Posted on 11/25/2007 6:23:44 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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.
"Oxfam... says that rising green house gas emissions are the major cause of weather-related disasters and must be tackled," the organisation said, adding that the world's poorest people were being hit the hardest.
The world suffered about 120 natural disasters per year in the early 1980s, which compared with the current figure of about 500 per year, according to the report.
"This year we have seen floods in South Asia, across the breadth of Africa and Mexico that have affected more than 250 million people," noted Oxfam director Barbara Stocking.
"This is no freak year. It follows a pattern of more frequent, more erratic, more unpredictable and more extreme weather events that are affecting more people."
She added: "Action is needed now to prepare for more disasters otherwise humanitarian assistance will be overwhelmed and recent advances in human development will go into reverse."
The number of people affected by extreme natural disasters, meanwhile, has surged by almost 70 percent, from 174 million a year between 1985 to 1994, to 254 million people a year between 1995 to 2004, Oxfam said.
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.
Rich Western nations and the United Nations must act to "make humanitarian aid faster, fairer and more flexible and to improve ways to prepare for and reduce the risk of disasters," it said.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Bali aims to see countries agree to launch a roadmap for negotiating cuts in climate-changing carbon emissions from 2012.
The Oxfam study was compiled using data from the Red Cross, the United Nations and specialist researchers at Louvain University in Belgium.
A foot of snow in the Philadelphia, PA area is now a disaster, requiring federal funds to recover from same. Used to be a great holiday fun event, now a disaster!
Gotta love the "about" references not to mention the nice even 120 and 500 figures.
After all, us hominids caused GW.
Saint Al told me so.
Chicken Little.
They used to call most of these occurences bad weather.
Well, clearly this is the fault of the U.S.
At the end of his second term, before he pardoned the rogues’ gallery, Bubba signed the Kyoto proposal on behalf of the U.S. subject to Senate approval.
The Senate voted 95 - zero against the Kyoto proposal. Trust me, there were not 95 Republican U.S. Senators in December 2000. There were lots of Dimocratz who agreed Kyoto was an idea that stunk like week old feesh.
Still, all of these calamities are Booooshes’ fault, bring in the Savages and the stage crews!
Idjuts.
I have fortunately lived long enough to call this for what it is. Baloney.
Oxfam is really making good use of that $25,000 that Chris McBrainless, er, McCandless gave them before heading off to Alaska.
~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™~~
early 1980s....
So the proper headline should read
“Oxfam Acknowledges That Life Under Reagan and Thatcher Was Paradise!”
I don’t trust leftist activists to make any honest and careful comparisons. Did they review centuries of data or just the past 25 years? Oh, you say that we have no good data for a lot of this stuff before 1980? So this trend, even if it were real (big if) could be a short-term cycle.
Did they compare exact specs of every kind of flood and disaster in every locale, or simply how many “disaster declarations” were issued by governments and/or media?
Did they take account of the added 2 billion in populations and where those people might be living, the greatly increased numbers living on coastlines and in vulnerable areas, etc.? A big flood is just as bad for anyone caught in it, but it would be worthwhile to know whether they are describing any serious climate changes or rather the press of human populations into more vulnerable areas???
I doubt that Oxfam bothered with any serious analysis. Anyone know?
Surpised they didn't blame the guns...
BTW if global warming is true then there is need to worry about the cost of heating fuel there won’t be any need for it.
I 2nd that assessment. He is the winner.
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