Letters | Nature’s wrath on humanity

The weather is wreaking havoc around the world. It’s desperate times in Spain and France as powerful, devilish wild fires have forced thousands of people to flee their homes. Homes and farmlands have been turned into ash and even towns are under threat.

It’s race against time as the runaway infernos threaten the French city of Boudreaux. Exhausted firefighters are struggling to contain the fierce flames fanned by strong winds. France has called in the army to help.

Across to the east a different scenario is taking place. While Europe is burning, devastating floods have gripped India and China. Typhoon Noul made landfall in southern China, killing 10 people and displacing 800 000.

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In India’s state of Assam days of monsoon rains have caused the Brahmaputra River to overflow, submerging 900 villages, leaving 700 000 homeless and killing 50. In Japan a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the southern island of Kyushu on Tuesday with 20-30 people missing, feared dead. Then race across westwards to the United States where there’s been flooding in Texas and a powerful tornado which has caused much destruction in the state of Wisconsin.

Go down to Chile and see nature’s wrath on humanity. The country is reeling under a double blow from nature: torrential rains have caused massive flooding, killing a dozen people and damaging 20 000 homes. Then a frightening tornado came roaring by, ripping through the Chilean town of El Carmen, blowing off roofs, uprooting trees and smashing cars.

What a lot of destruction around the world! And climate change sceptics still have their heads in the sand, stubbornly maintaining that unbridled human activity is not responsible for the destructive effects of global warming. They maintain that global warming is cyclical and that eight billion of us killing, chopping, drilling, polluting and denuding the earth have not scarred the beautiful planet. How stupid can they be!

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