dangerous risk in the world independent of these normal causes of death? Let us look
at the top five of the most critical external problems for human’s life according to
statistics (United Nations 2019: World Mortality Report; regularly updated on the
internet).
Number five goes to domestic animals such as dogs, cattle, horses, and elephants.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 people are dying every year because of accidents and
injuries from livestock and pets.
Number four is related to tsetse flies which transfer sleeping thickness—50,000
dead per year.
50–100,000 people are passing away every year as a result of snakebites—this is
number three.
Diseases that are transferred by mosquitos are killing 700,000–1,000,000 people
every year. Mosquitoes transferring viruses and bacteria are number two.
And the most dangerous omnivore—number five—is killing ten million people or
more every year. According to Ritchie and Max Roser (2018) in 2016, more than
two million people passed away because of terrorism (34,676), conflict (115,782),
suicide (817,148), and traffic accidents (1.34 million). Landrigan et al. (2017)
estimate that additionally c. nine million people are dying every year because of
pollution and toxic substances in the air, water and food (based on numbers for
2015). Humans are the number one cause of death to one-another.
Just to compare, how many people are killed by lions, wolves, bears, sharks,
earthquakes, wildfire, floods, and other effects caused by severe weather and global
warming? All of them together result in much less than 50,000 dead people per year
(in average). In 2016, 7059 people died as a consequence of so-called natural
disasters (Ritchie and Max Roser 2018). According to the death toll of the 133 deadliest natural disasters (1815–2015) 39,517 people died on average each year. As the
trendline in Fig. 3 shows this number is slowly decreasing.
Current reports about climate change forecast an increase in climate-related
disasters per time-interval. Furthermore a positive relationship between global
warming and the increase of severe weather is often assumed and justified by
climatologists (e.g. IPCC 2014, 2018, 2019). Headings such as “Severe weather
more likely thanks to climate change” (National Geographic, February 15, 2013) or
“Severe weather to increase in frequency & intensity” (Reinsurance News, June
30, 2017) are frequent today in the media.
The amount of news that currently dominates the environmental debate, can be
approximately summarized like this:
Climate change and severe weather are the greatest environmental challenge of
the twenty-first century.
Climate change and severe weather are heavily impacted by human behaviour
and resource use (e.g. production of CO 2 ).
Glaciers and permafrost are melting and the global sea level is rising.
The number of heat waves, droughts, windstorms, and flood disasters per time
interval are on the rise.
We do not have much time to avoid a global catastrophe. There are problematic
tipping points, and we do not have any backdoor because of the global dimension.
Nature-Culture Dichotomy and Environmental Consciousness: Do We Fear the Right. . .
31
at the top five of the most critical external problems for human’s life according to
statistics (United Nations 2019: World Mortality Report; regularly updated on the
internet).
Number five goes to domestic animals such as dogs, cattle, horses, and elephants.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 people are dying every year because of accidents and
injuries from livestock and pets.
Number four is related to tsetse flies which transfer sleeping thickness—50,000
dead per year.
50–100,000 people are passing away every year as a result of snakebites—this is
number three.
Diseases that are transferred by mosquitos are killing 700,000–1,000,000 people
every year. Mosquitoes transferring viruses and bacteria are number two.
And the most dangerous omnivore—number five—is killing ten million people or
more every year. According to Ritchie and Max Roser (2018) in 2016, more than
two million people passed away because of terrorism (34,676), conflict (115,782),
suicide (817,148), and traffic accidents (1.34 million). Landrigan et al. (2017)
estimate that additionally c. nine million people are dying every year because of
pollution and toxic substances in the air, water and food (based on numbers for
2015). Humans are the number one cause of death to one-another.
Just to compare, how many people are killed by lions, wolves, bears, sharks,
earthquakes, wildfire, floods, and other effects caused by severe weather and global
warming? All of them together result in much less than 50,000 dead people per year
(in average). In 2016, 7059 people died as a consequence of so-called natural
disasters (Ritchie and Max Roser 2018). According to the death toll of the 133 deadliest natural disasters (1815–2015) 39,517 people died on average each year. As the
trendline in Fig. 3 shows this number is slowly decreasing.
Current reports about climate change forecast an increase in climate-related
disasters per time-interval. Furthermore a positive relationship between global
warming and the increase of severe weather is often assumed and justified by
climatologists (e.g. IPCC 2014, 2018, 2019). Headings such as “Severe weather
more likely thanks to climate change” (National Geographic, February 15, 2013) or
“Severe weather to increase in frequency & intensity” (Reinsurance News, June
30, 2017) are frequent today in the media.
The amount of news that currently dominates the environmental debate, can be
approximately summarized like this:
Climate change and severe weather are the greatest environmental challenge of
the twenty-first century.
Climate change and severe weather are heavily impacted by human behaviour
and resource use (e.g. production of CO 2 ).
Glaciers and permafrost are melting and the global sea level is rising.
The number of heat waves, droughts, windstorms, and flood disasters per time
interval are on the rise.
We do not have much time to avoid a global catastrophe. There are problematic
tipping points, and we do not have any backdoor because of the global dimension.
Nature-Culture Dichotomy and Environmental Consciousness: Do We Fear the Right. . .
31