John C. Mutter
In The Disaster Profiteers, John C. Mutter argues that when no one is looking, disasters become a means by which the elite prosper at the expense of the poor. As the specter of increasingly frequent and destructive natural disasters looms in our future, this book will ignite an essential conversation about what we can do now to create a safer, more just world for us all.
It's what happens after the disasters that really matters-when the media has lost interest and the last volunteer has handed out a final blanket, and people are left to repair their lives. What happens is a stark expression of how unjustly unequal our world has become. The elite make out well-whether they belong to an open market capitalist democracy or a closed authoritarian socialist state. In Myanmar-a country ruled by a xenophobic military junta-the generals and their cronies declared areas where rice farms were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis as blighted and simply took the land. In New Orleans the city was re-shaped and gentrified post Katrina, making it almost impossible for many of its poorest, mostly black citizens to return.
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Profiteers-Natural-Disasters-Richer-ebook/dp/B00SEVGBFU
How will future climates be different from today’s world—and what consequences will changes in climate have for societies and their development strategies? This book, published in 2020 is a primer on the essential science for grasping the workings of climate change and climate prediction. It is accessible for readers with little to no background in science, with an emphasis on the needs of those studying sustainable development.
John C. Mutter gives a just-the-facts overview of how the climate system functions and what we know about why changes occur. He recounts the evolution of climatology from the earliest discoveries about Earth’s climate to present-day predictive capabilities, and clearly presents the scientific basis of fundamental topics such as climate zones, ocean-atmosphere dynamics, and the long-term cycles from glacial to interglacial periods. Mutter also details the mechanisms of climate change and the ways in which human activity affects global climate. He explains the science behind some known consequences of rising temperatures, such as sea level rise, hurricane behavior, and climate variability. The primer discusses how climate predictions are made and examines the sources of uncertainty in forecasting. Climate Change Science is a straightforward and easy-to-read treatment of the fundamental science needed to comprehend one of today’s most important issues
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/climate-change-science/9780231192231
This 2025 update of the original Climate Change Science Primer includes a new full Chapter on Geoengineering (now Chapter 6), and a section in Chapter 5 on Attribution Science. It is also updated to be consistent with the latest IPCC Assessment Report AR6. The motivation for the book has not changed from the original 2020 edition.
How will future climates be different from today’s world—and what consequences will changes in climate have for societies and their development strategies? This book is a primer on the essential science for grasping the workings of climate change and climate prediction. It is accessible for readers with little to no background in science, with an emphasis on the needs of those studying sustainable development.
John C. Mutter gives a just-the-facts overview of how the climate system functions and what we know about why changes occur. He recounts the evolution of climatology from the earliest discoveries about Earth’s climate to present-day predictive capabilities, and clearly presents the scientific basis of fundamental topics such as climate zones, ocean-atmosphere dynamics, and the long-term cycles from glacial to interglacial periods. Mutter also details the mechanisms of climate change and the ways in which human activity affects global climate. He explains the science behind some known consequences of rising temperatures, such as sea level rise, hurricane behavior, and climate variability. The primer discusses how climate predictions are made and examines the sources of uncertainty in forecasting. Climate Change Science is a straightforward and easy-to-read treatment of the fundamental science needed to comprehend one of today’s most important issues.
Disasters and Development book is now available:
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a/9780231206365/
https://www.amazon.com/Disasters-Development-Institute-Sustainability-University/dp/0231206372
This new book for 2025 results from our co-instructing a course of approximately the same name for the School of International and Public Affairs. It has been available to Masters and undergraduate students at Columbia. The book was published in October 2025 and is a further edition of the series of Primers in Sustainable Development, from CU Press https://cup.columbia.edu/book/disasters-and-development/9780231206365/
As with the Climate Change Science Primer this book derives from, and is intended firstly to support teaching at the undergraduate to Masters level. We teach always together in the classroom. While John Mutter is a geophysicist and Sonali Deraniyagala is a political economist we are each present in every class, regardless of which of us is giving the lecture. After schooling the students in the basics of the natural phenomenon of extreme events and economic growth theory and how capital shocks can distract societies at different development levels, the remainder of the class is devoted to case studies presented by students.
We examine disasters and their human development consequences across a full spectrum of possibilities from hurricanes in poor countries to earthquakes in rich countries, to responses in democratic governments to those in authoritarian regimes., and recoveries in many different settings. The case studies we describe are infused throughout the text, rather than appear as a separate section.
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a/9780231206365/
https://www.amazon.com/Disasters-Development-Institute-Sustainability-University/
Blog piece on the book for CU Press
https://cupblog.org/2026/04/15/john-c-mutter-on-disasters-and-development/
John C. Mutter on Disasters and Development
PUBLISHED DATEAPRIL 15, 2026
“What is the text book for this course?” is a question that came up every year we taught a course of the same name as our recently published book. Our answer was always that there isn’t one and likely will not be until we write one. That was usually followed by “So . . . ?” And so after procrastinating for years, we did. Here’s what we emphasize.
