Long Disaster Response

Description

"“Disaster Response” presumes that disasters are one-time events, to which response protocols can be applied. For whatever crisis appears, teams of people with training and resources assist in saving lives and easing suffering. Those of us engaged in such work are noticing that disasters are not as discrete as they appear to be. Climate disasters, political disasters, economic disasters and the consequences of old and new means of war are no longer isolated to a time or a place. They are beginning to emerge as a single, continuous event.

This is the Long Disaster. For some, it has always been here. For the rest of us, it is soon to come.

The ideas here have emerged from discussions among responders who rushed into these calamities. We see evidence of this accelerating “forever disaster”, both in the increasing severity of the events as we enter them and the apathy we face towards their ultimate resolution and prevention. Our aim here is not to define conclusively what a Long Disaster Responder is, as much as give a hopeful name and some thought to an evolving concept.

Our world largely relies upon globally interdependent organizations such as governments and corporations, that have brought us unprecedented peace and prosperity. Yet, with each hurricane, earthquake or armed conflict, the fragility of these systems becomes evident while the consequences of their failure bleeds across borders.

Instead of formulating distinct responses through these large, impersonal systems, addressing the Long Disaster involves a radically different approach. The Long Disaster Responder doesn’t rush in, because they’ve been there all along, working within existing networks and fostering communal efforts to prepare for the durable disasters on the horizon. Before the disaster, this work seems mundane. It is only during the disaster that its true power shows.

Like any other paradigm shift, we must reconcile the practical knowledge and inertia of the old way of doing things with the new evidence in front of us. This work is multifaceted, a renaissance of understanding in community and personal preparedness. It should not begin when we arrive at the scene of a crisis nor end when we leave. Just as festival artists prepare throughout the year for transformative temporal experiences, Long Disaster responders address, work and create around gaps in present circumstances to prepare for the temporal crisis. Just as artists seek out a variety of different materials, experiences and influences to inform their work, Long Disaster responders should engage in creative approaches that cross disciplines to bridge these practical gaps we have observed in our own responses to various crises." (https://longdisaster.org/?)