Some people truly believe that the world has become extremely plagued by natural disasters of all kinds. Some believe that we are only recognizing disasters on a broader scale because of the availability of media coverage from all places on the earth. The thing about that theory is that we have had media coverage that could be related all over the world for some time.
If not as quickly as today, we have been able to get reliable information within a few days for many, many years now. Ever since the transatlantic telegraph was put in place, news from across the globe has gotten to us regularly and not in memorable history have we saw such an outbreak of disasters like has taken place in recent years.
The number of worldwide disasters that were recorded during the 1980's was around 400 or so. In the year of 2007 it is said that the number of natural disasters worldwide is thought to have doubled and more that number to about 960. This is a tremendous increase by any standard. Not all of these disasters claimed as many lives and caused as much damage as some, but they were all devastating to the numbers of people they did affect whether it was just a few or thousands.
The most recent, memorable, and deadly disasters were not from the same type of events either. In 2004 an earthquake occurred and caused a very deadly tsunami for 11 countries. India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka were the most devastated by this event and at least 225,000 were killed. Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar recently killed 84,000. The recent earthquake in the Sichuan Province in China killed 69,000. In the United States we all remember hurricane Katrina and most recently hurricane Ike. These disasters were small in the numbers of people killed, but the economic loss and displacement of people was huge for us.
When we have natural disasters like these that are taking place all over the world, it makes you wonder what could possibly be in the minds of terrorists who purposefully instigate and carry out wars, car bombings, embassy bombings, and worst of all for us a tragedy like 9/11? Do we not have enough to deal with without adding to the miseries that we can not prevent?
Many people believe that all of these tragedies and disasters are implicating the end of time. That is a personal belief that some might not share, but no one can deny the fact that we are experiencing so many of these things. Some believe the natural disasters that are occurring are because of the warming climate and some believe it is the wrath of God. No matter what you do believe, the truth is that we should be doing all that we can to correct the warming climate, if we can. Whatever comes after that will not be in our hands. |
