All in all an interesting article, some of those catastrophes were perhaps prevented by concentrated effort (banning of DDT, campaigns against spreading HIV). B

All in all an interesting article, some of those catastrophes were perhaps prevented by concentrated effort (banning of DDT, campaigns against spreading HIV). But WTF is this: The last few years have seemed to offer a lot of lessons about human hubris. Here are some of the things that we’ve learned we can’t do safely: (a) drill for oil in mile-deep water (Deepwater Horizon), (b) build nuclear power plants on tsunami-prone coastlines (Fukushima), (c) build the world’s biggest airliner and engines (Qantas Flight 32), (d) protect cities that are below sea level from flooding (Katrina in New Orleans). a) The world's deepest oil platform is the floating Perdido which is a spar platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of 2,438 metres (7,999 ft). And it works just fine! b) Japan's coast is full of nuclear power plants which should work well unless a 1 in 1000 years earthquake strikes c) what? Didn't the flight land just ok showing how robust the platform is? During an uncontained engine failure the turbine disk isn't supposed to hit the plane. This one did and it was ok. d) The Netherlands? Hello?