No one knows for sure if climate change is causing torrential rain storms, and droughts as devastating as the bombs dropped by the United States and NATO in the Middle East, and Israel in Gaza. Floods severely damaged railroads in Bosnia Herzegovina. In the Americas, as in Europe, Asia and Africa, inclement weather has unleashed its fury on cities and rural areas, razing urban landscapes and vital crops, while the countries of the North declare more wars, like that in Ukraine, and exacerbate natural disasters. A few weeks ago in Guatemala, a Pacific tropical depression left dozens dead and million-dollar losses, as a result of damaged crops in 95% of the country and the destruction of 68,000 homes. Brazil was hit hard by floods which, according to the Télam news agency, destroyed six cities in the northeastern states of Pernambuco and Alagoas, where 600 people died. Heavy rain turned the streets of Islamabad into rivers. Former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was forced to cancel his attendance at the Group of 20 meeting in Canada, as a result of the catastrophe, which affected 48 cities across the nation. In Branquinha, in the state of Alagoas, Mayor Renata Moraes proposed that the city of 10,000 be re-constructed in another location. Thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia, 63 perished in floods and mudslides in Myanmar’s northeastern region, where 15,000 families lost all of their possessions, as a result of 15 days of incessant rain. Africa has not escaped the rash of natural disasters, with floods causing the deaths of at least 24 persons in Ghana, where Reuters reported the impossibility of determining the number of homes and vehicles carried away by the waters. A tragedy in Colombia. China has suffered a number of calamities recently, including storms and heavy rain in central and southern regions which caused more than 300 fatalities. The National Flood Control Office reported that twice the yearly average of precipitation was recorded in these areas, over the course of a few days. Economic losses due to heavy rain, flooding rivers and landslides exceeded 10 billion dollars, according to estimates - three times the annual average for these types of weather phenomenon. Many families have lost everything they owned. Paraguay is currently facing apocalyptic floods, which have ravaged the poorest areas of the country. Overflowing rivers have swept away precarious homes built along their banks, leaving thousands of families with nowhere to turn. Climate change is particularly difficult for underdeveloped countries struggling with internal divisions – such as Sudan - and the plundering of industrialized nations seeking to extract strategic resources, as is the case in eastern Congo where diamonds, gold and coltan are appropriated with no benefit to the people or government. Many of these storms are attributed to global warming and contaminating greenhouse gases released in their majority by industrialized nations. The poor suffer in Paraguay’s Chaco region. Foto Starmedia. At least six persons died in Germany in the month of May, as a result of the worst storm there in the last seven years, disrupting land and air travel, while many were left without electricity. During the same month in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, unprecedented flooding occurred, and authorities were frantically attempting to remove the carcasses of dead animals decomposing in the streets, to avoid an epidemiological crisis. In the meantime, Western powers prefer to promote a civil war in Ukraine.
