TEREPなど

承前*1

Peter Singer *2“Pay now to prevent tsunami disaster” Shanghai Daily 23 May 2011


このwww.project-syndicate.org配信の記事で、ピーター・シンガー氏は先ずGeoHazards InternationalというNGO*3インドネシアのパダン島で展開しているTEREP(Tsunami Evacuation Raised Earth Park)というプロジェクトに言及している。パダン島では街場から高台は離れており、低地には狭い道が入り組んでいるので、津波が来た場合事前の警報があったとしても住民が安全に避難することは難しい。TEREPは低地に人口の小山を造り、平時は公園として住民が利用し、津波が襲来した時は手近な避難場所として利用するというもの。これは”a low-cost solution to the tsunami danger in low-lying coastal areas”なのだという。
しかし、TEREPにはなかなか資金が集まらない。何故なのか。シンガー氏は2つの理由を挙げている。先ずは迫力のある絵に欠けるということ;


One reason for this is that preventing disaster does not make good television. People give to identifiable victims. If we build raised parks, we will never see the people, who, but for our aid, would have died; no orphan in desperate need will appear on the nightly news. But isn't it much better to keep parents safe than to help orphans after their parents have been killed?
また、

Another reason why we do not give to prevent disasters should be familiar to anyone who has ever delayed going to the dentist because the prospect of serious pain in the coming weeks or months just wasn't as motivating as the reluctance to face some more immediate slight discomfort.
We tell ourselves that maybe we won't get a toothache after all, even though we know that the odds are that we will.
Most of us are not very good at giving proper weight to future events, especially if they are uncertain. So we may tell ourselves that the geologists could be wrong, and perhaps no tsunami will hit Padang in the next 30 years, and by then perhaps we will have new and better technologies for predicting them, giving people more time to get higher ground.
See also http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110403/1301804644 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110522/1306035690