Beyond Houston, a world awash
By the Times Editorial Board
31 August 2017 (The New York Times) – Houston isn’t the only major city reeling from record rainfall and devastating floods. In Mumbai, India, where summer monsoons are annual events, as much rain fell in 12 hours on Tuesday as normally does over 11 days in a typical monsoon, paralyzing the city, India’s financial capital.
So far this summer, flooding has killed more than 1,000 people in India, Nepal and perennially flood-prone Bangladesh. The United Nations says at least 41 million people have been directly affected by flooding and landslides in South Asia, with homes and croplands destroyed. Floods from heavy rainfall have also ripped through Britain, Ireland, Sudan and Uganda in Africa. On 14 August 2017, torrents of water swept through the streets of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, and a massive mudslide left some 1,000 people dead or missing.
Like the calamity in Texas, these unnatural rainfalls carry two messages. One is the risk of unregulated development. As in Houston, officials in India have paid little attention to the consequences of rapid urban growth in low-lying, watery environments with few natural defenses against a deluge when it comes. And, like Houston, which has suffered floods in the past, Mumbai was hit by severe flooding in 2005 that claimed more than 500 lives, yet it did little to address the issues that made that flooding so deadly.The second message is that unabated climate change does, indeed, exact a price. Warmer weather heats the oceans, which causes more evaporation, which increases moisture in the atmosphere, which then falls as driving rain. Warmer oceans also rise, partly due to thermal expansion, which in turn threatens low-lying areas; among climate scientists, Bangladesh has for years been the poster child of nations that are likely to face famine, flooding, and forced migration as a result of rising sea levels caused by global warming. [more]
