Throughout his distinguished career, Earth Policy Institute founder and president Lester Brown has sought to protect resources across the globe. This morning in his opening address at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, he stressed the importance of one that may now be as important as any ocean, rainforest or glacier. ”Time is our [...]
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China,
Earth Policy Institute,
India,
Lester Brown,
Russia,
World Conference on Disaster Management 2011
Swiss Re’s latest sigma study (full report; abstract) reveals that the final economic losses resulting from disasters (both natural and man-made) across the globe in 2010 was $218 billion — a number that dwarfs the $68 billion in damages caused by catastrophes in 2009. With unprecedented flooding, Asia was the region worst hit, with $75 [...]
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2010 Pakistan Floods,
Chile,
Chilean Earthquake,
China,
Christchurch Earthquake,
Haiti,
Haitian Earthquake,
Japan,
Japanese Earthquake,
New Zealand,
Russia
“Organized” chaos A few weeks ago, a report came out that — once again — India led the world in traffic deaths. Given its population (estimated at nearly 1.2 billion, which puts it behind only China), the nation would logically be near the top of the list regardless of any priority it placed on safety. [...]
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Auto Safety,
Brazil,
China,
Coface,
India,
Russia
Yesterday, Emily did a post recounting Aon’s list of the top five global hotspots for earthquakes. Given the seemingly relentless seismic activity and destruction wrought by shifting tectonic plates just in 2010 alone, such natural disasters should be high on everyone’s watch list. But as we are seeing right now in the Gulf, man-made disasters [...]
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Centralia,
Pennsylvania,
Russia,
Stephen Colbert,
The Centralia Underground Coal Fire,
The Gates of Hell,
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,
Turkmenistan