Journal of Earth Science & Climatic Change
Open Access

Abstract

Life on planet Earth is constantly being threatened by different types of disastrous events; some are natural, some are manmade and some are just imagined. Some threats increase with our population growth and condensation to mega-cities. Plagues and famines have killed hundreds of millions of people through time. Progress in medicine and health care has fortunately changed the situation drastically in recent years. Some building constructions dams for water and nuclear power plants for electricity have emerged as new sources of man-made disasters. There are also several proposed disastrous processes, which, in fact, are merely imagined and products of super-effective lobbying campaigns. Among the natural disasters, giant solar flares have emerged as a new threat of gigantic effects on human life on planet Earth. Nuclear power remains at an infant stage and poses deep threats. The ten probably worse types of disastrous events are listed in figure. The building up of adequate warning systems seems central for the preparation of future natural disasters. This is urgent with respect to the possibility of giant solar flare events. Focusing on imagined threat steals the limelight from real problems and must be abandoned; the sooner, the better. Wars are, of course, terrible human failures with extensive human, cultural and environmental costs.

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