We have become a society that can't self-correct, that can't address its obvious problems, that can't pull out of its nosedive. And so to our list of disasters let us add this fourth entry: we have entered an age of folly that - for all our Facebooking and the twittling tweedle-dee-tweets of the twitterati - we can't wake up from.
Much as I wish it were not so, we do live in a dangerous world. It has, in fact, always been this way. Our earliest ancestors had to worry about predators, natural disasters, disease, and - unique among our species - attacks by other people.
The disasters of war can be infinitely eerie and poignant.
Some of the best kitchen discoveries come about through total kitchen disasters.
It is vital that the entire international system is ready to meet the challenges of future disasters.
When you ask people what they think of Africa, they think of AIDS, genocide, disasters, famine.
Economic disasters or foolish wars are hardly guaranteed to bring about large-scale individual self-examination or renew the appeal of truly participatory democracy.