How's the Weather Over There?

I was in the queue waiting to board the bus back to Providence this morning, and I overheard yet again the most popular topic we earthlings pick as a conversation starter:
“So did u have fun in the city while u were here?” a friendly man in the same line started asking another stranger behind him.
“What’s that? Oh, sure… the weather was surprisingly autumn though…I’ve never experienced such cold weather at a time like this in New York…”
“Oh yeah, usually summer temperature can be felt way into October even, easily 80-90 deg Fahrenheit, but this year…” the friendly man concurred, “Where you from by the way, I’m from Newport. You ever been there? It's up north, a beautiful place, with beaches…”
And the conversation gets an extended life.

It’s no wonder why the environment or weather always find its way back into everyday conversations… you may smirk, but this ubiquitous ice-breaker is probably the only common link man share that’s "diplomatic", harmless, yet significant enough to talk about.

But of course, a few countries do fall through the net in terms of significance.
From where i came (mono-season Singapore is blessed without a single natural calamity), chatting about the weather with my fellowmen can be a pretty mundane subject.
In contrast, when I hit upon the typhoon season in Taiwan this summer, the ignorant well-frog in me couldn't help being intrigued by all the hype and fuss an encroaching typhoon would stir up...

With its entitled name, XX Typhoon was just like a new starlet who literally took the town by storm (i couldnt help with the pun, sorry). Locals glued their eyes and ears to the media; some cursed n whined over jeopardized outings, some scrambled to prep their homes against flooding, yet others cheered at the prospect of a "national holiday" declared by the government...

And when she finally arrived, the God-fearing ones would meekly seek shelter n watch her perform her antics, throw her tantrums...ample time to worry about how to pick up the pieces left in her tracks later on.

All this is of course from the incorrigible frog's exhilarated perspective...only a native can truly relate to the havoc and trauma such natural disasters would cause - year after year.

For all the sophisticated scientific gadgets human intelligence could devise, mankind is always a few steps behind predicting forces of nature, much less seeking prevention. To this day, human errors and negligence combined with uncountable unaccountable factors have time and again resulted in cataclysmic tragedies:
The oversight of Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004 due to the lack of tsunami warning systems in the Indian Ocean, and the extensive failures of levee systems during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are painfully raw reminders that still burn.

Indeed, when Mother Nature decides to unleash her wrath, who can really block her way?

List of Ten Deadliest Natural Disasters

	Event	Location	Date	Death Toll (Estimate)
1.	1931 Yellow River flood	Yellow River, China	1931 summer	1,000,000-4,000,000
2.	1887 Yellow River flood	Yellow River, China	1887, September-October	900,000-2,000,000
3.	1970 Bhola cyclone	Ganges Delta, East PakistanBangladesh) (Now	1970 November 13	500,000-1,000,000
4.	1938 Yellow River flood	Yellow River, China	1938	500,000-900,000
5.	1556 Shaanxi earthquake	Shaanxi Province, China	1556 January 23	830,000
6.	1839 India Cyclone	Coringa, India	1839 November 25	300,000+
7.	1642 Kaifeng Flood	Kaifeng, Henan Province, China	1642	300,000
8.	1976 Tangshan earthquake	Tangshan, China	1976 July 28	242,000*
9.	2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami	Indian Ocean	2004 December 26	230,000
10.	1138 Aleppo earthquake	Syria	1138	230,000

Its not hard to imagine how such catastrophes must have seemed like "Judgment Day" for their victims. Fact is however, such are the natural cycles of the universe, and if our actions show more fear and respect for this planet, to some extent tragedies can be averted. (Points to note: Hurricane Katrina - A man-made disaster? In the Tsunami of 2004, human destruction of coral reefs played a significant role in aggravating the tragedy.)

Personally, i'd worry more about man-induced disasters that could hasten up this day. I found this on the internet:

List of "Causes of hypothetical future disasters",

Natural:

• Famine
• Supervolcano
• Asteroid impact event
• Megatsunami
• Cumbre Vieja
• Cascadia Megathrust earthquake
• Hypernova

Man-made:

• Dysgenics
• Famine
• Overpopulation
• Nuclear warfare
• Pandemic
• Peak Oil
• Gulf Stream shutdown
• Antibiotic resistance
• Global warming

Global warming tops the risk chart at the moment as its consequence is most likely to trigger any of the man-made or natural calamities (not inclusive..there's still the more common contenders - flooding, drought, heat wave, epidemics etc) listed above.

Every catastrophe - man-made or natural - that befell mankind had seemed like "Judgment Day" for the victims, served as a solemn warning for their neighbors, and gone unnoticed or unconcerned for the rest outside its locus of influence. Factor in human resilience, hubris and poor memory, and we'd find ourselves experiencing "dejavu" time and again throughout human history.

Mankind may have set foot on the four corners of the earth, but changes in seasons and weather are the best reminders that human species are extremely vulnerable; we don't dictate this planet...Nature rules, and the rules of survival are simple:

Want Mother Nature to grant us an extension?
Listen and learn from mistakes made.