Many on the Green side have been perceptibly energised and even delighted by the flash flooding fatalities in the Libyan town of Derna.
Deaths are now in the 5,000 range and are expected to climb towards 20,000. This is "proof" once more of the "evils" of "man-made climate change" and a "fresh mandate" for a full raft of measures to micromanage your life, down to how you heat/cool your home, what you eat, and how you get around.
But rain, heavy rain, and flash floods are, of course, nothing new. They have been with us for centuries, In fact, what do you think the Biblical account of Noah's Ark was all about? In more historically reliable times, there have been numerous rain-related disasters. But people just got on with their lives and tried to be ready for next time.
What Green Fascists fail to focus on in cases like Derna is the fact that Libya has seen a MASSIVE explosion of population, which inevitably means that people end up building homes on land that is infrequently exposed to rare but high-risk events, like the recent run-off from Storm Daniel. They also tend to skimp on flood defences, as who wants to spend money on that when there are so many popularity-enhancing alternatives.
If Storm Daniel had struck in 1960, when Libya was closer to its natural population of under 2 million, then the death toll would probably have been negligible. However, since then, the population has been allowed to soar by around 500%. Even the recent chaos and ongoing civil war has only made a temporary blip in the population rise.
In the 1850s the population of Derna was around 4,000, climbing to 16,6o9 under Italian colonial rule. More recently it has been around 90,000.
In the 1850s the population of Derna was around 4,000, climbing to 16,6o9 under Italian colonial rule. More recently it has been around 90,000.
As already heavily populated nations, like China and Japan have long since realised, if you are going to have massive numbers of people living near possible flood exposed areas, then you need to (a) either relocate them, (b) have extremely efficient flood control systems, or (c) just accept the mass fatalities that will occasionally happen with a shrug of the shoulders.
The Civil War in Libya was just as much a result of their overpopulation.
ReplyDeleteDerna has an interesting history:
ReplyDelete‘The city was the location of the famous Battle of Derna (1805), the first victory achieved by the United States Military on foreign soil. Occurring during the First Barbary War, the battle was fought between a force of roughly 500 US Marines and Mediterranean mercenaries and 4,000 or 5,000 Barbary troops.‘
So within that in mind and given the Americans were responding to the Barbary Pirates killing and enslaving loads of Americans and Europeans it looks like Karma visited Derna.