Natural Disasters: To Worry or Not to Worry?

We have been taught that the effects of global warming are detrimental to our environment and way of life. We have been warned that our carelessness and disregard for our planet’s state will result in a myriad of harmful occurrences that will leave the earth with little water, polluted air, severe damage to the ozone, and more. In response, it seems as though the earth has been giving us a little “payback” in the form of natural disasters.

There was the tsunami that hit Indonesia around 2004, killing over 200,000 people and has been called one of the deadliest tsunamis ever. The earthquake that caused the tsunami had reportedly released the energy of 230,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. Scientists have said that the earthquake was so powerful that it caused the earth to shake on its axis and alter the rotation of the planet.

Then there was Hurricane Katrina, wiping out the entire city of New Orleans, and could be considered one of the worst recent natural disasters in United States history. Katrina hit the U.S. in August 2005 and took with it over 1,800 lives and caused over $80 billion dollars in damages. Americans saw their own citizens struggling to get out of the city, living in football stadiums, and having to rebuild their lives day by day.

A few months after Katrina, on October 8, 2005, Pakistan experienced an earthquake that reached about 7.6 on the Richter scale. According to the ReliefWeb organization in their Nov. 2005 report, “Pakistan: A Summary Report on Muzaffarabad Earthquake,” more than 80,000 people were killed, 200,000 injured, and 4 million were left homeless.

More recently, there was the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti that reached 7.0 on the Richter scale and perhaps even worse than that, Chile experienced the strongest earthquake ever recorded in February, an 8.8 on the Richter scale. After-shocks even weeks later still shook up the city of Santiago, causing car accidents and homes to shake.

So what is causing all of these horrific and deadly disasters? Are we to blame for Mother Nature’s outrage?

According to Dr. Ken Finkelstein, Environmental Scientist with the Coastal Protection and Restoration Division of NOAA and a professor in the Environmental Sciences department at Suffolk, the last ten years are not unusual in regard to natural disasters.

“The reasons we are more aware of them are because many of these more recent events have occurred in populated areas and such have not occurred with this frequency in the very recent past,” he said. “Communication has vastly improved, hence information is more readily available and as a society we have become more risk-adverse.”

Ever since the truth of global warming surfaced, as a society we have been more and more “earth conscience,” and, if these events did occur in less populated areas we may not have considered them a major threat to our planet.

When asked if these normal natural happenings should cause us any worry, Finkelstein responded, “There is plenty to worry about, mostly because these events are totally normal.”