For the environmental events and processes we can deal with by reducing vulnerability, which are most of them, we are the real causes of disasters, not nature. Inadvertently or deliberately, in knowledge or in ignorance, disasters emerge through human choices, actions, behavior, and values. Closing this chasm between what we know and actually using this knowledge is not easy. This is an excellent little book that crystallises ideas about the influence and impact of human actions on natural catastrophes into a thoughtful and informative narrative, concluding – and rightly so – that there is no such thing as a natural disaster. A must-read book." An earthquake shatters Haiti and a hurricane slices through Texas. We hear that nature runs rampant, seeking to destroy us through these 'natural disasters'. Science recounts a different story, however: disasters are not the consequence of natural causes; they are the consequence of human This is no cold, scientific assessment - Kelman does not prevent emotional language from entering his arguments. And that's fine. But about half way through the book, things seem to get rather bogged down. By now we have a good understanding of why some individuals and communities are better prepared than others, but then we first get a rather odd deviation in a discussion of gender and identity politics before the book moves on to solutions - perhaps because they are so difficult, at this stage Kelman seems to lose momentum and flounders about a little. We get yet more examples, where we've had enough of these and want to get on to the practicalities. And the approach to fixing things seems to be just to say 'we all have responsibilities', which isn't a great way to make anything happen. Why was the infrastructure in and around the capital city so poorly constructed? Why were so many people poor, leaving them with no choice but to live in these buildings without hope of improving them? Why did even many affluent parties, from the country's president to the United Nations to the developers of luxury hotels, not enact basic earthquake safety principles?

The 2020 fires continue this pattern. Despite the heat wave and the fires' intensity and extent, plenty could have been done over the long-term to avoid the witnessed catastrophe. Over past decades, cities and towns have expanded significantly into burnable areas.Of course, however they manifest themselves there are myriad factors behind disasters and their consequences. They can arise from political processes dictating where and what we build, and from social circumstances which create and perpetuate poverty and discrimination. If you're more convinced by numbers, it's a phenomenon that lends itself to statistical analysis. The earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 was over a hundred times less powerful than the one that shook Japan in 2011 and its resulting tsunami, for example, yet the death toll was more than ten times greater. The difference lay in the vulnerability of the two communities.

One remarkable human story of vulnerability and making informed choices referenced by Kelman highlights the vital role hazard awareness plays. Marcos Verela in Costa Rica who remained calm amid an earthquake in 2012 was visually impaired but educated about how to respond by his grandfather, he stayed indoors to avoid falling power lines and other would-be hazards, saving his and his maids life.How could we withstand the 250 mile per hour winds of a tornado, faster than Japan's bullet trains, or the 2,200ºF temperature of lava, hotter than many potters' kilns? How would we feel if an "expert" lectured to us that it was not nature's fault, as we sifted through the few photos salvaged from the pile of debris that was once our home and our life? A balance between pushing for self-reliance, local accountability, and national and international management, is required in making the change. Following the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, the author highlights camps set up for refugees on the nearest flatland which happened to be hardened lava until the nearby volcano erupted. The ‘displaced became re-displaced’ further complicating the migration settlement process already vulnerable contending with ongoing conflict — another example of vulnerability by choice with limited options. Some hazards release their forces and energies swiftly with little specific warning. While we know broadly where earthquakes could strike at any time, such as Haiti and Jamaica, we cannot yet predict that an earthquake will occur in a specific place at a specific time. We know broadly where hurricanes could strike, also including Haiti and Jamaica, and we can observe the progress of a specific hurricane, but we cannot predict beyond a few days in advance when and where a major storm might make landfall. We know that Haiti and Jamaica are vulnerable to earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, epidemics, and many other hazards because of their long-term social inequities and infrastructure inadequacies. Ilan Kelman also tells the stories of various cities that figured out they should work with nature and not against it. They raise streets above flood level, make use of floodplains for flooding instead of roads, rails and housing, require tall buildings to be earthquake-proof and so on. Zoning can prevent building on the sides of volcanoes. Power should be well above flood level. Common sense stuff that few implement. This can be both hard to accept, and hard to unravel. A complex of factors shape disasters. They arise from the political processes dictating where and what we build, and from social circumstances which create and perpetuate poverty and discrimination. They develop from the social preference to blame nature for the damage wrought, when in fact events such as earthquakes and storms are entirely commonplace environmental processes We feel the need to fight natural forces, to reclaim what we assume is ours, and to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be wrath from outside our communities. This attitude distracts us from the real causes of disasters: humanity's decisions, as societies and as individuals. It stops us accepting the real solutions to disasters: making better decisions.

Consequently, in the same way that disasters are not natural, they are not unusual or extreme. They dramatically expose the vulnerabilities with which people live, and are typically forced by others to live, on a daily basis. Others prefer to work on smaller scales and less ambitious steps. They demonstrate more direct, more tangible, and more immediate positive impacts, which they hope, in the end, might scale up to wider, deeper changes. Examples are managing forests to permit small wildfires and retrofitting properties to withstand earthquakes, all while changing our behaviour so that we can withstand wildfires and earthquakes without harm.Disaster By Choice is an odd sort of book. Its very reasonable premise is that people choose to undergo disaster and they don’t have to. But the book is mainly a recounting of numerous disasters – fires, floods, volcanos, tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes, in small detail, following people who struggled, or survived, or died. The New York National Guard loads cars with meals to distribute to those in quarantine due to COVID-19. (Credit: The National Guard) choices and decisions. we put ourselves in harm's way; we fail to take measures which we know would prevent disasters, no matter what the environment does.