The Future of Disasters - What We Need to Know and What We Need to Do.pdf

Disasters today and in the future. Complexity, intersectionality, context and foresight. What society can do to reduce the risks.

1. Prof. David Alexander
THE FUTURE OF DISASTERS
WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW
AND WHAT WE NEED TO DO
Department of Risk
and Disaster Reduction
RDR

2. Cæsar Augustus
(63 BCE –CE 14)
"The more complex a
problem, the simpler the
solution should be."

3. H.L. Mencken
(1880-1956)
"For every complex
problem, there is an
answer that is clear,
simple, and wrong."

4. H.L. Mencken
(1880-1956)
"A professor must have
a theory as a dog must
have fleas."

5. "Human kind cannot
bear very much reality."
T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton [I], Four Quartets, 1936

6. THE END OF THE
SECOND AGE OF
ENLIGHTENMENT?

7. THE DAWN OF THE
AGE OF ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE

8. Henry Quarantelli wrote prophetically
in 1997, "Technology leads a double
life: that which its makers intended
and that which they did not intend."
Quarantelli, E.L. 1997. Problematical aspects of the
information/communication revolution for disaster planning
and research: ten non-technical issues and questions.
Disaster Prevention and Management 6(2): 94-106.

9. Artificial unintelligence (AU) has its uses, but:-
•demand for electricity and cooling water
•job losses
•PFAS emissions
•theft of intellectual property and its effect on creativity
•deskilling by automation (delegation of learning and self-
improvement to a machine)
•creation of false or inaccurate text, images and videos
•cannot adequately distinguish good from bad, acceptable
from unacceptable
•the credulity and maleability of people
•can it distinguish between true and false information, given
that the latter abounds?
•follows the agenda of money-makers not of ordinary people
In economic terms, will the AU bubble burst?

10. WHY IT IS NOT
"BUSINESS AS
USUAL"

11. Mami Mizutori,
Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction:
"…at the midpoint of the implementation of the 2015
agreements, progress has stalled and, in some cases,
reversed.
•effect of the Covid pandemic
•short-termism
•weakened multilateralism
•rising inequality
•barriers between science, perception and decision-
making
•war, insurgency and conflict

12. Covid-19: the most
complex and
pervasive disaster
for three quarters
of a century.

13. DISASTERS ARE
CAUSED BY IDEOLOGY

14. INDIVIDUALISM
self-interest
COLLECTIVE ACTION
solidarity
The age of
neoliberal
extremism

15. Politics in the service of economics
DISASTER
POLITICS ECONOMICS
SOCIAL
CONDITIONS
PHYSICAL
IMPACT
VULNERABILITY
Knowledge is ideology
Underlying risk drivers
Complexity
Ideology
•extremism
•separatism
•isolationism
•exclusion
Conflict
Climate change
Demographic change
•human mobility
Culture
Technology

16. 'ALTERNATIVE'
REALITIES

17. Self-esteem Achievement, mastery, recognition
Reconsidering Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs
Self-actualisation Talent, creativity, fulfilment
Connection Physical participation, cyber-participation
Belonging Identity, family, communities, workplace
Threat and hazard abatement Safety, security, protection
Welfare
Food, water, sanitation, shelter,
warmth, healthcare

18. Perceived
reality
Objective
reality
"Manufactured"
reality*
perceptions, leading to
opinions and actions
*the collective result of the public's choices

19. Marshall McLuhan wrote
that "the medium is the
message". Nowadays we
can say that the medium
is the conspiracy theory
- or perhaps the
'alternative fact'.
(1964)

20. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky 1988.
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy
of the Mass Media. Pantheon Books, New York.
Central question:-
What is the value and impact of good,
‘hard’ scientific information in a
[digital] age of relativism, extremism
and a lack of clear morality?

21. Do we really want a world in which:-
•our leaders are criminals, delinquents,
kleptocrats and liars
•our heroes are vacuous celebrities
•our manipulators are billionaires
•our information is fantasy and falsehood
•our ideology is toxic
•our democracies are hollowed out
•our fellow human beings would rather
look at small screens than at us
•our environment is on the slippery slope?
What does this mean for resilience?

