Whereas we unconsciously accept the risks of new technologies once they become part of everyday life, it takes an accident to restore our consciousness of human frailty. As Virilio sardonically puts it, a heads-on collision soon re-establishes the facts. This ‘shock of the real’ is the starting-point for a new kind of ecology – not the green ecology which wants to save the planet from pollution, but a ‘grey ecology’ concerned with saving human beings from the disasters created by their own innovations, their mega-cities, migrations and mobile communications. This movement has clear affinities with the humanitarian orientation of disaster response teams. Their search-and-rescue efforts around the world are simply the most visible sign of a deeper activity whose most enduring successes have to do with disaster prevention. Here’s the perspective from Christian Aid: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/prevention/preventing.aspx