On the face of it, it might seem perverse to consider disasters as potentially positive phenomena -a contradiction in terms perhaps. This is intentional. In the same way that Gerald Wilde’s theory of risk homeostasis provoked a level of outrage among risk experts, so the cognitive dissonance which was stimulated in that instance to consider risk from an entirely novel perspective, may in this instance also help to provoke a new perspective on disasters, aiding humanity in integrating them into long term history.