Data refutes environmental disaster scientists: natural disasters are on the rise

In the article published in the journal Environmental Harzards by Taylor & FrancisTwo Italian researchers, Gianluca Alimonti of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and Milan State University and Luigi Mariani, professor at the University of Brescia, report An interesting find. According to them, the natural disasters and related victims has declined in the past twenty years. Moreover, rising temperatures do not seem to directly affect the occurrence of such disasters.

The authors, he said Alexander Rico On the factthey analyzedEmergency event databasean accurate enumeration of landslides, mudslides, floods, hurricanes and other disasters, created in 1988 by Disaster Epidemiology Research Center (approved) of the Catholic Louvain. Through this analysis, they noticed a pattern that may be counterintuitive to many: Disasters began to increase around the middle of the 20th century, and have grown rapidly since the 1970s, peaking in the 1990s. Then, despite the predictions of organizations such as the United Nations, Disasters began to fall In the period 2002-2022, as well as the victims.

clarification? It wasn’t until the 1950s that the world was a peaceful place. It was difficult to simply detect an event and enter it into a database. Over the years, advanced technologies have been developed and signaling mechanisms have been improved. This, of course, has contributed to the apparent increase in the frequency of disasters over the past 50 years. And what about the victims? Their number has also decreased for similar reasons: although there are still many preventive measures to be taken and, especially in Italy, the maintenance of the grounds is often neglected, we have become more efficient in managing emergencies and in protecting ourselves from the dangers of nature.

But what’s even more interesting is that in the past 20 years, The trend towards reducing disasters, not increasing them. This result, as highlighted by Alimonti and Mariani, is in stark contrast to the predictions of two United Nations bodies (FAO and UNDR), which project an increase in natural disasters.

and the Climate change? Despite popular perception, rising average temperatures appear to have no direct relative effect on the increase in natural disasters. On the contrary, natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and planet tremors, which are not affected by climate, record a similar trend to events associated with carbon dioxide emissions.