Beginning of the end?

Disasters don't come in form of earthquakes, floods or tsunamis alone, writes Binay Kumar in his column.

Consider the following news items that could not have escaped your attention in the last four days:

- 23 February, 2005: The skies finally cleared for a dim sun to begin poking through the clouds Wednesday on Southern California after a six-day drenching that killed at least nine people, destroyed dozens of houses and flooded roads and airports.

- The rainy spell with severe storms began last Thursday, bringing 9.14 inches by Wednesday morning to a city (Los Angeles) where the average for an entire year is about 15 inches. Damage in Los Angeles County alone since Jan. 1 was estimated at $52.5 million, including up to $10 million in damage caused by the latest storm.

- 22 February, 2005: A strong earthquake hit dozens of villages in southern Iran, killing at least 500 people and hurting many more. The 6.4-magnitude quake struck just before 6.00 AM local time and was centered near Zarand in Kerman province, 460 miles from the capital, Tehran. Some 30,000 people in about 40 villages spread over a wide, mountainous area are reported to have been affected. Casualties are expected to rise in the province and heavy rain is hampering rescue work.

- 21 February, 2005, 2005 : Britain is in the grip of one of the most severe cold snaps in recent memory - with forecasters predicting that the worst of the weather will hit on Thursday.

- 20 February, 2005: Thirty-six people were killed and at 100 others were reported missing in avalanches in Kashmir as the heaviest snowfall in nearly two decades brought the region to a standstill.

- A wave of avalanches that flattened villages in Kashmir, torrential rain and snow in Pakistan and icy temperatures in Afghanistan have pushed the death toll by Wednesday from an extreme cold snap gripping South Asia to over 1,000.

- According to reports appearing today, poverty-stricken parents in Afghanistan were feeding opium to their children to help them endure numbing temperatures, hunger and disease that have killed at least 267 people.

From Kashmir to California, from Britain to Bahrain, the weather pattern has seen some unprecedented disturbances lately in the most unlikely of places and it has brought untold hardship to millions across the world. Do we see a consistent pattern here and, if we do, what is at the heart of the problem? Are the Gods angry with us or have we done something to invite this misery upon our fellow earthlings?

It doesn't take to be a genius for you to figure out that climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, and the trend is likely to accelerate. More and more people are being caught up in a growing number of natural disasters. Who is to blame? There are several culprits that we can name but all of these could be summarised as falling under three broad heads: climate change, frenzied urbanisation and irresponsibly poor land use.

The last few years have seen this debate largely confined to the academia where papers have been read out forecasting that global temperatures would increase in the coming decades, sea levels would rise, and few places in the world would be spared an increase in violent rainstorms, droughts, tropical cyclones and other climatic disruptions.

Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and their colleagues have produced the first clear evidence of human-produced warming in the world's oceans, a finding they say removes much of the uncertainty associated with debates about global warming.

According to a report produced by the US National Climatic Data Center, the United States alone has experienced at least 62 major natural disasters in the last 25 years, which involved damages of at least $1 billion dollar or more in each case. This report does not contain any event that had unadjusted damages/losses of less than $1 billion dollars and then subsequently may have reached $1 billion after applying the (Gross National Product) GNP inflation/wealth index. Fifty-three of these disasters have occurred since 1988 with total unadjusted damages/costs of nearly $260 billion. Seven events occurred in 1998 alone - the most for any year in the summary period.

Disasters don't come in the form of earthquakes, floods or tsunamis alone. Spread of disease in epidemics and hitherto unknown forms are other consequences of reckless human lifestyles staring in our faces. A news report released today speaks of the WHO announcing that the world may be teetering on the edge of a deadly pandemic spurred by avian flu and governments must make emergency plans immediately.

According to the WHO, "If the (H5N1) avian flu virus becomes highly contagious among humans, the health impact in terms of deaths and sickness will be enormous and certainly much greater than SARS."

Now that these warnings are coming home to roost, people are beginning to take notice and fear for the worst. However, taking notice is one thing; doing something proactively about it quite another. Next week we will look at the cost of not heeding the warnings and what the world is doing about it.