Hurricanes, Climate Change, and the Social Construction of Risk

The advent of climate change is now increasing awareness of the potential of the intensifying peril and frequency of hurricanes for island and coastal dwellers. Considering current demographic data on migration, residence and development, the climatological findings regarding hurricane frequency, intensity, precipitation, and size become particularly menacing. However, despite the intensification and frequency of hurricanes, recognition of the social construction of risk and disasters requires that greater attention be paid to the social and economic drivers of the conditions of exposure and vulnerability that characterize coastal and island communities. The intersection of increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes associated with climate change is discussed in the context of patterns of social, demographic and economic change in the state of Florida in the United States which is located on many of the major paths of hurricanes generated in the Atlantic basin. The paper concludes with an assessment of the role that anthropologists must play in research, practice and policy making reducing the risk of disasters related to hurricane impact.