Should we stop calling hurricanes natural disasters?

Source(s): Dennis Publishing
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Earlier this year, the disaster risk reduction organisation DRR Dynamics urged journalists to stop using the term natural disaster when talking about these events.

The description is “factually incorrect and misleading,” they said in a public letter, as it suggests there is nothing humans can do to reduce the risks.

By blaming nature for the event, reporters are also absolving “powerful decision-makers of responsibility for allowing or forcing people to live in vulnerable conditions,” researchers argued.

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“The best scientific info we have now is that the probabilities of these intense hurricanes are going up in many places because of global warming,” [Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT and a global expert on hurricanes] argues.

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