Ethics for Disaster

Book excerpt: Ethics for Disaster shows how individual and government preparation and response to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, pandemics, and other disasters are ethical matters. Confronting the social inequalities revealed by these disasters, we must also acknowledge how the lack of preparation for climate change and pandemics has shifted these threats from modern, isolated disasters into constant contemporary risks. This second edition presents four new chapters about disaster-as-risk from; climate change, the natural elements of earth, air, wind, and fire; the COVID-19 and other pandemics; and innocent victims and refugees. Now more than ever, we need good and just moral principles to guide us through the disruptive crises ahead––especially for minorities. Humanism and humanitarianism are vital. Zack combines moral philosophy, political theory, public policy, and environmental science to present new ways to think about changes in the world we all share.