Global Warming Accelerates Disasters

“After reporting a sharp increase in the late 1990s in the number of weather-induced disasters,” the Red Cross feels that “international aid will not be able to keep up with the impact of global warming,” says Britain’s Guardian Weekly. “In its annual World Disasters Report, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says that floods, storms, landslides and droughts, which numbered about 200 a year before 1996, rose steadily to 392 in 2000.” Fearing an even more spectacular rise in natural disasters, Roger Bracke, the federation’s head of disaster relief operations, stated: “There is a natural limit somewhere to what humanitarian assistance can do; we are afraid that there will be a point where we can no longer provide assistance.” According to the Guardian, “floods accounted for more than two-thirds of the [211 million] people a year affected on average by natural disasters over the past decade. Famine caused by drought affected nearly a fifth, and accounted for most deaths: about 42% of all those caused by natural disasters.”