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Hiya Folks, here's more fodder for the debates about weather patterns and
climate change.
GLOBE AND MAIL
SAT NOV.28,1998
Natural disaster costs soar to world record
Study blames deforestation and human
meddling for 1998's $130-billion in damages
DONNA ABU-NASR
Associated Press
Violent weather has cost the world a record $130-billion this
year -- more money than was lost from weather-related disasters in all of
the 1980s -- and researchers in a study released yesterday blame human
meddling for much of the loss. Preliminary estimates by the Worldwatch
Institute and Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, put total losses
from storms, floods, droughts and fires for the first 11 months of the
year 48 per cent higher than the previous one-year record of more than
$90-billion in 1996.
This year's damage was also far ahead of the $82-billion in losses for the
entire decade of the 1980s. Even when adjusted for inflation, the 1980s
losses, at $120-billion, still fall short of the first 11 months of this
year.
In addition to the material losses, the disasters have killed an estimated
32,000 people and displaced 300 million -- more than the population of the
United States -- the report says.
The study is based on estimates from Worldwatch, an environmental research
group, and Munich Re, a German-based reinsurer, which writes policies that
protect insurance companies from the risk of massive claims that might put
them out of business.
The report says a combination of deforestation and climate change has
caused this year's most severe disasters, among them Hurricane Mitch, the
flooding of China's Yangtze River and Bangladesh's most extensive flood of
the century.
"More and more, there's a human fingerprint in natural disasters in that
we're making them more frequent and more intense and we're also . . .
making them more destructive," said Seth Dunn, research associate and
climate-change expert at the institute.
Mr. Dunn said when hillsides are left bare, rainfall will rush across the
land or into rivers without being slowed by trees and allowed to be
absorbed by the soil or evaporate back into the atmosphere. This leads to
floods and landslides that are strong enough to wipe out roads, farms and
fisheries far downstream.
"In a sense, we're turning up the faucets . . . and throwing away the
sponges, like the forests and the wetlands," Mr. Dunn said.
The most severe 1998 disasters listed in the report include Hurricane
Mitch, which has caused more than 10,000 deaths in Honduras, Nicaragua,
Guatemala and El Salvador and has caused damage estimated at $6-billion in
Honduras and $1.5-billion in Nicaragua.
"Humans were created to complete the horse." -- Edward Abbey
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