This is the first book to examine the linkages among natural and
organizational accidents and disasters in the modern era and clarifies
the mechanisms involved and the significance of emerging problems, from
the aging of vital infrastructure for the supply of water, gas, oil, and
electricity to the breakdown of pensions, healthcare, and other social
systems. The book demonstrates how we might check the underlying
civilizational collapse and then explore translational systems
approaches toward resilient management and policy for sustainability.
In Unsafety, the author focuses on the kinds of unnatural disasters
and organizational accidents that arise as repercussions of natural
hazards. Japan serves as an example, where earthquakes, tsunamis, and
typhoons are common, with the Fukushima nuclear disaster as an
outstanding case of this link between natural disasters and
organizational accidents. Natural and human-made disasters happen
worldwide and cause misery through loss of life; destruction of
livelihoods as in agriculture, fisheries, and the manufacturing
industry; and interruption of urban life. Unsafety from a disaster in
one place increases uncertainty elsewhere, presenting urgent issues in
all nations for individuals, organizations, regions, and the state.
The author explains that one factor in the Fukushima catastrophe, which
followed in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, was the
latent deterioration and aging of systems at all levels from the
physical to the social, leading through a chain reaction to unsought and
unforeseen consequences. Here, the aging of the nuclear reactor system,
the breakdown of safety management, and inappropriate instructions from
the regulatory authorities combined to create the three-fold disaster,
in which technological, organizational, and governmental dysfunction
have been diagnosed as reflecting a "systems pathology" infecting all
levels.