22. RESILIENCE

23. RESILIENCE:the ability
to overcome the impacts
of large, negative events
by a combination of
resistance and adaptation.
Not the only definition, not exclusive, not
comprehensive, and not incontestable.

24. Is resilience an illusion?
It relies on the concept of
homeostasis, the innate tendency of
a system to seek equilibrium,
whatever the shocks applied to it.
In disaster risk reduction, we have
no equilibrium.

25. Herbert Simon's
homo œconomus
Bounded rationality
Satisficer
Optimiser
Ideologue
racist
suprematist
oligarch
Evolution Protest Revolution
Internet and
social media
1950s 2020s

26. Security and resilience have
no intrinsic value: their value
is in what they protect.
The paradox of vulnerability:
it exists only in relation to
specific threats and hazards.

27. To plan and prepare effectively, we
need to understand four things:-
•complexity
•cascades
•context
•foresight

28. COMPLEXITY

29. COMPLEXITY
DISASTERS
CLIMATE CHANGE
ADAPTATION
DIGITAL
INSECURITY
CASCADING
CONSEQUENCES
INTERSECTING
EVENTS
CHANGE

30. Cyber crime
(illegal activity)
deception
theft
Digital terrorism
(sabotage)
computer viruses
ransomware
Digital influence
(subversion)
spreading
false
information
Digital extremism
(on-line intervention)
conspiracy theories
character assassination
incitement to violence
MISUSE OF
THE INTERNET
AND SOCIAL
MEDIA

31. CASCADING
DISASTERS
The confluence of social and technical factors
“Digital authoritarianism”:-
•influence not sabotage (i.e., subversion)
•dissident groups AND state actors
"Digital extremism":-
•reality - perception - opinions - action
•anomie (Durkheim 1893): a condition of
instability resulting from a breakdown of
standards and values or from a lack of purpose
or ideals

32. LOSS OF
HUMAN RIGHTS
PROXY WAR,
CONFLICT &
POLARISATION
POVERTY &
MARGINALISATION
'WRECKAGE ECONOMY' &
RISE OF THE PRECARIAT
LACK OF
DISASTER
GOVERNANCE
CORRUPTION &
LOSS OF TRUSTANOMIENIHILISM
constraints upon life and safety
Anomie (Durkheim 1893) is a condition
of instability resulting from
a breakdown of standards
and values or from
a lack of purpose
or ideals.

33. Cascading impacts
and critical infrastructure

34. Critical infrastructure is the main
vehicle by which disasters
produce cascading impacts. To a greater
or lesser extent, all modern disasters are
cascading events.
If you want to understand the
risks to critical infrastructure, you
need to understand all four of its
dimensions: physical, technological,
cyber and social.

35. CRITICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
Technological
component
Social
component
Cyber
space
Physical
space

36. Wajima, Japan: Noto peninsula earthquake and floods,
January 2024: damage to critical infrastructure seriously
inhibited the provision of aid, assistance and rescue

37. Warfare:-
•confrontational (direct)
•irregular, asymmetric
•infrastructural
undersea
cyber
•technological

38. DIGITAL
WARFARE
Supported
by the state
DIGITAL
DEFENCE
Outsourced
to the private
sector
Threat
creation
Threat
detection
and control
Conducted
by the state
Outsourced
to the private
sector
Where exactly are the
opportunities for error?

39. INTERSECTIONALITY

40. Intersectionality - borrowed (with
apologies) from studies of race and
culture
Intersection of:
•forms of disaster causality
•different kinds of disaster and crisis
•disaster and its context
•disaster and social circumstances

41. INTERSECTIONALITY
SOVEREIGNTY DEMOCRACY
MOBILITY IDENTITY
HUMAN RIGHTS LEGALITY
ENTITLEMENT
ANTI-
CORRUPTION
WELFARE
COMPLEX DISASTERS

42. INTERSECTIONALITY AND CONTEXT:
An exceptionally high sensitivity to political
decisions, especially those with direct
operational consequences.

