Hurricane Katrina, Indonesia, Hoover Dam, flooding in China, huge Richter scale earthquake in Sichuan, Haiti, and now the tsunami on the Pacific Coast, mainly the damage it has cost Japan.
These are only a few.
Now, not to diminish the enormity of these disasters, but are these natural disasters occurring more frequently and on a larger scale? Or do they seem that way due to population growth. Since the population is ever growing at a ridiculous rate, it may appear that these natural disasters are incurring higher death tolls. OR, maybe it is because the population is growing at an exponential rate, the way we harm nature is what is causing natural disasters to occur more frequently and at much larger scales than they have occurred in the past. I think I agree more with this theory. If that is the case, then we, the human population, especially us in this comfortable affluent society, are causing disasters, thus making these disasters not so 'natural' after all.
I'm happy to hear that the e-mail I received at work informed all of us employees that the 14k or so employees in Japan have been accounted for and are all safe. However, I wonder how that information could have been dispensed within hours of the tsunami happening.
It is quite disturbing and disheartening to see these disasters popping up everywhere. There is no time for any one group of people to recover from their disastrous state before a brand new disaster has already occurred. To many of us who are rather sheltered and removed from the face of disaster, we feel like we can't do much to help anyone, except carry on with our everyday lives and dole out a donation if can or if we deem a cause worthy of our time and hard-earned dollars. But instead, I ask not what can I do (which isn't ever really much, in any situation), but just what caused this flood, what caused this earthquake, in this location? Why are these people suffering, especially the Asian areas, while most of us, in the U.S. (you got to admit) have caused, has caused, or will cause, the most environmental damage in the world, we sort of get to be sheltered from facing any direct danger? Ok, knock on wood (or touch wood), because I don't want to inflict any type of disaster, harm on anyone or anything.
It's just sad...and I wonder why certain things happen to certain people.
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