Top scientific group warns of growing natural disasters

[Barrett808]

BEIJING (AFP) Oct 19, 2005 - The world will witness more deadly natural disasters as global warming accelerates, with unchecked population growth putting large numbers of people at risk, a top scientific group said Wednesday.

The Paris-based International Council for Science recommended an international research body be established as a matter of urgency to provide a firmer basis for policies to tackle the problem.

"The devastating effects of the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan, the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina are vivid reminders that natural disasters are a global issue," it said.

"While very large events are, fortunately, fairly rare, the frequency of recorded natural disasters has been rising rapidly."

"We foresee that the severity of the impacts of extreme events will increase in concert with global warming."

(more)

http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/051019085136.oqeef0yq.html

[VWolf]

1. Awww, don't believe them

Bunch of French surrender-monkeys
Just keep driving those Hummers
:sarcasm:

[BeHereNow]

3. Welcome to DU, and ain't it the truth...

BHN :hi:

[natrat]

5. steam locomotive out of control

the whole idea of economic growth is absurd-more growth,buy more shit, have more children who buy more shit who have more children---what a dumb species

[Boomer]

11. buy more planets...

...wait, where do we get those?

[hatrack]

15. Why, at Planet-Mart, of course

:evilgrin:

[Tesha]

21. Magrathia, at least when they get back in again.

> buy more planets; wait, where do we get those?

Magrathia, of course, at least when they get back in again from
wherever it is that they've temporarily gone.

Tesha

[Orrin_73]

22. Those darn French scientists

:sarcasm:

[Kagemusha]

2. I don't get scientists talking like this.

I mean, I can understand how UN types would be horrified at such prospects of death but, news flash: all 6 billion of us are going to die someday. I've always marveled at people who cower at population growth and rumors of population growth, but who get horrified by the idea that the fact there are more people means that natural disasters will be more "deadly".

I mean, that effect is TOTALLY BESIDES global warming's effect on the weather. It's human nature to fight nature; it's nature's nature to win once in a while.

[Viking12]

4. You make a good point...

We have increased out vulnerabilities to natural disasters through our own designs. Hurricane damage, for instance, has risen exponentially over the recent decades. NOT because of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes but becasue of the increasing development along the Gulf Coast.

Coupled with the liklihood of increasing our exposure by fueling climate change, we are making some very bad choices.

[jwirr]

10. I think you are saying what I have seen in the 60+ years

of my life. When the baby boomers were born we need more cribs,diapers, etc. Then we need more kindergartens, the middle schools then high schools and colleges. Now the rate of cancer, heart disease and diabetes is on the increase - of course it is - there are more people in that age category. We will soon need more nursing facilities and medicare/social security. And so the world goes.

[Emillereid]

23. The RATES of cancer, diabetes, etc are on the rise --

rate is blind to sheer number. Rate is the percentage of folks who come down with a disease -- and holds whether the cohort population is 100 or 100 million. It's not just sheer number of disease victims that are going up -- the rate of disease is going up. We are wallowing in our own waste.

[PurityOfEssence]

17. It's a question of balance and adjustment

The human species has done a hideous job of adjustment.

When we and our religions were young, it was imperative to have many children and secure our frontiers. Now that we're destroying the environment to a ghastly degree, we need to adjust.

Sadly, the need for cultures to fight a numbers game and outbreed others will sink us in a noxious swamp of human debris.

Yes, one would have to be an imbecile to not see that denser populations will yield more deaths, but the real effects on our biosphere need to be addressed. We're destroying species that have important interactions with others; it's all far too complex, and we're going pay for it someday.

Having more than two or three children is an act of environmental terrorism, regardless of the ego issues or the need to conquer the world for one's supernatural fantasy. Having problems with this is sociopathy.

Those who think they understand the interrelationship of the biosphere to such a degree that they grant themselves the right to run around like a bull in a china shop are simply wrong. This is not subjective, this is proveable fact.

The key is adjustment.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. In the 20th century, wars kill 100+ millions.

I would not be surprised if natural disasters topped that number in the 21st century. Hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, pandemics, droughts, floods. Most of them tied to global climate change.

