An Inconveniently Dubious Truth

The climate is changing - yes. We are responsible for the climate change - yes. Natural disasters increase due to climate change - maybe. Natural disasters kill women 14 times more likely than men - okay? The Asian tsunami catastrophe 5 years ago killed 75% women, 25% men in Aceh - yes. All of these can be tied together as a coherent news article - Hell no.

The article I'm talking about does not rate the claims on a scale of yes to hell no, they are all given. This failure of reporting has a single researched fact to it's credit, that women are statistically more likely to suffer more fatalities in large natural disasters compared to men, in poor countries. But this is all mixed in a nice jumble.

(Finnish article here: http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2009/10/ilmastonmuutos_koettelee_enemman_naisia_kuin_miehia_1088146.html?origin=rss)

Actually, I'm pretty sure Sari Aro is just hoping nobody reads the post too carefully, or that if they do read it she hopes people will feel so sorry about the poor women all the other claims go unchecked.

What irks me is the link between our changing climate and the tsunami catastrophe. It was caused by an earthquake! The writer lacks the decency to select a disaster which could be even remotely linked to the introduction of the article. Why can't she choose an unseasonal torrential rain killing poor women in mudslides or talk about the droughts in central China?

Because the stock footage photos for droughts are boring. High water levels are more interesting but do not catch the eye like a woman washing her clothes in a temporary shelter tent. This is the equivalent of me posting boobs here just to get viewers.

Here, have a sad thought for her, but don't think her suffering is relevant in any way Mrs Aro would like to imply.