Excerpted and adapted from MuseLetter 176 (December 2006) and chapter 7 of Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (New Society, 2007)
One of the most extensive meta-surveys of the psychological effects of mass trauma is Lewis Aptekar’s Environmental Disasters in Global Perspective (1994). Aptekar compared studies from traditional, “developing,” and “developed” cultures; he also explored the aftermaths of many kinds of disasters—including chronic disasters (droughts, famines), quick onset disasters (floods, fires, storms, earthquakes), and human-induced disasters (wars, toxic chemical spills, nuclear plant meltdowns).
Aptekar first dispelled misconceptions about people’s immediate responses to disasters. Looting and panic are rare; instead, people more frequently display behavior that has a clear sense of purpose and is
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