The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer (36 page)

Japanese Typhoon Warning Center,
145

Typhoon Haiyan,
63
,
147
–48,
156

Typhoon Morakot,
33

unemployment,
86
,
159
,
188
,
194
,
203
,
246

United Nations (UN)

Clinton, Bill and,
116

disaster risk and,
9
–10,
23
,
30

Haiti and,
87
–88,
100
,
103
,
105
–6,
117
–18,
136
–37

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC),
127

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
27

MINUSTAH and,
87
–88

System of National Accounts,
43

UNISAT,
100

United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
90
,
118

Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Act,
156

van Rysselberghe, Jacqueline,
115

volcanoes,
5
,
22

vulnerability,
18
–19,
47
–48,
97
,
158

warnings,
63
–64,
69
,
80
–81,
94
,
112
,
126
–28,
130
,
145
,
148
–49,
151
,
168
,
172

wealth

earthquakes and,
56
–58,
64
–77

GDP density map, 52

Guttenberg-Richter relationship and,
60

meteorology and,
61
–64

night lights data and,
53
–56

overview,
51
–55

predicting disasters and,
59
–61

storms and,
58
–59

see also
poverty

Weinstein, David,
134

World Bank

China and,
95
–96

Collier, Paul and,
116
–17

economic recovery and,
228

GDP and,
42
,
122
,
140

Haiti and,
88

hazards and,
23

Myanmar and,
140

rebuilding and,
9
,
15

Sri Lanka and,
128
,
131

World Fact Book
(CIA),
140

World War I,
199

World War II,
22
,
24
,
42
,
89
,
100
,
140
–41,
171
,
199

young urban rebuilding professionals (YURPs),
206

About the Author

Credit: David Dini

John C. Mutter
is a professor at Columbia University with appointments in the departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences and in International and Public Affairs. Previously deputy director of the Earth Institute, he is currently a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A contributor to the blog site
OECD
and to
Earth
magazine, Mutter has appeared on broadcast media, including CNN and CBS. He lives in New York City.

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Copyright Notice

Introduction: Crossing the Feynman Line

1: Natural Disasters: Agents of Social Good and Evil

2: The Geography of Wealth and Poverty: Knowledge and Natural Disasters

3: Carnage in the Caribbean, Chaos in Concepción

4: Walls of Water, Oceans of Death

5: Malevolence by Neglect in Myanmar

6: Struck Dumb in New Orleans

7: Rebuilding as Social Engineering

8: Disasters as Casus Belli

Technical Appendix I: Simplified Socioeconomics of Natural Disaster Shocks and Their Consequences

Technical Appendix II: Disasters in Neoclassical Growth Theory

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

About the Author

Newsletter Signup

Copyright

THE DISASTER PROFITEERS.
Copyright © 2015 by John C. Mutter. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Jacket design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

Jacket photograph © Spencer Platt/Getty Images; back cover © Nejron Photo/Shutterstock

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mutter, John C.

Disaster profiteers : how natural disasters make the rich richer and the poor even poorer / John C. Mutter.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-137-27898-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4668-7941-6 (e-book)

1. Natural disasters—Economic aspects. 2. Natural disasters—Social aspects. 3. Profiteering. 4. Equality. I. Title.

HC79.D45M87 2015

363.34'4—dc23

2015001251

e-ISBN 978-1-4668-7941-6

First Edition: August 2015

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