Does our search for blame hinder preparedness?

It’s a simple fact of human nature: when something bad happens, we want to know why. That isn’t necessarily a flaw. It might be what makes us human. Animals tend to care about what happened and how, but they don’t ask why. Humans do. That one question may be the reason we’ve advanced to the point of altering the planet on a scale comparable to supervolcanoes and meteor strikes.

It’s unfortunate, though, that our curiosity about why often brings along a companion – who. Who caused this? Who should have done something? Who do we blame? We may be powerful enough to reshape the Earth, yet we are still subject to the same planetary and cosmic forces that drive earthquakes, storms, and droughts.

Take this excerpt from an article on Hurricane Harvey:

Weather and climate don’t cause disasters – vulnerability does.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, this means that the widespread discussion as to whether the Hurricane Harvey disaster was caused by climate change or not becomes a dangerous distraction. (Kelman, 2017)

The opening line points right to “someone is at fault” for Hurricane Harvey. The problem is, WHO is at fault? This article is hardly unique – a google search of “disaster blame” turns up it and thousands more. It’s a bold take, and a familiar one. A quick search for “disaster blame” turns up thousands of articles just like it.

Blame is easy to assign. That doesn’t make it accurate, or fair. Where I live, still safely 100 kilometers from one of the deadliest chemical stockpiles on Earth, we often shake our heads at people caught in disasters. Why did they live there? Why didn’t they move? Why weren’t they ready?

Is that smugness justified? Are people foolish for living in coastal cities that get hit by storms? We say similar things about residents of tornado country. Or those in California, sitting precariously on the edge of the continent.

Do people in the developing world build shanty towns in dangerous zones because they don’t know better? Or is it because global systems – shaped largely by those of us in wealthier nations – leave them no better options?

It becomes a loop of questions with murky answers. None of them help much when disaster actually strikes.

I don’t have a clean answer. Not asking questions would certainly hinder our ability to adapt and learn. I just wonder if we spend too much time asking who failed instead of what failed. In a world full of forces we still don’t fully control, focusing more on the latter might prepare us better for the next blow.

References

Kelman, I., 2017, August 29. “Don’t blame climate change for the Hurricane Harvey disaster – blame society.” The Conversation