Disasters are nowhere near as simple as they are often portrayed to be. The stark brutality of the event belies the subtleties of their social causes and consequences. Disasters of equal geophysical magnitude have vastly different consequences in different socioeconomic settings. Poorer countries, for instance, experience far more fatalities than rich countries, although that in itself might not inhibit economic recovery. Richer countries, although they suffer greater losses of capital assets, are likely to recover more quickly. Depending on how recovery is achieved the results can even be beneficial in the long term. If damaged critical infrastructure, such as roads, ports, bridges, and airports, is replaced with improved facilities it can lead to more efficient systems that support commerce and stimulate the economy. If the reconstruction is funded by an agency such as the World Bank it can be thought of as a forced infrastructure upgrade of systems that had needed improvement but could not otherwise be funded. But without that sort of intervention, a disaster is more likely to be an economic setback, especially for a poor country and especially in the short term.
Disasters are nowhere near as simple as they are often portrayed to be. The stark brutality of the event belies the subtleties of their social causes and consequences.
Questions about disasters don’t fall comfortably into the domains of the natural sciences or the social sciences, although the former is mostly the way they have been studied. Natural scientists can quantify the risks: How likely is it that there will be a catastrophic shuddering of the Earth? Where might that happen? When? When and where will an immense cyclone occur? But natural science can’t tell us what the consequences of a disaster will be. That requires an analysis of economics, which is why we cooperate in teaching and writing to paint a comprehensive picture of disasters.
We emphasize that disaster events are not really events. The event is the centerpiece of a three-part sequence. First, we have to understand the physical and social conditions that prevailed before the disaster occurred. What, for instance, was the level of awareness that a disaster might occur? What was the state of civil society? In places like Myanmar most citizens have little notion that Cyclone Nargis could strike from the Bay of Bengal because the meteorologic services are so weak. Nor have they much sense of earthquake risk even though the Sagaing Fault, as seismically active as the San Andreas Fault in California, runs north-south through the entire length of the country. There are almost no working modern seismometers in Myanmar. In California there are thousands.
The event is the centerpiece of a three-part sequence. First, we have to understand the physical and social conditions that prevailed before the disaster occurred.
Often in hindsight, disasters can seem the inevitable consequence of poor governance. Hurricane Katrina, for example, evolved over decades, not days. Wetlands were compromised to facilitate the needs of the oil industry. Industrial canals were constructed to facilitate shipping, cutting through the poorest parts of the city. Their protective levees were poorly maintained. The city was divided in levels of poverty and wealth with richer people moving over time to areas less prone to flooding. They moved because they could; the poorer people had no options. The great majority of those who died or suffered displacement from Hurricane Katrina were poor African American people. One hundred thousand of those people who were displaced from New Orleans and wished to return were unable to for lack of resources.
Whether a cataclysm of the Earth’s solid structure or its atmosphere causes massive loss of life or very little depends critically on the country’s ability to quickly and effectively respond. We can see no strong evidence that democratic governments serve their citizens better than do autocratic governments in this regard. The response of the Chinese government to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, entirely top down and directed from Beijing, involved rapid deployment of military assets. The response of the US government to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was slow, incoherent, marred by red tape, and fumbled at city, state, and national levels.
Whether a cataclysm of the Earth’s solid structure or its atmosphere causes massive loss of life or very little depends critically on the country’s ability to quickly and effectively respond.
The final stage in the disaster sequence is recovery. How does a country get back on its feet amid ruins. The answer is highly variable. Some countries, like Haiti, are barely on their feet before disaster strikes. There are places that you can visit today and see the remnants of disaster damage from events that occurred decades ago. In others, after a few months you might not know that a disaster had taken place. Poor countries require external aid, but some poor country governments are not trusted to spend the aid wisely. Only a small fraction of money pledged to Haiti has been provided to the government. New Orleans is today smaller and racially whiter, with average incomes greater than before Katrina. But that is deceptive because of the diaspora of poor African Americans.
We include many case studies from across the world that interact disaster type with different settings—an earthquake in a poor country, a cyclone in a rich country, and so on—and examine causes and consequences. What emerges is that every disaster has its own unique stamp because no natural process ever repeats itself exactly and every setting is different.
John C. Mutter is a professor at Columbia University with appointments in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and in the School of International and Public Affairs as well as a faculty member of the Columbia Earth Institute. He is coauthor of Disasters and Development: An Earth Institute Sustainability Primer.
Categories:Author-Editor Post/Op-EdEarth DayEnvironmental StudiesScience
Tags:Climate And SocietyColumbia University Earth Institute Sustainability PrimersDisaster ResponseDisaster RiskDisasters and DevelopmentEarth MonthEarth Month 2026Economic RecoveryGlobal InequalityHurricane KatrinaInfrastructureJohn C. MutterNatural Hazardspublic policySonali Deraniyagala
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