Climate Victims: Every Second, One Person Is Displaced by Disaster

From:  TruthOut

Sunday, 31 July 2016 00:00  
By Baher Kamal, Inter Press Service | Report 

Felix Condoni, Llapallapani's mayor and a former fisher, with a boat in the dry bed of Lake Poopo outside of Llapallapani, Bolivia, May 1, 2016. Lake Poopo, once Bolivia's second-largest, is now just a dry, salty expanse. Many of the Uru-Murato people, who had lived off its waters for generations, have left joining a new global march of refugees fleeing not war or persecution, but climate change. (Photo: Josh Haner / The New York Times)

Climate change and related extreme weather events have devastated the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of most vulnerable people worldwide -- by far exceeding the total of all the unfortunate and unjustifiable victims of all terrorist attacks combined. However, the unstoppable climate crisis receives just a tiny fraction of mainstream media attention. See these dramatic facts.

"Every second, one person is displaced by disaster," the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports. "In 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries. Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide."

As climate change continues, it will likely lead to more frequent and severe natural hazards; the impact will be heavy, warns this independent humanitarian organisation providing aid and assistance to people forced to flee.  MORE