Has the global rise in natural disasters been influenced by man-made climate change?

Countless areas of the world have seen different types of natural catastrophes, including earthquakes that killed and injured many people as well as floods and torrents that took the lives of thousands of victims.

Consecutively, a tendency toward industrialization and reliance on fossil fuels has been observed in human activity for more than a century. 

This has resulted in environmental imbalances that scientists and experts explain are related to the disasters that occur, while also issuing a warning that several human habits must be promptly stopped before the earth becomes a mass grave caused by and victimized by humanity.

Mohamed Benabou, a climate expert, confirmed to Hespress AR that everything related to natural disasters is mainly due to human activities and industrial activities and the accompanying emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide and warm gases that rise into the atmosphere and lead to the phenomenon of global warming.

“We are talking about climate change that has exceeded all limits, as described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, as we have passed the stage of climate boiling and are living in the rhythm of climate collapse, leaving thousands dead and missing,” explained the expert.

Benabou pointed out that the human factor was also present in what happened in Libya, highlighting that the dams completely collapsed and were not rehabilitated or re-maintained.

He emphasized the human-caused pollution of drinking water as well as the situation in the Mediterranean basin as well and the fires that broke in Algeria recently.

The expert clarified that, like volcanoes, earthquakes are a result of nature and that humans have nothing to do with them. 

While emphasizing that the issue is connected to the formation of the Earth and its beginnings, it is impossible to state that people contributed to their construction. This rules out the capacity of countries, regardless of how powerful they are, to generate artificial earthquakes, as was recently debated on social media.

Benabou explained that the lights that people in Morocco saw during the earthquake were caused by the friction of certain layers of rock, such as granite and basalt, and that the Al Haouz earthquake happened more than 18 kilometers below the Earth’s surface. Earthquakes can also happen more than 60 kilometers below the surface of the sea, and man is unable to cause them.

“Industrial and nuclear activities can cause some kind of explosions and disturbances on the surface of the ball. But human capacity and current technical progress only go so far, further explained Bennabou.

According to climate researcher Mohamed Benata, there has recently been discussion about a military device that the US Navy has access to that uses electricity to influence the movements of plates that cause earthquakes.

The impact of this form of disaster, if it is true, outweighs the impacts of mass devastation because of the casualties it results in, he said, although there are no reliable arguments supporting human involvement in this type of catastrophe.

In regards to floods and droughts, Benata noted that they have become more frequent as a result of climate change, as rainfall has started to result in floods as a result of human activity and the use of fossil fuels, given that it is not necessary to stop using it, despite the problems it produces.

The same researcher emphasized the necessity of enacting legally enforceable decisions for states to stop some environmentally harmful practices, as opposed to making suggestions and giving the states complete discretion over whether or not to act on them.