Stop blaming the climate for disasters
Communications Earth & Environment volume 3, Article number: 1 (2022 ) Cite this article
Disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability. We must acknowledge the human-made components of both vulnerability and hazard and emphasize human agency in order to proactively reduce disaster impacts.
Natural hazards such as floods, droughts and heatwaves become disasters as a result of societal vulnerability, that is, a propensity of people, societies and ecosystems to be harmed. Often, people’s social, political and economic status determines the nature of differential and disproportionate impacts1. In addition, many natural hazards are not just natural processes, but have been made more likely and more intense by human-caused climate change2. This has long been recognized3,4,5, yet disasters continue to be construed as an ‘Act of God’ or described as ‘natural’.
Here we argue that a discourse in which the role of human activity in disasters is clearly communicated—as opposed to blaming Nature or the Climate—will be more conducive to a proactive, equitable and ultimately successful approach to reducing impacts of disasters.
