ABSTRACT
In 1964 an earthquake followed by a tsunami struck Alaska, killing people and destroying villages. In 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil supertanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil, contaminating 1,000 miles of Alaskan shoreline and killing sea life (Herman 2010). Some researchers define the first as a natural disaster, a disturbance of nature having grave consequences for humans, whereas they define the second as an environmental disaster, human practices having grave consequences for their natural environment. This sharp distinction is an oversimplification. A natural disaster is not all natural. It becomes disastrous because of socially constructed vulnerabilities: the 1964 earthquake and tsunami killed Alaskans and damaged property because there were no tsunami warning alarms and building codes were lax. An environmental disaster also affects humans by degrading the environment they need in the future: the oil destroyed fisheries and tourism for years. Moreover, humans are now unleashing nature’s dynamics through fossil-fueled global climate change, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss that threaten disaster for both the environment and future humans. In the risk society of the anthropocene, environmental disasters are best defined as interactions between socio-technological constructions and nature’s constructions that result in grave adverse consequences for large numbers of people. This inclusive definition has two subtypes of initiating processes, naturogenic and anthropogenic, which captures both the commonalities and differences of phenomena such as earthquakes and oil spills.
