“A lot of things have to come together at once to have a tornadic storm and the skill at forecasting all those things is near zero,” said Howard Bluestein, a professor at the University of Oklahoma. “They are definitely more unpredictable.”

The sentiment here is real and completely understandable. It is also misplaced.

The very idea of “when will we learn?” tends to imply: “If we could only get everyone on the same page, understanding that there are simple mitigation options available, we could solve the problem.” We just need to get people and governments to care more about this issue. We just need to get people and governments to learn more about this issue.

Perhaps.

The problem is that often times the incentives toward providing solutions don’t have anything to do with the “wisdom” or the “level of caring” of particular actors. Even in a situation where actors “get it” and care about the issue, there might still be powerful incentives that move them away from solutions and/or away from cooperation.

Let’s take the issue of building codes that make structures more resilient in earthquakes. Walsh argues:

With earthquakes — as with so many other problems — we rarely give prevention enough emphasis until it’s too late. That needs to change. Over the next half-century, as the world adds 2 billion or more people, it will construct as many as 1 billion housing units. Earthquakes will happen — we can’t stop them. How many people will die needlessly in a temblor, however, will depend on how strong those buildings are — and that much we can control.

In densely populated areas, there is a danger not only of your own building collapsing but of your neighbors’ buildings collapsing and doing damage to your own. Thus, if you build to code, part of what you produce is a public good — that is, (1) your neighbors are a now a bit safer whether they built their own buildings to code or not, and (2) one neighbor that benefits from your decision due to increased safety doesn’t in any way detract from your other neighbors’ abilities to benefit from your decision. These two inherent aspects mean that even if everyone “wises up” to the benefits of building codes they will worry about whether others will be free riding, enjoying the marginal benefits of your decision to be safer without making the same decision themselves. In other words, each actor faces a partial disincentive: they’ll be saddled with private costs to provide benefits that (at least in part) accrue publicly.

Photo from Istanbul Technical University, Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Management

In addition, with respect to building codes in particular, the amount of the public good generated is highly dependent on the weakest level of provision. Imagine three buildings in a line where the outer two have constructed using earthquake resilient techniques and materials and the middle building has not. The overall level of safety of the three is effectively determined by that weakest actor, the middle building. In these kinds of situations, we tend to expect that actors will tend to “match” the level of provision of that weakest link in the chain. In the building code example, this is partly mitigated by the fact that actors do have some individual incentives to provide a little bit more for their own buildings. But the weakest link is often a baseline.

Both of these stories are about incentives. They don’t really have anything to do with the level of wisdom or care that actors have around a particular issue. Perhaps more to the point, these incentives would continue to exist even if we had better knowledge and more caring.

Is it frustrating? Often. But “wising up” isn’t really going to solve the many different types of collective action challenges associated with disaster prevention and mitigation. Our focus needs to be on issue-specific incentives and the way that actors respond to them.

1. The government acknowledges it needs to clear almost 2500 sq. km of soil at a depth of 5cm. But in the village of Iitate, the locals have already done some of this, and it’s not working:

Villagers have removed 5cm of topsoil from one patch of land, but because radioactive particles continue to blow from the surrounding trees, the level of radiation remains high—about one microsievert an hour—even if lower than in nearby areas. Without cutting down the forests, Mr Sato reckons there will be a permanent risk of contamination.

2. The government still has no idea where it will deposit all of this contaminated material (soil, leaves, etc.)

3. As the government attempts to signal that it has better control of the reactor issue by lifting evacuation advisory warnings, the concern of returning citizens is about the children:

Parents say they are particularly concerned about bringing their children back because the health effects of radiation on the young are so unclear. What is more, caesium particles tend to lurk in the grass, which means radiation is more of a risk at toddler height than for adults.

And of course, all of this is taking place within the context of Japan’s contentious domestic political system.