By Kevin Blanchard, a Fellow at the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS), is an M.Sc in Environment, Politics & Globalisation. He is a Senior Policy Advisor (Disaster Risk Reduction) and Communication Lead #NoNaturalDisasters, UK.
2020 has seen its fair share of newsworthy disaster or emergency events, from the bushfires in Australia, flooding in Kerala, the catastrophic industrial explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, or the global pandemic – COVID-19. All of these events have made headlines around the world and have required national and international action by governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other actors (the media, private sector, etc.).
However, somewhat concerning is how these events have been reported in mainstream media through government, NGOs and international organizations’ press releases and briefings. The way information is disseminated through these documents and articles could lead public members to see these events’ impacts as entirely out of control. Indeed, the deaths, injuries and economic disruption are all too often reported as an inevitable result of these hazards and that there was little or nothing that could have been done to stop them. Of course, as disaster risk reduction and emergency management practitioners,
policy-makers and academics know this is not the case. Hazards, irrespective of their classification (natural, technological, biological etc.), do not have to turn into disasters, and their impacts can and have been mitigated, are often predicted, and we as a society very often have the tools to reduce the risks and impacts associated with them.
If we look at the examples listed above, all of those hazards need not have become disasters or emergencies at the scale they were. A well-developed and widely adhered-to planning policy in Australia could have lessened the bushfires’ impact and reduced the hazard’s risk impacting so many populated areas. It has been suggested that the explosion in Beirut might not have happened if correct procedures for chemical storage had been observed, and even COVID-19 (at the time of writing) has been linked to actions taken by humans and the processes and procedures at the Wuhan Wet Market that lead to a “pathogen spillover event” caused by mixed containment of animals likely to have been a reservoir and host populations.
If we accept a widely-used definition of what a disaster is, then our involvement in its impact is undeniable:
“A … sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its resources.”
This definition clarifies that a hazard can only become a disaster once it impacts society or the community. People need to be impacted by a hazard before we can consider it a disaster. Therefore, the point at which the hazardous event interacts with human society is when a disaster can occur, especially if that society, or sections of it, are vulnerable to the effects of that hazard. Indeed, vulnerability is the core factor in creating disasters, and similarly, elimination of vulnerability reduces the risks associated with those hazards.
The campaign #NoNaturalDisasters campaign started back in the 1700s when there was an initial recognition that the cause of a disaster might be something other than a natural process. In a letter between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François-Marie Arouet (a.k.a Voltaire) in 1756 discussing the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, Rousseau states.
‘… nature did not construct twenty thousand houses of six to seven stories […], and that if inhabitants of this great city were more equally spread out and more lightly lodged, the damage would have been much less and perhaps to no account…’
Indeed, the idea that disasters are not natural but are, in reality, caused by human decisions, is gaining momentum.
Fast forward to the present day and the #NoNaturalDisasters consolidated online campaign using social media as a platform for sharing the evidence, background and message that disasters are not natural are gaining momentum throughout the disaster risk reduction, humanitarian and climate change communities of academics, practitioners and policy-makers.
The way these disasters have been reported within mainstream media, and within many governments, briefings affect public perception of the risks associated with the hazards we face daily. It also defines and limits the discourse associated with these events, making it critical that the correct terminology is used. This means that the reporting of these events is vital because it shapes public perception of how disasters are related to issues such as climate change, rapid urbanization, environmental degradation and global population growth.
Our research has shown that this incorrect use of terminology is particularly common in organizations focused on responding and recovery from disaster events. As such, the latest phase of the #NoNaturalDisasters campaign has been to focus on the workplace. Ensuring the correct use of terms within the disaster risk reduction or humanitarian sector is vitally important. Many of the issues discussed or communicated within our workplaces are often complex and multi-faceted with numerous historical inputs and nuances that may or may not be applicable in contemporary language.
The phrase ‘natural disaster’ is one such example of this. The term has been used by DRR and humanitarian professionals, policy-makers, the media and even the dictionary for decades, and, as such, it is widespread and often ingrained into the day-to-day workings of the majority of workplaces.
In many of those settings, the use of ‘natural’ to describe the impacts of a hazard or emergency event is being used incorrectly. The reinforcement of that word through daily conversations, emails, presentations, and other workplace communication fails to reflect that the disaster (e.g., the impact of the naturally-occurring hazard) is not natural and is instead caused by anthropogenic decisions through planning, policy and research.
This lack of awareness becomes even more pronounced when discussed in externally-facing communication. Whether through external publications, job titles or social media, the use of ‘natural’ to describe disasters, when consumed by people not working in the sector, only reinforces the message that disasters are an inevitable part of life. As such, part of the wider #NoNaturalDisasters discussion will now begin to focus on the workplace and how the description of disasters is framed both on internal and external-facing communications. Covering communication from conversations, emails, job titles and presentations, the #NoNaturalDisasters in the Workplace campaign aims to educate through the provision of tool kits, online resources, evidence and discussions to allow anyone wanting to spread the #NoNaturalDisasters message to do so within their place of work, to colleagues or elsewhere.
The campaign around #NoNaturalDisasters is growing in terms of its visibility, the resources and tools it offers for people to start to a discussion around why disasters are not natural, and it also continues to grow and adapt to the complex and often multi-sectoral background of disaster risk reduction and preparedness building we experience in modern times.
