Doomsday

Monday 15th May - heavy rain causes New England's worst flooding since the 1930s, with at least one person dying in Boston.

Friday 19th May - At least 73 people are known to have died after typhoon Chanchu swept the Philippines, Vietnam and southern China. Another 90 have gone missing.

Latest doom

Thousands have been stranded by flooding caused by heavy rain in central and southeastern Surinam.

9 May - Around 50 wildfires have been raging in central Florida over the last two weeks, and are believed to be responsible for road accidents that killed four people.

10 May - A series of tornadoes hit several towns in Texas, killing at least three people.

Gordon and growth

Chancellor Gordon Brown has been going on about economic growth again. And this time he says we can have growth and reduce carbon emissions. I fail to see how this can be true. Yes, new technologies are needed to help reduce emissions, and yes they will create growth in certain areas, but the only way to have any major effect on emissions is to reduce our consumption of all sorts of things, and reducing consumption can only lead to a contraction of the economy. Think again, Gordon...

This week's disasters:

Thursday 20th April: Flash floods and landslides kill at least 23 people in eastern Java, Indonesia.

Thousands flee floods in Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia, after the Danube reached its highest level for more than a century.

Crops fail in Bangladesh, as parts of the country usually associated with flooding face a prolonged dry spell.

Disaster watch

The weekly round-up of events relating to climate change and other human impact on the environment:

Saturday 8th April - tornadoes and violent storms leave eight people dead in the US state of Tennessee, following similar events the previous week in which 27 died.

Floods in drought-stricken Kenya over the weekend leave thousands homeless.

Wednesday 12th April - Sandstorms reported in western China, the worst in decades, leaving one person dead and thousands stranded. Blowing east towards Korea, they turn into a toxic yellow dust storm.

Thursday 13th April - Eight dead and dozens missing in mudslides on Colombia's Pacific coast.

Thursday 13th April - Serbia prepares for its worst floods in 25 years as the Danube hits record high levels.

Well done to the Independent again for generating this great outpouring of feelings in the climate change debate last week. Let's have more of this kind of thing, please.

But here's something that I haven't seen much of in the responses - that we should simply be buying less, whether it's food, clothes, gadgets, or more or less anything. This is one of the biggest things that we can all do (apologies to those who think economic growth is the ultimate good). The fact is we don't actually need half of the things we buy, and we're too ready to throw them away when we have them and buy the latest model. We should take a step back every time we consider buying something - do we really need it? - or throwing something away - is it really so worn out that we can't use it any more, and if so can it go to charity or be recycled? When we eat, let's take smaller portions and save what we don't want (like people used to) instead of eating half of what is put in front of us and throwing the rest away. In almost every aspect of daily lives there is room for improvement, so let's get on with it.

Just a couple this week, as far as I can tell:

Heavy rains and melting snow cause severe flooding in Central Europe.

Thursday 30 March - Cyclone Glenda, the second storm to hit Australia in two weeks, lashes the north-west coast.

More doom and gloom

After a break, back to the task of chronicling the world's weather difficulties. Please let me know about any I've missed.

Thursday 9th March - Heavy rains cause a church to collapse in the Ugandan capital Kampala killing 27.

Friday 10th - unseasonally heavy rains hit the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, leaving at least 39 people dead, some struck by lightning, others swept away by flash floods.

Tuesday 14th - Heavy rain causes flooding in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, the border region's worst in 15 years, leading to a state of emergency in parts of Bulgaria.

Monday 20th - Tropical cyclone hits Queensland, Australia, leaving 50,000 homes without power.

Monday 20th - Nine Colombians swept away by a mudslide caused by heavy rains in the centre of the country.

As promised, the weekly round-up of events relating to climate change and other human impact on the environment:

Tuesday 21 - Three people die in flash floods south of the Yemeni capital Sana'a.

Wednesday 22 - At least 24 die in landslides and floods caused by heavy rain in eastern Indonesia. Again, illegal logging is a major factor.

Thursday 23 - the roof of a Moscow market collapses killing 58 people. Though design faults may have been to blame it is also thought that the collapse was caused by the weight of snow on the roof. This follows similar incidents in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany after an exceptionally cold and snowy winter.

Flight pledge

I want to tackle the issue of flight. This monstrous runaway source of carbon emissions has to be brought under control somehow. Fuel efficiency in aeroplanes may improve to a limited extent, but this will soon be outweighed by the continuing increase in passenger numbers, flights etc.. When confronted with the idea of aircraft fuel tax, and other ways of deterring frequent flight, the airline industry, not surprisingly, goes on about how awful it is to price people off the aeroplanes, saying that it's turning the clock back, making flying exclusive to the super-rich etc.. blah blah blah. Well I'm sorry, guys, this is no excuse - the gap between rich and poor is a separate issue and should be dealt with in other ways. The fact is that EVERYONE should be flying less, and I'd happily redistribute some of the world's wealth so that poorer people had the same, LIMITED, opportunities to fly as the rich. Yes, I know what I say is unpopular, yes, I'm a killjoy, but it's time we looked for pleasures in other ways than travelling half way across the world to soak up the sun. The planet can't cope with our endless pursuit of pleasure.

So please, think about this, and restrict your air travel by signing up for the Flight Pledge at http://flightpledge.org.uk/

Time to keep a record

As of now, I'm keeping a weekly record of events throughout the world of which at least one of the principles cause is thought to be climate change or some kind of environmental exploitation. Draw your own conclusions.

11 February - WFP investigators find Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria severely affected by flooding, leaving people in four out of the five camps hungry and homeless.

15 February - fighting breaks out between Somali tribes in Ethiopia as the East African drought increases competition for pastures and water. Eleven million people are likely to be affected in the region in a crisis likely to last until April.

17 February - mudslide buries a Philippine village, almost certainly killing the vast majority of its 1,800 inhabitants. Another landslide a day later in another part of the country leaves several people feared dead. The mudslides are blamed on heavy rainfall (La Nina, exacerbated by climate change?) combined with deforestation, though some reports say there was a minor earthquake as well which triggered the main slide.