David Craig, on August 31st, 2022Wednesday/Thursday blog
You’ll all have seen the reports from the latest Pakistan floods. And you’ll all have heard the repeated claims that these floods are “unprecedented” and the “worst in history”:
And we’re told again and again and again that the floods are so devastating because of man-made climate change.
I am not denying that the Pakistan floods are terrible and I’m not denying that they have caused misery and death. But I do feel it’s worth testing the claim that these floods are “unprecedented” and the “worst in history“.
What does “worst” mean?
What do the media mean when they claim these floods are “unprecedented” and the “worst in history”?
I imagine there could be three explanations of�“unprecedented” and the�“worst in history”:
- most people killed by floods
- highest percentage of the population affected
- largest area of the country affected
I have only managed to find data on the numbers of people killed in Pakistan in floods for the last 72 years:
Numbers of people killed
Just in the last 72 years Pakistan has seen many floods. These include:
- the flood of 1950, which killed 2,910 people
- on 1 July 1977 heavy rains and flooding in Karachi, killed 248 people, according to Pakistan meteorological department 207 millimetres (8.1�in) of rain fell in 24 hours.[6]
- in 1992 flooding during the Monsoon season killed 1,834 people across the country,
- in 1993 flooding during�Monsoon rains�killed 3,084 people,
- in 2003 Sindh province was badly affected due to monsoon rains causing damages in billions, killed 178 people,
- in 2007�Cyclone Yemyin�submerged lower part of Balochistan Province in sea water killing 380 people. Before that it killed 213 people in Karachi on its way to Balochistan.
- in 2010, almost all of Pakistan was affected when�massive flooding, caused by record breaking rains, hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and�Punjab. �At least 2,000�people died in the flood and almost 20 million people were affected by it
The death toll from the current floods is estimated at just over 1,000 people. The two minutes research I did (see above) found four Pakistan floods – 1950, 1992, 1993 and 2010 – which killed more than that. So�“unprecedented” and the�“worst in history” cannot mean that this year’s floods have killed more people than previous floods.
That leaves three possible explanations of�“unprecedented” and the�“worst in history”: either this year’s floods have affected highest percentage of the population or they have affected the largest area of the country or else the claim that this year’s floods are “unprecedented” and the “worst in history” is just the usual nonsense spouted by our climate-catastrophist journalists in order to advance their own careers and to terrify us into obedience to the next series of restrictions which will be imposed on us in order to supposedly ‘save the planet’.
I’ll leave it up to you to choose which of these three possibilities is the most likely.
What about the trees?
One issue none of the climate catastrophists have mentioned is the massive scale of deforestation in Pakistan largely due to the country’s rapidly-expanding population. Trees are obviously important in countries which have seasons with heavy rainfall as they help absorb the rain so it doesn’t result in landslides and floods.
The population of Pakistan is increasing at an astonishing rate:
At the time of the 2010 floods, which killed around 2,000 people, the population of Pakistan was about 180 million. By 2022, this had reached 230 million – a rise of 50 million in just 12 years.
Probably linked to the rise in population is the rate of deforestation. Just between 2013 and 2020 Pakistan’s tree coverage fell from 5.2% to 4.8%:
To put this into context, the world average in 2020 based on 193 countries is 32.2%. Pakistan comes in at 164 out of 193 countries in levels of tree cover. Pakistan’s neighbour, India, has 24.3% tree cover – almost six times as much as Pakistan. According to the World Wildlife Fund, Pakistan had the second fastest rate of deforestation in Asia (Afghanistan was worse). And the WWF recommends a country has around 35% forest cover. So, it’s hardly surprising that, with so little tree cover, when the monsoons hit Pakistan, the result is inevitably rushing torrents of water, floods and destruction of property and agricultural land.
Pakistan’s corrupt elites much be slavering over the money they can steal
While we may dispute whether these floods really are “unprecedented” and the “worst in history” and we may argue about whether a massive increase in population and an alarming level of deforestation have contributed to the amount of damage caused by Pakistan’s monsoon rains, there is at least one certainty – these floods will provide a wonderful opportunity for Pakistan’s utterly corrupt elites to enrich themselves by looting the foreign aid that will pour into the country.
