Introduction

In the summer of 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and set off the largest accidental release in history of oil into marine water. For over three months, U.S. federal scientific teams estimate, about 4.9 million barrels-or 205.8 million gallons-of thick crude spewed from a ruptured pipe into the ocean.1 Other large-scale disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, the earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010, and the 2011 tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster in Japan, have also drawn the world’s attention to questions of ecological ethics and vulnerability that are placing both rich and poor nations and their citizens at risk. Whether the primary culprit is corporate malfeasance, government neglect, or climactic or geologic change, it is becoming increasingly clear that while disasters such as earthquakes are acts of nature, extreme vulnerability to these disasters is human-caused.