2023 disasters in numbers
In 2023, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded a total of 399 disasters related to natural hazards. These events resulted in 86,473 fatalities and affected 93.1 million people. The economic losses
Statistics
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Patent pains
Over the last few years, there has been a growing number of claims and counterclaims for plant patents.Around 80 per cent of these claims are from industrial corporations and the rest from
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Taxing times
Environmentally sustainable development is the high point of talk in almost all international fora these But a key policy question is the extent to which the existing tax and subsidy regimes
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Net result: tragic
The scenario in the fishing industry is alarming. The state of straddling fish stocks is a global disasaster and overfishing is a major problem. The structure of the fishing industry has
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Hungry earth
Despite increasing growth in food production, food security remains a problem. If the available food energy were evenly distributed within each country, 33 countries would not have been able to
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Land is the issue
While malnutrition stays with us in a big way, the quantity of arable land per capita is diminishing rapidly. Africa's population has increased from just under 300 million in 1970, to over 500
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Menu: lungs...
... and also eyes, vegetation, forests, crops, buildings, statues, monuments .... The latest reports of the World Health Organisation show that our cities are becoming like throwbacks to an
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Smoke signals
Since the early '60s, medical research and public information campaigns have exposed the dangers -- passive and active -- of tobacco smoke. The resulting public paranoia led to the number of smokers
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Chop and serve
How green was our earth! And how fast is 'development' robbing us of the vital forest cover .. The depletion is causing major ecological damage, often completely destroying habitats, uproating
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Bodies of evidence
IT IS a profoundly unhealthy world we occupy today. THE World Health Report, 1995 brought out by the World Health Organization, Geneva, reveals that about 51 million people died in 1993 worldwide:
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Every drop counts
The world is heading towards a water crisis. The doubling of the world's population between 1940 and 1990 has led to a doubling in per capita use of water, from 400 to 800 cubic metres per person