Why are natural disasters not “natural” for victims?

Defining climate-change victims

“…While there is an extensive literature on natural disaster victims (Kumagai et al 2006), and policy recommendations on how to manage the aftermath of disasters (Tinguaro Rodríguez et al 2010), this knowledge has been incidental to the concept of victimization we are proposing. There is hardly any research on climate-change victimhood or climate-change victimization or on the reactions of the self to victimhood and of the reactions of others to victims and victimizations (Kirchhoff and Morosawa 2009;Morosawa 1998) arising from collapsing eco-systems that no longer provide a stable and predictable "safe operating space" (Rockström et al 2009) for people.…”

“…The challenge is that, as the research literature shows (Kumagai et al 2006), even if a pure natural disaster occurs, if it has catastrophic consequences those who have experienced it would, most probably, attribute its cause to some human agents-usually a governmental agency. This may even be more so when the frequency of natural disasters increases.…”

“…We regard victims of natural disasters and climate-change victims (Kumagai et al 2006;Dussich and Mundy 2008) as related, but different categorizations. Although circumstances, conditions, outcomes, and perceptions might seem superficially similar, there are differences between victimhood as a direct result of singular environmental events (e.g.…”

‘Put the wet stuff on the hot stuff’: The legacy and drivers of conflict surrounding wildfire suppression

“…These factors, coupled with the compression of time during the rapid advance of the Columbia Complex Fire, resulted in a failure of the IC system and local resident social systems to arrive at a common understanding about what local resources to protect and the appropriate roles that residents should have for protecting those resources. When the IC team attempted to impose power over these decisions by barring residents from entering areas being impacted by the fire, or restricting the use of local help and equipment, the result was discontent on the part of many locals with the process and outcome of the fire suppression effort (see Kumagai et al, 2006 andPaveglio et al, 2011 for related discussions).…”

Más leña al fuego: el tratamiento informativo de los incendios forestales

“…La naturaleza pirófita de nuestro ecosistema fue advertida por los periodistas ("los pinos ardían como cerillas") pero no se buscó ninguna justificación fitoecológica, como explicar la alta combustibilidad de los bosques de coníferas (Bond y Van Wilgen, 1996). Más bien lo contrario, y los medios se obcecaron en buscar una responsabilidad, especialmente humana, algo por otro lado muy habitual (Kumagai et al, 2006). Tampoco hubo demasiado espacio para una valoración comparativa, estudiando con calma otros antecedentes, y enmarcando la amplia superficie quemada en una tendencia global en nuestro país (Martín et al, 1998;González y Pukkala, 2007), y relacionando el aumento y agresividad de los incendios forestales con causas de tipo ecológico, como el cambio climático (Piñol et al, 1998;Moreno, 2007).…”