As melting ice caps change the pressure on land masses and weight distribution of the oceans that could trigger earthquakes like have not been seen since the end of the ice age.

Doesn't heat alter magnetic fields? If so, global warming could, conceivably, affect earthquakes and volcanoes by altering the earth's magnetic field. We don't really know what the triggers are. If there is a tie-in it could be even worse.

It's going to be an interesting century.

[megatherium]

7. global warming won't affect magnetism, earthquakes or volcanoes.

It will cause enormous droughts, rising sea levels and coastal flooding, and increased storms. By century's end, the southeast United States could become a savannah, the high plains a desert. Coupled with a population that will rise from 6.5 billion to something in the 9 to 11 billion range, and there will be big trouble. The wars of the near future will be over things like water. 9 billion is not a sustainable population in the long run as petroleum runs out.

Global warming or no, there will be big earthquakes. Most of Asia is way overdue for big earthquakes. I think southern California is getting due. Sometimes in the next couple of centuries, a magnitude 9 quake will strike the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland corridor. (The last one was in 1700, and they happen every 3 to 6 centuries.)

[Art_from_Ark]

20. Asia has had lots of big earthquakes recently

Just in the '90s, there have been several big ones in Japan (including the Kobe quake that killed 6,000+), Indonesia, Armenia, Turkey, the Philippines, Iran, and Pakistan. And China has had several huge ones in the last hundred years that have killed more than 200,000 people each, including the Tengshan quake of 1976 which was the deadliest of the 20th century.

[megatherium]

8. A modest proposal: A National Preparedness political party

I think it is time to discard "left" and "right" political categories. The political party of the near future should be the "National Preparedness Party", whose platform will be that the government's primary function is to protect the public from harm. This would be a party that would work to harden building codes and infrastructure, and prepare for coming disasters. The party would be pro-environmentalist because enviromentalism isn't a matter of protecting cute spotted owls, it's a matter of national security. Healthy air, water and land will be needed to feed us and protect us from massive flooding and so forth. The National Preparedness Party will also take dramatic action towards energy independence, instead of leaving our energy policy to the transnational petroleum corporations; and of course it will take decisive action against greenhouse gas emissions.

[Patchuli]

9. Sounds like a plan to me! nt

[renate]

12. I don't know how to start a thread, so...

I looked for one that was about the way BushCo's administration ignores facts in favor of policy. So, sorry this is sort of OT.

I got this link in my e-mail today from the New England Journal of Medicine. It's by the doctor who was the director of the Office of Women's Health who quit when making Plan B a nonprescription drug, as the commission studying the issue had recommended. At the beginning of her editorial is this quote from Thomas Henry Huxley: "Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed."

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/16/1650?query=TOC

P.S. If anybody has time to answer--how DO you start a thread? I can't even find where to click to do it. I use Mozilla--maybe I need to use IE?

[confuddled]

16. FAQ instructions:

To start a new discussion topic: Enter the forum which is most appropriate for your topic, and then click the icon at the top of the page that is marked "Post." Fill out the form and click "Post Message."

[renate]

19. thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!

I never saw that before! Thank you so much!

:pals: :pals: :pals: :pals: :pals: :pals: :pals: :pals: :pals: :pals:

Not knowing how to post reminded me of high school, when I was clueless about EVERYTHING.

[Kablooie]

13. but Mr. Bush says it ain't so, so you've got nothing to worry about.

[callady]

14. wind speeds inside hurricanes

have increased 50% in the last 30 years and duration of storms has increased markedly.

[prescole]

18. Rush is right! It's true that sun activity affects global temps.

but it's also true that those temps. are rising at a rate faster than sun activity or normal climate fluctuations can explain. No one can say for sure that human activity is or isn't contributing to global warming, but the evidence is increasingly convincing.
Limbaugh and friends can pretend to know for sure...but their credibility is zero on this issue. The NOAA accepts that humans are contributing, yet Bush ignores the obvious implications.
Gad damn these people, they'd trade the future of the planet for their own gratification and their obsolete beliefs.

"Is there a place for the hopeless sinner who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?" Bob Marley, "One Love/One Heart"