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This isn't about climate change – but it may be the face of the future
Saturday, 15 January 2011
By Steve Connor, Science Editor-The Independant
Rain in Brazil, rain in Australia and rain in Sri Lanka. Rain is the factor that links all three large-scale disasters unfolding before our eyes in these very different regions of the world.
To try to make sense of what is going on around us, it is understandable to draw comparisons. The images of flooded homes and stranded people from as far apart as Rio de Janeiro and Brisbane underscore the human anguish shared by all those caught up by these devastating natural disasters.
Heavy torrential rain falling on vulnerable people is the one incontrovertible connection linking all three tragedies. But there are other questions relating to whether these events are part of a longer-term climatic pattern, or whether any of the impacts could have been prevented by better urban planning.
Since 1975, disasters of all kinds have claimed the lives of more than 2.2 million people. Storms, floods, droughts and other weather-related phenomena were responsible for two thirds of these deaths, according to the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, which has warned that climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of these events.
John Magrath of Oxfam said that it should be no surprise that more people in the coming years will be affected by floods and other natural disasters, and not just because in a globally warmer world we are likely to experience more extreme weather.
"We're seeing more people affected because there are just more people and they tend to be more crowded together in unstable places," Mr Magrath said.
"We're seeing more extreme weather and it doesn't take much for that trend to become truly extreme and to cause disasters rather then just disruption," he said.
Saturday, 15 January 2011
By Steve Connor, Science Editor-The Independant
Rain in Brazil, rain in Australia and rain in Sri Lanka. Rain is the factor that links all three large-scale disasters unfolding before our eyes in these very different regions of the world.
To try to make sense of what is going on around us, it is understandable to draw comparisons. The images of flooded homes and stranded people from as far apart as Rio de Janeiro and Brisbane underscore the human anguish shared by all those caught up by these devastating natural disasters.
Heavy torrential rain falling on vulnerable people is the one incontrovertible connection linking all three tragedies. But there are other questions relating to whether these events are part of a longer-term climatic pattern, or whether any of the impacts could have been prevented by better urban planning.
Since 1975, disasters of all kinds have claimed the lives of more than 2.2 million people. Storms, floods, droughts and other weather-related phenomena were responsible for two thirds of these deaths, according to the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, which has warned that climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of these events.
John Magrath of Oxfam said that it should be no surprise that more people in the coming years will be affected by floods and other natural disasters, and not just because in a globally warmer world we are likely to experience more extreme weather.
"We're seeing more people affected because there are just more people and they tend to be more crowded together in unstable places," Mr Magrath said.
"We're seeing more extreme weather and it doesn't take much for that trend to become truly extreme and to cause disasters rather then just disruption," he said.
