A Year of Worldwide Destruction

Worldwide earthquakes, floods, \nhurricanes, tornados and tsunamis have claimed more than a quarter of a million human lives since 2004. \nSome Americans question: Are \nnatural disasters Mother Nature's way of global cleansing, or is God \ninflicting a deadly wrath on certain morally deficient populations?\nConstance Brown, an assistant professor of atmospheric science for the IU Department of Geography, said the answer to explaining increased worldwide natural disasters isn't cleansing in any sense.\n"Mother Nature does not discriminate against people. However, humans have placed themselves in populated areas that are susceptible to extreme living conditions and extreme weather patterns," she said. "From a religious standpoint, I believe God created this world and put certain things in motion -- atmospheric processes, winds, the movement of water and energy -- but there is an underlying scientific basis in how weather patterns function."\nThe quarter of a million deaths since last year includes more than 150,000 people killed in a December 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia and more than 80,000 people killed in an October 2005 earthquake in the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan, among other natural disasters, according to the Weather Channel Web site. \nThat number does not include the 15 deaths reported thus far from an earthquake Saturday in central China, nor the at least 10 deaths reported from an earthquake in southern Iran Sunday. More than 500 people were injured in the two earthquakes this weekend, according to Associated Press reports. \nRabbi Sue Shifron, executive director of the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center, said people should be wary of political agendas that search for religious explanations for natural disasters that are beyond the scope of humane control.\n"People shouldn't use natural disasters to say we have to behave in certain ways because the death and destruction are punishments. I don't believe that any of us know God's will," she said. "So much of what we believe in our lives is faith and not fact. God does not create natural disasters, but is instead found in our reflection of outpouring support. Millions and millions of people are reaching out to each other and we are recognizing our responsibility to one another."\nAmong the recent natural disasters to torment the United States this year are three Category 5 hurricanes -- Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma -- which wreaked havoc along the U.S. Gulf Coast from Florida to Mexico and claimed more than 1,000 lives. Twenty--three Hoosiers also died during a November tornado that swept through Evansville among other southern Indiana communities. Sara Pryor, an IU professor of atmospheric science, said catastrophic weather events are likely to increase throughout the 21st Century as both global temperatures and the world population increase. \n"We as a society need to become more 'risk adverse' in our climate change commitment by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we emit, and in the way we perceive severe weather events," she said. "In terms of the latter, we need to take forecasts or severe weather warnings much more seriously. (Two weeks ago) very few (IU) students went to tornado shelters or safe places even though the siren sounded twice."\nNoted television and radio evangelists from Hal Lindsey to Charles Colson remain skeptical about the processes behind natural disasters. Lindsey and Colson have instead offered casual claims supporting God's vengeance as a plausible explanation for why and where natural disasters have occurred. \n"'Did God have anything to do with Katrina?' people ask," Colson said during a Sept. 12 broadcast of his BreakPoint Christian radio program, during which he discusses current news and trends. "My answer is, he allowed it and perhaps he allowed it to get our attention so that we don't delude ourselves into thinking that all we have to do is put things back the way they were (before the war on terror) and life will be normal again."\nTwenty-three Atlantic Ocean tropical storms have warranted naming this year, including a single-year record 13 hurricanes that have threatened U.S. coastal waters, according to the Weather Channel. A dozen hurricanes formed in the Atlantic Ocean in 1969, the previous record for named hurricanes in one season before this year.\nFather Bob Keller, the pastor of St. Paul's Catholic Center in Bloomington, said he feels disturbed and angry when he hears individuals say cities like New Orleans were "sin cities," so God purified them for morally apocalyptic reasons. \n"I don't see God's wrath and natural disasters as being connected at all. In terms of valuation, if we ask 'why here' or 'why now,' the answer is we are living in these places and these kinds of phenomena happen," he said. "I would ask, 'how has God treated you?' and 'how does God deal with justice and mercy?' Would you wipe out an entire city? If you decide 'no,' do you think God is less compassionate?"\nPryor said heat waves often inflict the most casualties on global human populations each year, as exemplified in 1995 by more than 800 deaths from excess heat in Chicago. Flooding and other precipitation events, she further stated, often cause the most economic loss in the United States.\nShifron said everyone is a member of the global community and all are responsible for one another, so even if God's wrath created natural disasters -- which she does not believe -- we should all understand that catastrophe could happen to any of us at almost any time.\n"There is a lot of hope. Absolutely, bad things happen, but our lives are about making the most of what we can each day," she said. "We all have a limited time on Earth and none of us knows for sure if we will be here tomorrow. It is up to each of us to make the most of each day. Maybe God cries with us when these tragedies happen."\nBrown said a higher occurance of extreme weather conditions does not presuppose something apocalyptic is imminent, especially when the entire timeline of the Earth and humanity is taken into account. \n"We as human beings place ourselves in the path of natural disasters, it's not God's wrath," she said. "It's our choice to locate ourselves where certain phenomena occur. God created the earth but we make the choice to live somewhere or to not"