Is Science Sacred?

Abstract

At least 95 disasters – storm surges, tidal bores, erosion, land subsidence, flooding and such regular oceanic events – took place between 2010 and 2016 apart from one large cyclone, Aila, in 2009 in the Indian Sundarbans, at an annual average of almost 14 events. Partial cumulative loss estimates of €500 million do not take into account household-level, livelihood, emotional, psychological losses or losses to the infrastructure. The frequency of these events has perceptibly increased manifold at the culmination of climate change and anthropogenic drivers. However, these incidents are not described as ‘disasters’ because of global and local definitional shortcomings, thus leaving these out of the institutionalised governance of disaster risk reduction despite causing debilitating losses at the household levels. Slow-onset environmental shifts on the other hand have led to widespread erosion and land loss. Increasing soil salinity, because of the interaction between ecosystem management and rising sea levels, has affected agriculture and both sweetwater pisciculture and marine fishing. Empirical findings impress upon the need to redefine disasters in the age of global warming and evolve a more comprehensive conceptual framework towards hazard mitigation that can provide better human security.