Sociology of Disaster 3560

Sociology of Disaster 3560 - Day After Tomorrow

Day after tomorrow ' was a movie in 2004 about disastrous repercussions due to the worsening of global warming . It starts out with a government climatologist Jack Hall discovering that the world as we know it was at the brink of drastic climate change . The Whitehouse initially pays Hall 's warnings and suggestions for mass evacuations no heed until his predictions start coming true on a massive scale . Severe flooding wipes out New York city as treacherous frost and hail storms threaten other parts of the

globe . Amidst all the panic , Jack Hall makes an attempt to brave the disaster to rescue his son , Sam who was stuck with his friends in a public library

This analyzed if events that transpired in the film fits the five disaster myths as enumerated by Mitchell et al (2000 , these five myths are

Dramatic high energy events not exactly significant in global terms

Large scale impacts rather than small events

Using death tolls as the most reliable statistic

The unpredictability of natural events and powerlessness of humans

The technocratic approach as the most valued solution

- taken from SPDD International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters

On the first myth , Day After Tomorrow ' does not seem to fit the category . Firstly , there was ample emphasis that the impeding disaster was of global importance at the onset of the film . Jack Hall emphasized the effects of global warming and its contribution to a possible drastic climate change . The discussion on how the global warming effects were affecting the underwater currents and how this event will trigger drastic climate change to the extreme detriment of people significantly above the equator is not far from the current factual discussions regarding the issue . The resulting disaster itself was of global concern since it was shown to ravage not only New York or the North America for that matter but also Northern Europe with its gigantic hail storms killer storms and blood freezing frost

The second myth can somewhat be seen in the movie . From the people in the library who were with Jack Hall 's kids to the Englishmen somewhere in Northern Europe who were monitoring the events and were eventually trapped in the disaster , Day After Tomorrow ' clearly portrayed the drastic climate change as a global event with large scale impacts However , its portrayal was varied and well differentiated throughout different parts of the globe . In fact , the movie itself although appearing doomsday-ish in the previews was actually quite reasonable with their explanations as to which parts of the world were being heavily hit and why . In fact , even the countries south and near the equator were also shown to have been affected but it was clearly explained why the effects for them was not disastrous as it was for the countries in the northern hemisphere

The death toll statistic was not really used in the movie . Portrayal of the extent at which the disaster wrought havoc was realistically...