On Transparency International’s Corruption Index, Pakistan comes in at number 140 of 180 countries rated according to their levels of corruption – just above such earthly paradises as Zimbabwe, Eritrea and Uzbekistan.
I’ve no idea how much of the hundreds of millions of flood aid will be stolen by Pakistan’s political and bureaucratic elites. I suspect the looting will be somewhere between 60% and 70%. But I would need to do a bit more research to justify these figures.
A comment from a reader
As many people don’t click on the blog headline to look at readers’ comments, I’ll just add this one a reader has just made:
Category: 
I quote from a 2012 US Kent State University study of flooding in Pakistan � ��Pakistan is a developing nation that has historically been subjected to high flooding fatality events due to its socioeconomic characteristics, population geography, and landscape attributes.��
��Since 1950, floods have been historically the second deadliest natural disaster to affect Pakistan, behind only earthquakes. Recent disasters continue to expose Pakistan�s great vulnerability to natural hazards, as the nation remains highly susceptible to large losses of human life that may transpire from a single event.��
But according to all the media, the current floods are ”Unprecedented”. And, with leaden inevitability, all the result of Climate Change.
Brilliant article, as horrible as any disaster is in any country the sheer gall of the agenda drivers to use it for their gain. Thankfully they have not eradicated all critical thinkers out there and evidence on record is still available to counter their pork pies.
Your carefully worded introduction illustrates another issue when discussing the flooding and deaths. Moving off the human caused climate change narrative results in criticism of being uncaring, and therefore it obviously wrong. On the news this morning somebody from Pakistan was blaming the rich western nations for the flooding because of their carbon emissions and therefore they must pay for the damage.
History now starts at any convenient date that will prove a point being made. The Met Office has some of the largest computers in the world and claims to know what it going to happen in 50 years or more and yet it cannot even forecast the severity of flooding for a predictable Monsoon Season in advance to enable evacuations to take place, but they are beyond criticism.
I watched Farage recently with a climate denier and a sceptic which was completely pointless. They were both saying the other was wrong. Neither produced any evidence to support their claims and Farage did not ask them for any.
I think Al Gore started the wider public interest in climate change and made it a political issue with his Inconvenient Truth which was based on the temperature and carbon dioxide data from ice cores. He made the statement that CO2 was obviously increasing first and it was believed. It is impossible to see this from the graphs. Why is it that there has been no correlation analysis of the data? I cannot find any and I cannot find the raw data to do it myself. I have a report by Karl Glaser based on NASA records for 130 years for a few sites and he found only weak correlation between temperature and CO2 with temperature leading and CO2 following with a lag of 45-60 years. This doesn�t prove anything but for the human caused climate change to be valid there must be a strong correlation with CO2 leading, although as we know correlation is not proof of causation. I do not understand why the correlation analysis has not been done because it will stop the nonsense immediately.
I watched the four hours of analysis of Diana�s death and it follows the same pattern. A grieving father dominated the news, the MSM picked it up and and social media kept it going for years. Social media amplifies ignorance to support a belief, ignoring evidence. The two princes had no privacy and the masses wanted the proof that their father and grandfather arranged to kill their mother. Did the masses or Fayed ever consider what that would have done to the two boys if they had found the proof? The masses and politicians believe they have the proof that we are damaging the climate and the result is we are damaging ourselves through crazy social media generated nonsense. It suits those making money from it to remain silent.
Totally predictable response to the Pakistan floods. If I never hear the phrase �climate crisis� again it will be too soon.
I also watched a couple bickering on either side of the debate. I think it was GB News but it was in the morning so wasn�t Farage. What a pointless exercise that was, they were determined to shout each other down and didn�t listen to a word the opposition said. They might as well have covered their ears and sung �la,la,la� while the other was speaking. I was reminded of the brexit debates!
It seems no-one is prepared to listen or discuss things sensibly nowadays. I blame social media, they read one tweet, see some likes and whatever was said becomes gospel.
I despair.
Dave, since the comments can often be very informative and you say that most visitors to this site don’t read them, you should have a note under each headline saying something like: “Click here! to go to the archive page to read readers’ comments.” With the Click here! linked to the archive page as well as the headline.
