ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines debates that concern the nature of development
induced disaster, with reference to some well-established ideas about
human survival and wellbeing. It considers how environmental
degradation, poverty and underdevelopment are multidimensional
conditions that underlie many of the world’s major disasters. There are no
simple explanations as to why the quest for development should induce
human disasters. People generally desire improvements in wellbeing as
a human instinct and right, minimal standards of living alone remaining
the aspiration of few, if any, societies. However, the drive and options for
material improvement have varied in time and from place to place. In
disaster analysis, a desire for increase has often been recognised as
being at the expense of the stability of the world’s natural resource
base. A pessimistic conclusion is that the promotion of short-term
improvements will always outweigh a sense of longer-term preservation
of life. This in turn drives the earth and its people towards disaster.
