A Cambridge Disaster Research Network seminar held on Tuesday 25 January 2022, 15:00–16:00 Speaker: Professor Ilan Kelman (UCL-IRDR and the Institute for Global Health) Abstract: A tsunami inundates Tonga as a pandemic’s death toll mounts around the world. We hear that nature runs rampant, seeking to destroy us through these ‘natural disasters’, with climate change at the forefront. Science recounts a different story: disasters are not usually the consequence of environmental phenomena, such as volcanoes and climate. Instead, they occur due to human choices and decisions. We put ourselves and others in harm’s way while failing to take measures which we know would prevent disasters, no matter what nature throws at us. Disasters are not natural because the causes are human values, attitudes, behaviour, and decisions. Chair: Dr Rory Walshe