Floods and drought boost global disasters

[Matt25]

Jan 30, 2006 3:50 PM
Floods and drought boost global disasters

More frequent floods and drought, blamed by some scientists on global warming, brought a near 20 percent rise in natural disasters in 2005, researchers said on Monday. But the death toll fell to 91,963 from 244,577 in 2004 when the figures were swollen by the impact of the Asian tsunami, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) and Belgium’s Louvain research centre said in a report.

Over 80 percent of the fatalities in 2005 came from a single disaster – October’s devastating earthquake in Kashmir and Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province – just as the tsunami caused over 90 percent of deaths a year earlier. Without the earthquake and the tsunami, the death toll in both years was under 20,000, confirming a trend for more frequent, but less lethal disasters. “That is the goods news,” said professor Debarati Guha Sapir, of the Louvain Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

The bad news was that rising urbanisation, with people in developing countries often crowding into environmentally dangerous areas around big cities, meant the risk of disasters was growing, said ISDR director Salvano Briceno.

 

[gilliam]

Matt25:

Jan 30, 2006 3:50 PM
Over 80 percent of the fatalities in 2005 came from a single disaster – October’s devastating earthquake in Kashmir and Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province .

That’s not a flood nor a drought. I don’t think global warming causes earthquakes.

 

[manualman]

They undercut their OWN argument. They state that global warming is responsible. They later admit that more and more development is occurring in areas vulnerable to flooding.

I’m a civil engineer / hydrologist for a living. Take it from me. If a larger percentage of the floodplains of the world of today are carelessly developed compared to 25 years ago (they are), it does NOT require climate change to result in an increased number of deaths resulting from flooding.

Poor politics and poor regulation of development causes increased flooding deaths. And its not just ignorant third world countries. Just watch how the New Orleans rebuild shakes out. I guarantee that in at least some communities, emotional appeals for the preservation of culture will result in poorly protected redevelopment that will condemn future generations to a horrible watery death.

 

[MikeWM]

gilliam:

That’s not a flood nor a drought. I don’t think global warming causes earthquakes.

That’ll be why the headline says ‘boost’ rather than ‘constitute’.

Mike

 

[Matt25]

manualman:

They state that global warming is responsible.

No they don’t, read it more carefully. They say that there are more frequent floods and droughts. Death from droughts doesn’t require development on floodplains.

 

[manualman]

Droughts no. Floods, yes.

The article is ambiguous at best, disingenuous at worst.

Though I have no personal knowledge of drought studies, it seems likely to me that if more people are living in flood prone areas today, then perhaps more people are also living in drought prone areas too.

The article doesn’t provide any evidence that the ACTUAL numbers of floods or droughts is up.

For example, the floodplain of the Ishwater river might get flooded once every ten years. Nobody noticed or reported it 25 years ago because that area was 60% marsh and 40% farmed and two families lived in the area in farmsteads on high ground. Ten years ago, BuildNRun bought the 100 acre parcel, drained the marsh and built 200 single family homes on it cheap and quick. This year, it receives its predictable flood and everybody is shocked and horrified at how global warming is destroying the world and increasing flood damages…

 

[Matt25]

manualman:

The article doesn’t provide any evidence that the ACTUAL numbers of floods or droughts is up.
.

The report summary can be seen at unisdr.org/

There were 360 natural disasters last year compared to 305 in 2004. “This increase,” says CRED’s (Belgian Université Catholique de Louvain’s Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) Director, Prof. Debarati Guha Sapir, “is mainly due to the rising numbers of floods and droughts that affect large swathes of a population.” CRED figures indicate that the number of floods increased by 57 per cent in 2005 (107 in 2004 and 168 in 2005) and droughts by about 47 per cent (15 in 2004 and 22 in 2005).

The number of people affected by these types of disasters continues to rise in 2005. In total 157 million people–seven million more than in 2004–required immediate assistance, were evacuated, injured or lost their livelihoods…

According to CRED’s analysis, the decrease in deaths is directly linked to the type of disasters that occurred last year. Floods and droughts directly impact large numbers of people and their economic livelihoods but are less likely to cause loss of life as in earthquakes and windstorms.

 

[manualman]

You did not realize the import of my example. Floods are generally not reported unless they affect a developed area. Thus, a jump in reported cases might not mean what it seems to.

