Special issue: 2023 EPS Jubilee Issue. Global heating and crisis mitigation

In this article four main things are done. First, the difference between ‘disaster preparedness’ and the established field of ‘disaster planning’ is denoted. The latter, confusingly, is seen as post hoc aftermath response rather than prepared forethought. Second, there is a discussion about the similarities between ‘disaster clean-up’ in Roman times which was extorted as taxation from the poor to subsidize the rich and neo-liberal taxation policy in today’s advanced economies, which similarly expropriate the poor to enable the rich to extort more wealth at the poor’s expense. Third, we explore some weaknesses of ostensibly ‘green’ policy-making, which betrays traits of narcissism, egotism and vanity which should be avoided at all costs because they occasion failure and further raids on the taxpayer base in many cases. Finally, 10 papers are introduced, ranging from varieties of ‘circular City’, to rainfall harvesting, green space accounting and transition to wooden construction and revitalization of urban shrinkage settings.