Moorcock is one of those authors who ought to leave pontification alone. Certainly, Sword and Sorcery existed before Elric, although he added an number of orginal tropes to the genre. He also did not scruple to write "Kane of Old Mars," which is a pretty blatant homage to Burroughs.

The bit about trying to slot Tolkien in with disaster novels baffles me: other than those of Wells, novels like like "Day of the Triffids," " Midwich Cuckoos," "No Blade of Grass," "Earth Abides," are distinctly post-Tolkien.