If you want to claim that flooding is on the rise due to climate change (perhaps linked to global warming), you had better back it up with rain gage data to prove that there is actually an increase in the frequency of intense rainfall. Any hydrologist will tell you this! The fact that they are citing the increase in reported flood events instead of rain gage data indicates to me a few possibilities, none good:

1. They are ignorant of basic hydrologic principles.
2. They are attempting to sell 'news; through sensationalism.
3. They have an agenda for selling the acceptance of ‘global warming.’

 

[Lance]

Even if we have global warming, there is no proof it is man made. We have had ice ages and warming of the planet since the begining of time.

 

[Matt25]

Lance:

Even if we have global warming, there is no proof it is man made. We have had ice ages and warming of the planet since the begining of time.

The President of the United States, who receives some scientific advice I think, believes that human activity contributes to climate change-

usembassy.org.uk/bush569.html

Listen, I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem…

Listen, the United States, for national security reasons and economic security reasons, needs to diversify away from fossil fuels. And so we’ve put out a strategy to do just that, and I can’t wait to share with our G8 friends, just like I shared with the Prime Minister, our strategy. We spent about over $20 billion last year on research and development on new technologies that we are willing to share with the world.
There's no doubt in my mind that we'll be driving a different kind of automobile within a reasonable period of time-- one powered by hydrogen. And the Prime Minister is most interested in this subject, and I look forward to sharing technologies, not only with our G8 friends, but also with countries like India and China, who will be at the G8.

 

[Lance]

Matt25:

The President of the United States, who receives some scientific advice I think, believes that human activity contributes to climate change-

He also received advice that Iraq had WMD’s but if I remember corectly you think he was lieing about that. It seems if he says something you agree with he is telling the truth but if you disagree he is lieing. I am sure the humans are contributing to greenhouse gasses but to what extent and how much that has to with global warming is a quesstion no one knows the answer to.

 

[MikeWM]

Lance:

He also received advice that Iraq had WMD’s

There is a world of difference between (so-called) intelligence, and science.

Mike

 

[Al_Masetti]

Let’s also include the severely cold temperatures in many parts of the world. South America. Siberia. The wheat growing areas of the former Soviet Union.

There may be some nasty volcanic eruptions very shortly. Italy and Alaska.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Lance:

It seems if he says something you agree with he is telling the truth but if you disagree he is lieing.

How does that work? Can anyone do that? It seems much easier than googling the net, reading voraciously, listening to what other people have to say, and doing some mighty serious mulling of the evidence.

 

[walstan]

Lance:

Even if we have global warming, there is no proof it is man made. We have had ice ages and warming of the planet since the begining of time.

The current level of CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere is the highest for 800,000 years and rising faster than at any time in the past. (How do we know? Simple, a study of geology and deep bored arctic ice tells the story).

The usual excuse by the “Ostriches”, is to blaim volcanic activity, unfortunately despite the current apparent perceived level of volcanic activity, it is in fact less than occured in the recorded past.

So how about forest fires? Sorry, far less forests now than a few hundred thousand years ago, ergo less fires.

The Western Antarctic ice shelf is beginning to melt. It will possibly take a hundred years or so and will result in sea levels rising about 7 metres. Will the “Ostriches” accept that? Probably not, but their arguments are about as good as the one that says:

when your in an airplane diving vertically with no wings and no controls, your perfectly alright because you haven’t hit the ground yet!!

The beatitudes tell us the “the meek shall inherit the earth” I wonder, has it occured to anyone that as long as we are not “meek” and continue our selfish arrogant lifestyle that keeps all to ourselves without any concern for others, we may not have an earth to inherit?

 

[Al_Masetti]

The earth is 7000 miles in diameter. The earth’s crust is only about 30 miles thick. Our deepest exploration for oil is a few miles; the deepest mine is about one mile. The rest of the earth is a molten mass of liquid rock and metal at thousands of degrees. It’s NOT a big blue marble; it IS a giant liquid centered “chocolate covered liquid centered cherry candy”… all liquid with a very thin crust.

And the surface is constantly on the move… the “continents” are floating and drifting. There are HOLES in the crust – at least two thousand of them, maybe more, and they “leak” molten metal, molten rock, all kinds of gases [including Freon and other CFC’s], and all sorts of noxious things.

The atmosphere is about 4 miles thick. A very thin layer that has been there for millions of years that have seen impacts from meteors, huge volcanic eruptions, all sorts of things.

