriate and dangerous. The best action to take during an earthquake is to drop, cover, and hold on.
• Earth's Axis and Rotation: While the earthquake caused the earth to speed up 1.8 microseconds and the earth's axis tilted by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), these pale in comparisons to the average annual change -- Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports, "Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake. The position of Earth's figure axis also changes all the time, by about 1 meter (3.3 feet) over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake." Learn more about the regular cycles of earth wobble known as Milankovitch Cycles.
• The Next Big One: Numerous predictions have been issued about the location of the next big earthquake. Even geologist Simon Winchester has gotten into the act, predicting that the San Andreas fault is next as it has been a silent corner of the Pacific Ring of Fire (video) for a long time. While it is accurate that the San Andreas has been relatively quiet, there is no evidence that earthquakes rotate around the Pacific Ocean in any sort of cycle.
• Disaster Donations: For me personally, one of the most troubling situations following any catastrophic disaster is the large amount of donations that are given by individuals and corporations to that specific relief effort. The result is that organizations are forced to spend funds in affected area and other nonprofit organizations, such as local food banks and the like, suffer because donors give their entire annual allotment of funds to the disaster area. Articles such as Slate's Japan Doesn't Need Your Money remind me that if you want to give to disaster relief following a disaster, don't designate your funds to that disaster but give instead to an organization and allow the organization to decide how to spend the money, whether on this or other less noticed disasters around your community or around the world.

Image: Doctors move an injured earthquake survivor into the 120-bed field hospital newly built by German Red Cross for China's earthquake victims on May 26, 2008 in Sichuan Province, China. Source: Getty Images

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