A new Reason Foundation study adds more reason for optimism. In “Wealth and Safety: The Amazing Decline in Deaths from Extreme Weather in an Era of Global Warming, 1900–2010,” Indur Goklany shows that global deaths from extreme weather events have fallen by over 90 percent since the 1920s, in spite of a more than hundredfold increase in reported incidence of such events. Goklany uses data from the Emergency Events database of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (EM-DAT). To be entered into EM-DAT, one or more of the following criteria must be fulfilled: Ten or more people reported killed; 100 or more people reported affected; declaration of a state of emergency; and a call for international assistance.
Droughts, and floods have long caused widespread death. In the 1920s, for instance, extreme weather was responsible for 485,000 deaths per year. But due to technological developments and related economic growth, deaths have fallen precipitously, even while the world’s population has risen. Between 2000 and 2010 there was an average of only 36 recorded deaths per year from extreme weather.
Deaths from storms, including hurricanes and tornadoes, spiked as recently as the 1970s, when there were 10 deaths a year per million people. Between 2000 and 2010, storms being blamed for just two deaths a year per million people.
Floods were to blame for 30 percent of the deaths during the 1900-2010, making them the second most deadly extreme weather category. The death rate for floods topped out in the 1930s at 204 deaths a year per million people. Deaths from floods have fallen by over 98 percent since then and there was an average of approximately one flood death per year per million people from 2000 to 2010.
Wealth and Safety: The Amazing Decline in Deaths from Extreme Weather in an Era of Global Warming, 1900–2010 by Indur M. Goklany. Project Director: Julian Morris. (PDF)
Fuente: Francisco Capella.
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