Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study

Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study

news.yahoo.com

LONDON (AFP) - More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I noticed this myself recently while trying to disprove that natural disasters were increasing in number. I disagree that the disasters are being casued by global warming. How does global warming affect geological activity like volcanoes and earthquakes? I do agree they have been increasing in frequency though and this just started since the 1960s. I have no idea whats causing it, but Climate Change is probably an effect not a cause of it.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 26/11/07 by MikeboydUS]

Mother nature balancing the books?

It's also important to examine how the population has changed in the areas hardest hit then compared to now.

More people in harms way equals more people harmed, no?

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
How does global warming affect geological activity like volcanoes and earthquakes?

Well there's that theory that as the ice sheets melt, pressure is relieved off the crust at the poles, causing it to sort of spring up. I don't know how valid it is, though.

Retreating Glaciers Spur Alaskan Earthquakes

Edit: typo

[edit on 26-11-2007 by Beachcoma]

Originally posted by goosdawg
Mother nature balancing the books?

It's also important to examine how the population has changed in the areas hardest hit then compared to now.

More people in harms way equals more people harmed, no?

At first that was I thought as well, it has something to do with the population. I started looking at this in earlier this year with the fires in California and Greece. One of things I noticed was even if no humans had lived in California, this was the biggest fire in the state's history. Since the 1960s they have been happening with regular frequency and increasing intensity.

A number of the disasters have increased in frequency. The accumulation of humans has resulted in more deaths and injuries as the disasters increase in frequency. Overall from what Ive researched they havn't increased in intensity that much except for Storms and Fires. I dont know what to make of it. There should be a serious study done to see if its related to an Orbital or Axial change in relation to the Sun and the future implications of such change.

Perhaps ocean related disasters may be linked to temperature changes. Global warming doesn't literally mean global warming. However....volcanoes and earthquakes are something I don't think global warming would have much impact on..if any. Still, this can only be good news.

Anyone else seen the latest climate change commercial with a few governors including the Governator?

Arnold is standing in front of some trees and grass talking about stopping climate change.

I think it would have been more fitting, and entertaining, to have Arnold standing in front of a burning forest, talking about stopping climate change.

is it not the case that the world is now very small due to technolgy,
and that it is easier to report events now than it was say 25 years ago.

now when an event happens it is broadcast around the world pretty much straight away,

my 2 cents

snoopyuk

Last night on Discovery channel, I think, there was a documentary about the Sahara desert. It was mentioned that the region was once sub-tropical, recently (within 5000 years), and that all changed in the span of one lifetime due to a change the earths tilt.

The change in tilt is a natural recurring process, that resulted in a one percent change in the tilt. The show seemed to indicate that this occurs every 5000 years.

Are we in such a period now?

It was responsible for changing a semi-lush, sub-tropical area to an arid, dry desert. I always wondered why people lived there, I guess it was once a better place. What happend to the SUVs that caused the earth to tilt?

Unsurprisingly, the title may be slightly misleading, since according to this article itself:

Floods and wind-storms have increased from 60 events in 1980 to 240 last year, with flooding itself up six-fold.

But the number of geothermal events, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, has barely changed.

Oxfam urged Western governments to push hard for a deal on climate change at a key international meeting that runs December 3-14 on the Indonesian island of Bali.

I was wondering how they would blame eruptions on global warming, but apparently they aren't doing so. If people feel there are more eruptions per year, I think they should consider the actual size and regularity of them. Not to mention that thanks to Mount St Helens 1980 eruption, and the occasional Yellowstone scare story, and of course the larger amount of media than there once was, public perception of how large a problem they are is quite high, and as such the media can rather exaggerate them quite easily.