Brutal Cyclone kills 22,000 in Myanmar

[fifthcolumn]

Breaking:

Cyclone devastates Myanmar. 22,000 dead and over a million homeless.

This is brutal.

[PS_RalphW]

This happened on Saturday, four days ago.

The final death toll will be a lot higher. Vast areas are still under water,
the little transport infrastructure in the area has been destroyed. The regime is hampering international aid efforts. Just about the only organisation with enough resources is the US military, and they won't be allowed near.

Disease will be the biggest killer.

This is parts of the limits to growth, where fertile river deltas which are inherently prone to flooding attract large populations because they have nowhere else to go.

This is part of the return to normality where human population is controlled by disease, famine and disaster. The numbers are larger because there are more people.

In future we will hear less about these events, because they will fall off the media radar, like they do in parts of Africa now.

[fifthcolumn]

This happened on Saturday, four days ago.

Just goes to show how much mainstream media I read!

I think this is going to have a horrendous effect.

I think a lot of people are going to die of starvation and disease like you say. It might even be the trigger that creates the mutant human to human version of bird flu.

Also the effects will be felt here:

With rice supplies already tight and now this whole area under water, I should expect supplies of rice and then wheat and corn to move higher.

We will probably even notice this at the petrol pump.

[danza]

Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of the Junta.


Pray emoticon.

[adam2]

I believe that rice is (was?) one of theire major exports, since the crops have been substantialy destroyed, what will be the effect on rice prices, that were already rising rapidly?

[biffvernon]

what will be the effect on rice prices?

Go down?
Stay the same?
Go up?

Hmm, tricky.

Threre is normally a lot of movement of rice from the area affected to the northern parts of Burma, and a good deal is exported to Bangla-Desh and elsewhere.

[Keela]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7391812.stm

[PS_RalphW]

Here is a grim thought. It is currently estimated that this cyclone killed
100,000 people. The world population is currently growing at 70,000,000 people a year, or 50,000 people a day. If we are facing global die off, we will need to see excess people dieing at a rate of one of these disasters every day for 20 years just to bring the population down to sustainable levels.

Grim.

[biffvernon]

Which is why we need to be clever and arrange our affairs to make 9 billion a sustainable population. Anything else will mean a lot of unhappiness.

[Adam1]

We don't need a Burmese style cyclone every few days to bring down the human population. We just need fewer births and shorter lifespans. Both will probably happen post peak. I think that the population decline, although not painless (witness post-Soviet Russia) will not require the additional suffering of a continually repeated cyclone to occur. As RalphW implies (sort of), there are a lot of people arriving and departing this world every day. It only takes a small change in the balance between the two and the power of the exponential function to have a significant effect on world population in a surprisingly short time.

[biffvernon]

The contrast between the Burmese government response to the cyclone and the Chinese response tho their earthquake is striking. Premier Wen Jiabao had flown to the area immediately and the speed and scale of the disaster mitigation work seems impressive.

The BBC's Quentin Somerville says this is probably the most significant natural disaster to hit China in recent memory, but that the Chinese army has a good record of mobilising and getting people to safety.

He also says it is one of the most open and speedy responses to an emergency he has ever seen from Chinese state media.

more

[clv101]

Which is why we need to be clever and arrange our affairs to make 9 billion a sustainable population. Anything else will mean a lot of unhappiness.

Taken over the long term... I expect 9bn people would result in more unhappiness than if slight shifts in birth and death rates brought the population down to 2-4bn by 2100.

[biffvernon]

Sure. Let's concentrate on that shift in the birth rate though, rather than trying to up the death rate. Prioritise women's education, health care and social security.

[clv101]

Sure. Let's concentrate on that shift in the birth rate though, rather than trying to up the death rate. Prioritise women's education, health care and social security.

Sure. Let's concentrate on that shift in the birth rate though, rather than trying to up the death rate. Prioritise women's education, health care and social security.

I would suggest the Western medical has focused too much on lowering the death rate at all costs over the last few decades. This is evidenced by life expectancy increasing since WWII at a faster rate than years of "quality" life. Resulting in people living, on average, for more years suffering from chronic illnesses. Is it good that the number of years people live with chronic illness is now higher than it was 50 years ago? That's one "side effect" of modern medicine.

The concept of keeping people "alive" no matter what, is questionable.

[biffvernon]

Is it good that the number of years people live with chronic illness is now higher than it was 50 years ago?

You'd better ask old people that. I suspect that the answer will often be 'yes'.