Disaster by Choice: How our actions turn natural hazards into catastrophes

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effective human action that limits damage, such as managing flooding in Toronto and villages in Bangladesh, or wildfires in Colorado.

The Geological Society of London is the UK's national society for geoscience, providing support to over 12,000 members in the UK and overseas. The enigmas Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe. They arise from the political processes dictating where and what we build, and from social circumstances which create and perpetuate poverty and discrimination. Sanne Blauw travels the world to unpick our relationship with numbers and demystify our misguided allegiance, from Florence Nightingale using statistics to petition for better conditions during the Crimean War to the manipulation of numbers by the American tobacco industry and the ambiguous figures pedalled during the EU referendum.

Some disabled people might face something as simple as the lack of a ramp leading to a tornado shelter. The Pgak’yau people in northern Thailand must survive solastalgia (mental distress from forced environmental change). A thin, invisible layer of air surrounds the Earth, sustaining all known life on the planet and creating the unique climates and weather patterns that make each part of the world different. Disasters arise when we fail to build suitable housing capable of withstanding 400 kph winds, fail to shun places subject to lava flows or tsunamis, or do not create a culture of warning and safe shelter for all – including for those with disabilities. One day later a wildfire lit up the forest in the Cold Springs Fire, which killed numerous animals, forced 2000 people to evacuate, and destroyed eight homes.

I am typing this review in the aftermath of property-damaging floods in the UK and life-taking wildfires in Australia, and during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this wide-ranging, one-stop guide, James Temperton outlines the medical revolutions that are transforming healthcare. Disasters for all, whether affluent or poor, able or disabled, are caused by vulnerabilities, not hazards. Taking us from the everyday numbers that govern our health and wellbeing to the statistics used to wield enormous power and influence, ‘The Number Bias’ counsels us to think more wisely. 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.Despite eco-trauma and solastalgia (mental distress), the indigenous Ogiek people in Kenya are opposing evictions from and destruction of their forest. Two scientific papers describe the mental health and coping mechanisms of youth experiencing the disaster of a flood in Germany.