Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
to the developing countries. This broader approach to the problems of disasters has
resulted in the report Living with Risk: A global review of disaster reduction ini-
tiatives. Published in 2004, this report has con
rmed the importance, even in cases
of technological disasters, of the creation of national and international early
warnings systems and procedures to cope with possible emergencies.
19
The occurrence of technological accidents was also the result of the inevitable
and unpredictable character of technological systems themselves. Increasingly
complex, these systems consist of multiple elements that because of to their
structural features make it dif
cult if not impossible, effective security controls.
With the result that accidents, more and more dif
cult to predict, have become
“
normal events
”
. Moreover, according to some sociological interpretations, at this
stage dif
culties arise not only in the perception and risk assessment but also in risk
management: the traditional external risks of the industrial society, that national
institutions were able to anticipate and manage
—
for example through welfare
policies or through safety legislation
in this stage have been multiplied. Compared
with the old industrial risks this new typology of threats, as result of technological
progress, the so-called manufactured risks, are much more dif
—
cult to predict and
their negative impact can be multiplied by the fragmentation of powers and
responsibilities in the prevention and management of security.
20
According to some literature, the increasing impact of technological disasters has
also been caused by specic decisions of main developed countries in the man-
agement of risks. Faced with dif
culties in the regulation of technological risks,
many governments adopted a neoconservative and neoliberal approach to these
issues and gradually shifted the responsibility for protecting against risks from
public agencies to individuals. This new prudential tendency is one of the traits that
characterize the society of risk and uncertainty and postmodern ethics.
Technological accidents in the transport sector are an example of the new approach
of the neo-liberal approach to risk management. Some technological accidents were
an indirect consequence of marketing strategies harmful for the safety of consumers.
An example this conduct is the case of the Ford Pinto motor vehicles models that
were produced by the General Motors industries in 1970s. For a defect in design, these
low-cost cars, that were conceived to a large segment of the market, had a high risk
of
re and explode in case of collision. Despite being aware of a defect in design, and
although this might con
ict with the principle of acceptable risk, the manufacturer
decided
—
it was said on a cold analysis of cost-bene
t analysis
—
not to intervene.
The model was
nally withdrawn from the market only in 1978 after numerous
accidents, many of them fatal, and after that a journalist had denounced executives of
Ford motor to have deliberately produced a
. The case of the Ford Pinto
became for some interpretations a symbol of criminal behavior of the great corpo-
rations and for other ones a classic example of bad decision-making processes.
21
“
retrap
”
19
United Nations Of
ce for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) (
2004
).
20
Kates et al. (
1985
).
21
Dowie (
1977
), Strobel (
1980
), Gioia (
1996
) and Lee (
1998
).
