Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal

Many of the points that Diaz brings up in his work are quite potent; for example, his insistence that events like the Haitian earthquake will happen again and keep happening until the collective of the first world nations re-evaluate our priorities and straighten out or until the extremely poor get wiped out by these continual events really does scare me. I agree with his point that there needs to be dramatic change in the way that we view social disasters and not just natural disasters. It was quite eye-opening to make the connections between the systematic natural destruction caused by development and over-development of areas such as Haiti and the results of the natural disasters. It seems that in times of these natural disasters, more of the world, the U.S. included, needs to behave more like the Dominican Republic and honestly try to help those in need without seeking immediate compensation. Imagine what the Dominican Republic gained monetarily from assisting Haiti; most likely not a lot. However, they serve as a superb example of the altruism that humans are capable of.