Stop blaming the climate for disasters
The authors 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.
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 impacts. In addition, many natural hazards are not just natural processes, but have been made more likely and more intense by human-caused climate change. This has long been recognized, yet disasters continue to be construed as an ‘Act of God’ or described as ‘natural’.