This 7000 mile diameter ball has a magnetic field that changes polarity every few years… the poles move enough that navigational charts need the magnetic north changed about every ten years and the polarity reverses every hundred thousand years (and is now over due by a hundred thousand years… so any day now…)

This whole shebang is spinning at high speed in a vacuum. AND is bombarded by something called the solar wind. The solar corpuscular energy is both powerful and erratic. At its peak, it shorts out electrical grids and expands the atmosphere enough to cause satellites to burn up. Its effects can be seen in the arctic regions as the aurora borealis.

The planet Earth is around 5 billion years old. However, recorded history only goes back a few thousand years. (Fossil and geological records are only barely beginning to be understood AND some “scientists” are being unmasked as having lied about the data.)

Some data are ignored, such as the data and writings of Gordon Dobson. He’s dead so he can’t speak for himself. But others are still alive, but politically incorrect and it’s difficult for them to be presented by the main stream media. Suggest you visit www.sepp.org for the weekly newsletter of Fred Singer. In addition, Art Robinson publishes a monthly hard copy newsletter; some back issues are at www.oism.org and look for Access to Energy. Also visit Google and search for the work of Gordon Gribble who is one of the leaders in the search for naturally occuring organohalogens, which the popular media / main stream media claim do not exist. Gribble and his associates have found more than 4000 naturally occuring organohalogens. There is a periodic conference on the subject in the Netherlands.

We are now coming out of one of many “little ice ages”…this one from 700 or 500 years ago to about 200 years ago.

About 1500 years ago, the sun stopped its sun spots according to Chinese records. The temperature plunged.

About 5000 years ago, the temperature was much higher than it is now.

About 75000 years ago, an ice age started and lasted until about 10000 years ago.

We do know that many of these climate events occur periodically. They happen over and over. But we do know there are 11-year cycles, 22-year cycles, 13000 year cycles, 50000 year cycles and many others. I cataloged some of them in a paper I self-published. It will give you places to start looking. Visit www.albertmasetti.com and click on newsletters and read the most recent newsletter. It’s a couple of years old now, but the cycles run for thousands of years, so it’s still accurate.

No one knows the mechanism for the generation of greenhouse gases. It’s all speculation. However, there is a time lag between earth temperature and gas concentrations, so it appears that the temperature changes CAUSE the increase in greenhouse gases, not the other way around. Refer to your high school and college chem courses for the various gas laws that describe the behavior / relationships of temperature, pressure, and volume.

Data is absolutely essential. Visit www.sidc.oma.be click on archives and then on graphics for the latest and historic solar emissions data.

The relationship between solar emissions and the earth’s atmosphere and environment was published in a report by the National Security Agency. There is a copy available under “links” and then under the Gerson report at www.albertmasetti.com

Check this stuff out and get back to us.

 

[mlchance]

MikeWM:

There is a world of difference between (so-called) intelligence, and science.

Not when discussing the politics of scaremongering that props up the global-warming doomsayers.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[MikeWM]

mlchance:

Not when discussing the politics of scaremongering that props up the global-warming doomsayers.

Define ‘scaremongering’. Personally, I fear global climate change a lot more than some of the other things people seem to stress about. It is a dereliction of duty.

Mike

 

[Lance]

Al Masetti:

The earth is 7000 miles in diameter. The earth’s crust is only about 30 miles thick. Our deepest exploration for oil is a few miles; the deepest mine is about one mile. The rest of the earth is a molten mass of liquid rock and metal at thousands of degrees. It’s NOT a big blue marble; it IS a giant liquid centered “chocolate covered liquid centered cherry candy”… all liquid with a very thin crust.

Check this stuff out and get back to us.

Thanks Al. Excellent post. Very informative.

 

[manualman]

It seems odd that we haven’t seen any reasonable quantitative data on greenhouse gases. Maybe the media just feels we are too dumb to publish it?

Doesn’t seem impossible for a government to come up with a ballpark estimate of the amount of coal, oil and wood burned since the dawn of the industrial age. Calculate the estimated resulting CO2 molecules generated. Calculate the volume of Earth’s atmosphere. Calculate the resulting increase in concentration of CO2. Check against measured results. Does the combustion-generated CO2 account for all the increased CO2 concentration or is it a drop in the bucket? I have no idea, and I’ve read a jillion media reports on the subject. WHERE’S the MATH?