The graph for the rate of population increase in Crapistan looks indistinguishable from one for sub-Saharan Africa.
Fortunately, there is not enough housing in England for huge numbers of “climate-change” refugees coming here from all over the unsustainable populations across the third world.
Of course, our lovely government and media that get off on terrorising their own people on behalf of the World Economic Forum, would be so full of compassion for them that it would go out of its way to allow as many of them into the country as possible.
Pakistan/Bangladesh have suffered flooding as a result of their geographical,climatic and economic situation throughout recent recorded history.Nothing to do with climate change.The level of ignorant/deliberate propaganda defies belief.However,this will not prevent the reality of net zero policies that are already beginning to sink in and which will rapidly escalate as the temperature drops.Particularly vulnerable are the demographics who have never experienced cold homes and power cuts.I await the tears with a certain amount of smugness.Not a virtue,I know,but they deserve it.
Net Zero idiocies will only damage the UK and will make absolutely no difference to Pakistan, whose territory has suffered floods as long as history records. The only differences now are that, firstly, modern communication results in the rest of the world knowing immediately when such disasters occur so can react with appropriate horror and outrage and, secondly, far more people will inevitably die in affected areas because of the ever increasing population density. I suppose it will all provide an excuse for allowing ever more of the “displaced” into the UK on some pretext or another. Are we supposed to assume guilt for the ills for the entire world? As for GBNews, yes, their 3-way discussions often descend into shouting matches between guests of opposed political orientations, but I suspect this is because Ofcom’s regulations insist on “balance” in all contentious discussions on wavelengths for which live broadcast has been granted licence. The magnificent Mark Steyn is I believe already under Ofcom investigation for some of his views. (Pity Ofcom doesn’t apparently impose the same conditions on the consistently left wing, woke BBC! but that’s a separate issue.) As an octogenarian, I have no wish to be cold and miserable this coming winter and don’t see why I should be expected to after having worked and contributed tax to the UK all my life, but if or when the proverbial hits the fan I know I shall be able to survive without all the conveniences of modern life. I grew up in WW2, when a bath was a weekly event for me and my little sister and took place in front of the one fire in our house (coal was rationed along with everything else), in the old tin bath which hung the rest of the time on the wall outside beside the back door. My mother heated the water in saucepans on the gas cooker. I suspect that when we kids had been cleansed and packed off to bed she immersed herself in the tepid, far from wholesome water. We shouldn’t have to tolerate such conditions now, in a so-called advanced Western world, but if we do have to, we oldies will survive. It’s the woke youngsters who won’t know what’s hit them when they can’t recharge their phones and their individual bedroom heating and gadgetry go off and it is they who, so far, have totally bought into the net zero nonsense. Interesting times ahead folks! Incidentally, I like to sound out the views of strangers when I can and have no inhibitions about striking up conversations when strolling daily around my small South Coast town, which isn’t a million miles from where 25,000 plus illegals have landed this year. We daily anticipate some of them making it a bit further East. NO ONE with whom I have spoken over many months is anything other than incandescent with rage at how they are permitted to stroll up our beaches without hindrance. Instant medical care, dentistry, weekly allowance, bed and board and 3 meals a day! While we oldies struggle on with no GP appointments, no NHS dentists, hours of delay if/when we need an ambulance, basic pension to live on plus just a bit more if we qualify for Gvt. handouts! Which many of us don’t, since we fall just outside the qualifying poverty level. Seems to many of us that the Gvt. just want us to give up and go to meet our Maker with minimum delay, thereby releasing the obligation to continue to cough up our monthly State pension whilst releasing our homes for the accommodation of the ever-burgeoning UK population, legal and illegal! Whoever becomes the next PM, whichever Party comes into power at the next Election, we oldies who have lived in, been loyal to, paid taxes to, and served England all our lives will be left to shiver, rot and die.
A few days ago, an 8 year old Hindu girl in Pakistan was gang-raped and had both her eyes gouged out by RoPers. She is currently in a critical condition and still in shock. We all know nothing will happen to her attackers.
I, for one, wish the floods had carried more of those b**tards away.