Dr Ilan Kelman
Ilan is a Professor at UCL in Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change and Global Health. Professor II at the University of Agder in the Department of Global Development and Social Planning. Ilan, who recently published Disaster by Choice: How Our Actions Turn Natural Hazards Into Catastrophes - kindly allowed me to review this work, which argues that the cost of post-disaster response needs measuring against a vision of lifesaving action.
Highlights
The cost of post-disaster response needs measuring against a vision of lifesaving action. In essence, we see this highlighted, by the ‘gradual statistical shifts’ in climate change that leads to drought and famine — vulnerability by choice exacerbated by poor planning and infrastructure. Yet, persistently with epidemics, conflicts, and ‘natural’ disasters, the poorest, woman, children, elderly, and disabled, are most vulnerable, by choice? Ilan asks, who is responsible for adding to vulnerability and preventing future disasters — which opens a myriad of complex and varied challenges with inequalities only adding to vulnerabilities.