Dedicated organizations across the world are working to influence political commitment, policy dialogue, business partnerships, community projects and expert conversations to help communities better prepare, respond to and recover from disasters.
The disaster diary project is motivated by the belief that a parallel public conversation on how disaster risks are manufactured is critical.
Unless we begin to engage in open dialogue and public conversations about how and why we build our environments in the way we do, we will continue to manufacture new risks while failing to address previous risk trends. Within our lifetime, the results will be potentially catastrophic.
Our urban spaces, population densities and infrastructure requirements are growing by the day. Nothing will reverse this trend - we are participating in a paradigm shift in human history. The question is, how well prepared are we for this transition?
Societal scales of resilience cannot be achieved without engaging the collective mind and influencing the terms of public debate. More than ever before, people, things and places are interconnected to the extent that not only makes it possible - but essential, to democratize expertise on our local environments.
The disaster diary will motivate public conversations around three interdependent questions (but will not be limited
to):
1. How are we manufacturing disaster risks?
2. Why do we not have enough public conversations about the manufacture of
disaster risk?
3. What should we do to improve the quality of public conversations (and
actions), to address the manufacture of disaster risk?
The project will contribute innovative ideas/ analysis/ interpretation of trends; facilitate an exchange of information on innovations that have worked in practice; and compile observations on where innovations are most relevant and required.
By sharing individual experiences and
learning across contexts in an open and accessible online format, the project will work to generate some innovative ideas and practices that address the
how, why and what, as asked here.