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2024
Japan has doubled down on the nuclear industry’s routine practice of spreading radioactive pollutants to public air space and to common waterways. In addition to the pumping of tens of thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated cooling water to the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex, the government has announced its intention to spread around the country as much as 14 million cubic meters of radioactively contaminated soil, reportedly for road-building, construction projects, and even agricultural underlayment.
We are used to thinking about natural disasters as events confined in time and space: the direct impact in a certain location of an earthquake happens over minutes, a hurricane over hours. While they might be confined in geography, longitudinal studies can help us understand the full range of effects and what extra efforts might be needed to rebuild.
Insurance costs are rising quickly across much of the country. Hurricanes are part of the reason, but it’s the other perils common across the Midwest and Great Plains that complicate costs.
A town hit hard by two hurricanes, downpours and a deep freeze, all in the midst of a pandemic, offers crucial lessons for everyone’s disaster planning and recovery.
Women and gender-diverse people bear the brunt of climate change’s negative affects. If Australia wants to be taken seriously on climate action, this needs addressing.
Environmental pledges are being shredded to please agribusiness and appease extremists. It’s a terrible mistake, says environmental writer Arthur Neslen
Overall losses from natural disasters in 2023: US$ 250bn; more than 74,000 fatalities Insured global losses of US$ 95bn close to five-year average (US$ 105bn) and above the ten-year average (US$ 90bn) Earthquake in Turkey and Syria was the year’s most devastating humanitarian disaster Thunderstorms in North America and Europe more destructive than ever before: overall losses of US$ 76bn; insured losses US$ 58bn 2023 was the hottest year ever, with a large number of regional records broken
2023
Many of those who drowned near Greece last month were escaping environmental crises in Pakistan, says author Fatima Bhutto
CRED became a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in 1980 and has expanded its support of the WHO Global Programme for Emergency Preparedness and Response. Since then, it has increased its international network substantially. It has collaborative status with the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-DHA), and also works in collaboration with the European Union Humanitarian Office (ECHO), the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA-USAID) as well as with non-governmental agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Croissant (ICRCRC, Switzerland). During the 1990's, the Centre actively promoted the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR).
A train derailed and flooded a town with cancer-causing chemicals. But something larger, and more troubling, is at work.
