Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The most recent consensus in the hazards research fi eld includes the following
propositions: (i) There is no trade-off between human well-being and environmental
quality; in fact, there is a direct correlation between the two; (ii) The same social
structures that cause inequality and poverty are also responsible for environmental
degradation and inequitable resource distribution; (iii) Attempts at controlling and
subduing nature by technically trained policy elites have in fact exchanged low
intensity, high frequency environmental hazards, with high intensity but low fre-
quency disasters; (iv) The damage and suffering from environmental hazards is
caused by the dissonance between human social systems and the ecological systems
in which they exist; (v) Allowing technically trained professionals the exclusive
authority over technological or environmental hazards is a mistake. Participatory
decision making informed, but not controlled, by scientifi c research is a must;
(vi) The power/knowledge dynamics between hazards managers and disaster victims
are important determinants of the geographies of vulnerability; and (vii) Policies
directed towards ensuring social justice and environmental quality are the best
guarantees against the damage and suffering caused by environmental hazards.
With the recent spate of mega disasters, there is an increasing demand for
hazards' geographers skills and research outputs to educate the policymakers about
vulnerability reduction and DRR so that the existing hazards/disasters paradigm
moves from being reactive to proactive. Some of the major research themes being
pursued to satisfy the demand for DRR strategies include development of quantifi -
able vulnerability indices (e.g., see Adger, 2006) and adaptation to climate change
(O'Brien et al., 2006) and the accompanying need for greater communication
between the epistemic communities of climate change, hazards research, and devel-
opment (Schipper and Pelling, 2006). Vulnerability reduction and DRR are emerg-
ing areas of research within geographical hazards research with immediate policy
implications. Geographical research on post-disaster relief and reconstruction from
political ecological, post-structuralist and more practical orientations, promise to
not only provide for more resilient communities, but also to point to the material
and discursive root causes for unsafe conditions, which spawn the geographies of
vulnerability in the fi rst place.
Environmental hazards have been and will continue to be part of the human
condition. The issue is whether humans will tackle the prospect of environmental
extremes with arrogance and misplaced belief in technology, as they have in the
recent past or will they approach their relationship with the environment and
perhaps even technology with humility, refl exivity and respect. Greed and injustice
render the weakest segments of the society differentially more vulnerable to hazards,
just as the same lead to environmental degradation and hence more intense extreme
events. Socially and ecologically sustainable development and not technical sophis-
tication may yet be the best guarantee for a safer environment.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adger, W. N. (2006) Vulnerability.
Global Environmental Change
, 16, 268-81.
Alexander, D. (2002) Nature's impartiality, man's inhumanity; refl ections on terrorism and
world crisis in a context of historical disaster.
Disasters
, 26(1), 1-9.
Baxter, J. and Greenlaw, K. (2005)
Explaining perceptions of a technological environmental
hazard using comparative analysis.
The Canadian Geographer
, 49(1), 61-80.
