The End of the World - 2012 and Natural Disasters
By George S Davis
Is Anyone There?
If you are reading this then you can be fairly certain that the world did not end in 2011. But the doom mongers amongst you should not despair. Evidently the Mayan calendar does not extend beyond 2012 and therefore we are all assured earthly destruction sometime in the not too distant future.
Natural Disasters: The Economic Cost
Seriously though, 2011 has been an extremely bad year for natural disasters. In fact, 2011 has probably been the most costly ever. Current estimates stand at about a third of a trillion US dollars. Of this, the Japanese earthquake and the resulting tsunami accounts for $210 billion. And this doesn't take into account the effects of the follow on nuclear accident.
My adopted country of New Zealand has had its fair share of natural disasters in 2011. Christchurch, on the south island, has been wracked by several destructive earthquakes and as I write is still suffering from a series of disturbingly regular and unnerving aftershocks. The estimated cost is around $US16 billion. This may seem small potatoes in comparison to the Japanese experience, but this cost is being borne by a nation of just over 4 million. The experts are quick to point out that earthquakes are not on the increase and that the recent clutch represents a 1 in a 1000 year event; from this the victims of the quakes can take great comfort. The same cannot be said for the other category of natural disasters which are dependent on the vagaries of weather. Events such as cyclones and other weather extremes are on the increase. At least some of the meteorological natural disasters can be blamed on man's impact on the environment and global warming. Severe storms, tornados and Hurricane Irene caused $30 billion in damage in the USA alone. Consequently it has not been a happy year for insurance companies and insurance premiums are expected to rise by at least 5% in the US. Beleaguered shop keepers in Christchurch are becoming uninsurable and the lucky ones able to maintain policies are experiencing exorbitant rises in excess payment liability. Sadly, most of the loss, especially in developing nations, was uninsured.
Natural Disasters: The Human Toll
The hard economic facts do not account for the human misery; most of it remains unaccountable and quite frankly beyond human understanding. As one twentieth century despot so elegantly and brutally phrased it:"a single death is a personal tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic". Incredibly, in spite of the huge economic toil, human deaths caused by natural disasters in 2011 remained relatively low at 27,000. To place these figures in some perspective: the fatalities attributed to natural disasters in 2010 were estimated at a staggering 296,000.
Natural Disasters and 2012
I, like the vast majority of people on earth, will not be marking the passing days this year with any especial trepidation, well no more than usual. If I were a betting man I would be willing to place all that I own on the prospect that human kind will be still around to herald in 2013. What I can predict however, is another year of wild weather with mounting human and economic costs; only time will tell.
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