Storms, floods, droughts and fires have caused a record $89 billion in economic losses this year [1998] worldwide, more than was lost from weather-related disasters in all of the 1980s, according to a private study.
The report, released by the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, blamed human meddling for some of the disasters.
"More and more, there's a human fingerprint in natural disasters, in that we're making them more frequent and more intense and we're also … making them more destructive," said Seth Dunn, research associate and climate change expert at the institute.
This year's damage was far ahead of the $55 billion in losses for the entire decade of the 1980s. Even when adjusted for inflation, the 1980s losses, at $82.7 billion, still fall short of the first 11 months of this year.
In addition to the material losses, the disasters have killed an estimated 32,000 people and displaced 300 million--more than the population of the United States.
A combination of deforestation and climate change caused this year's most severe disasters, among them Hurricane Mitch, the flooding of China's Yangtze River and Bangladesh's most extensive flood of the century, according to the report.