43. CONTEXT

44. We can define 'context' as the social,
economic, cultural, psychological and
environmental milieu that surrounds disaster
risk and to some degree interacts with it. If
necessary, we can disaggregate different types
of context. However, overall, context should be
considered as the sum of elements that have
no direct causal relationship with disaster but,
paradoxically, are (or should be) essential to
any attempt to explain it.

45. Associative
social
political
community/communal
Lucrative
economic
Technological
cyber
scientific
Philosophical
cultural
ideological
historical
psychological
Ambient
environmental
institutional
healthcare
FORMS OF CONTEXT

46. THE CONTEXT OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
ideologically
conditioned
a barrier to
positive change
enabling
positive change
dynamic or malleable
(susceptible to influences)

47. The "egg hypothesis" Disaster
•root causes
•dynamic pressures
•immediate triggers
•vulnerabilities
Context
•general vulnerability
•poverty
•deprivation
•marginalisation
•discrimination

48. HAZARD or
THREAT
SPECIFIC
VULNERABILITY
HUMAN
CONSEQUENCES
The 'hazardscape' or
the 'risk landscape'
WEAKENING of the
SOCIAL FABRIC
GENERAL
VULNERABILITY
HUMAN
CONSEQUENCES
The 'wreckage
economy'
Health
Employment
Services
•reduced
•rationed
•overpriced

49. FORESIGHT

50. DETERMINISM
Cause Effect
PROBABILITY
(constrained uncertainty)
Cause Single, multiple
or cascading effects
THE KNOWN
THE UNKNOWN
PURE UNCERTAINTY
Causal relationship
unknown
Grey
area

51. We need to exercise foresight:-
•greater magnitude and frequency of
meteorological events (climate change)
•proliferating technological failure
•exceptionally large geophysical events
•unplanned mass migration
•intersection of conflict (or
other agents) and disasters
•emerging hazards and threats

52. SCENARIO
DEVELOPMENT
Worst case
Envelope of outcomes
Best case
'upward'
counter-factual
analysis
'downward'
counter-factual
analysis
EMERGENCY
PLAN
incorporation
of scenario
into plan
stress test
of plan
systems
methodology
data and basic
information
emergency
simulation
- desktop
- command post
- field exercise
consider
practicalities
FORESIGHT
FORESIGHT

53. TOWARDS A SOLUTION

54. Direct causes:
practical problems
contributing to disaster
Long-term causes
(dynamic pressures):
predisposition
to create disaster
Root causes:
motivating and
underlying factors
Local
cascading
effects
National
cascading
effects
International
cascading
effects
Escalation
factors
Context
PANARCHY

55. We have grand challenges in disaster risk
reduction:
•to adapt to changes in a volatile world
•to disseminate the concepts of safety and
security
•to create and use foresight (as rigorously
as possible)
•to develop a rigorous methodology for
emergency planning and management

56. Lesson 1: countries need integral,
functional civil protection
systems. Given the future
challenges, these also need to be
larger and better than at present.

57. Lesson 2: civil protection needs
to be participatory and inclusive
at all levels of organisation.

58. Lesson 3: 'disaster science'
needs a seat at the strategy table:
planning, logistics, scheduling,
scenario-building, communication

59. Lesson 4: in science, we need
much more effective and powerful
ways of combating conspiracy
theories and misinformation.

60. THANK YOU
FOR
LISTENING!
[email protected]
www.slideshare.net/dealexander
www.emergency-planning.blogspot.com

61. Free at last?

62. INFLUENCES

63. Andrea
Giovene
(Naples 1904
–Sant'Agata
de' Goti 1995)

64. ENRIQUE GRANADOS
Lleida 1867 – English Channel 1916

65. EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES
Birmingham 1833 – London 1898

66. FREDERICK LANDSEER GRIGGS
Hitchin 1876 – Chipping Campden 1938

67. CARLO LEVI
Turin 1902 – Rome 1975

68. PROFESSORS JOHN BALE, JOHN THORNES,
ROCCO MAZZARONE, IAN DAVIS AND GILBERT F. WHITE