In this opinion piece, Pierre Gonod reflects on Hurricane Katrina which struck the southern United States at the end of August 2005. He recounts the analysis made a year earlier by a specialist in risk assessment after Cyclone Ivan spared Louisiana, predicting the events that occurred in 2005 with astonishing clarity.
No notice was taken of this warning about the shortcomings in the system for coping with risks from natural disasters, in Louisiana, but was this the result of lack of foresight or was it an accommodation with destiny? Because, as Pierre Gonod stresses, the victims of Katrina were mainly poor, therefore almost all Black – a “natural cleansing” that could have suited some decision-makers, both local and non-local.
Pierre Gonod strongly condemns the policy actions (or rather inaction) that led to this situation, calling for foresight that gives human beings and humanity top priority once again. Arising from this is the project to which he is contributing: to develop an “anthropolitical” approach to foresight in which politics would be unequivocally geared to serving people, not just in the short term but in the medium and, above all, long term as well.
Katrina and Foresight
This article is published in Futuribles journal no.314, décembre 2005
