Disaster Makers Tackling Unmanaged Growth for Sustainable Futures

About this book

Drawing on decades of on-the-ground experience, a strong body of existing research on the social construction of risk, and his own academic research, Terry Gibson demonstrates the transformative potential of current debates around de- and re-growth for disaster studies.

Some disasters are highly visible to us all, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the climate emergency. Many more are hidden, everyday disasters grinding down the lives of the poor and vulnerable. Very few of these disasters just happen. Most are caused by those who create risk faster than they can mop it up, by those who pursue reckless, unmanaged economic growth that demands ever-increasing manufacture, consumption, building, food production, and energy consumption. These are the disaster makers.

In this book, Gibson provides a thorough, sophisticated, yet accessible account of who the disaster makers are, what they do, and how we can do things better. Ultimately, Gibson demonstrates the urgency of replacing growth-based economics with a fundamentally different social and economic model. This is more than a dream. As Gibson shows, it becomes a practical possibility the moment enough of us commit to building a movement.

Contents

Preface: A Personal Disaster Journey
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Section 1: Unnatural Disasters
Chapter 1. Encountering Disasters
Chapter 2. The Risk Equation
Chapter 3. Vulnerability
Chapter 4. Hazards
Chapter 5. Managing Disasters and Development: The UN Frameworks

Section 2: Unmanaged Growth
Chapter 6. Adventures Into the Anthropocene
Chapter 7. Anthropocene 1. A Very English Anthropocene
Chapter 8. Anthropocene 2: 'Any colour you like as long as it's black'
Chapter 9. The Third Anthropocene - March of the Megacities.
Chapter 10. Halfway Towards Disaster

Section 3: Sustainable Futures
Chapter 11. Identifying the Disaster Makers
Chapter 12. The Public as Changemakers
Chapter 13. Changemaking for the Future we Choose

Conclusion: Unnatural Disasters, Convenient Untruths
Notes
Select Bibliography

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Biography

Terry Gibson is a researcher and practitioner in the disasters, development, and corporate responsibility industries. For eight years, he acted as director of Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction. Has published a wide range of papers and chapters, as well as the book Making Aid Agencies Work (2019), and he runs the website inventing-futures.org.