Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Oxfam International announced in November that natural disasters have increased from an average of 120 a year in the early 1980s to as many as 500 today. Flood and windstorm disasters have risen six-fold, from about 60 in 1980 to 240 in 2006. The number of people affected annually by disasters of all types averaged 174 million from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, but jumped to 254 million from 1995 to 2004. In 2007, floods in Asia alone affected 250 million people.

Climate change is a major factor. But the increase in people affected is also due to skyrocketing population around the planet.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, natural disasters of all types are killing about 120,000 people per year, double the toll of a decade ago.

Millions of people in the U.S. and around the world have been driven from their homes or deprived of their livelihoods by hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, tornadoes and volcanoes.

Estimates for the number of “environmental refugees” may reach 1 billion in the coming decades, affecting one of every six people on the planet.

For lots more information and numbers, see a report by the Society for Environmental Journalists.