Mocoa - An Act of God or of Man?

The Mocoa tragedy was made worse by deforestation in the region and human-driven climate change.

When torrential rains pushed tons of mud over the town of Mocoa, in Putumayo Department, killing more than 300 people at the end of March, many condemned the 'natural disaster.'

Rescue workers in Mocoa this month.

However, the disaster's iimpact was made much worse by human actions which prepared the way. Colombia is suffering an accelerating deforestation. And the region surrounding Mocoa had been severely deforested during recent decades, reducing the soil's capacity to soak up rainwater. When rain falls onto deforested soil, it runs off quickly, carrying soil, trees and rocks with it. Forests can also serve as protective barriers. In fact, in El Carmen, the one Mocoa neighborhood which escaped destruction, residents had preserved their protective forest.

More broadly, The New York Times reports that more frequent natural disasters in places such as Colombia and Peru appear to be tied to human-driven global warming.

Before rushing to condemn the vagaries of nature, Colombians should also reflect upon their own actions.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia: Climate Victim, Offender, or Both?

Bogotá-area residents evacuate their home, while protesters at the South Africa climate talks demand action. 

While negotiators in Durban, South Africa haggle over another climate change treaty which will be weak,  and probably ignored, anyway (despite all we know, last year saw the largest increase ever in world CO2 production). Meanwhile, Colombia has suffered a second year of horrendous flooding, which may very well be caused by climate change.

But, while Colombia has generated little of the world's global warming gas, it is no innocent bystander in either its domestic tragedy or the growing global climate tragedy.

Deforestation, cause of climate change  and climate victims.

Domestically, Colombia's terrible deforestation rate of 238,000 hectares per year - or even double that, according to National University Prof. Jesus Rangel - caused by agricultural expansion, illegal drug crops, deforestation and cattle ranching, worsens flooding and erosion and desertification because forests normally soak up water like sponges and their roots keep soil from sliding into rivers.

Deforestation also contributes to global warming by taking carbon out of trees and pumping it into the atmosphere, where it causes the greenhouse effect.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos also vowed that Colombia would "demand concrete actions" from the "big countries."

"I've given very concrete instructions," Santos said, while visiting a town whose flooding the government blames on global warming. Our representative to the climate talks "has to demand that the big countries which today don't want to make their contribution, don't want to make committments, commit themselves. This (flooding) is affecting too many people."

Out of the ground and into the
atmosphere: Coal mining in Colombia.

But Colombia doesn't want to make sacrifices either - for the same reasons that those 'big countries' don't. While denouncing climate change and its impacts, Colombia very happily sells those countries more and more fossil fuels to combust into global warming carbon dioxide. Colombia's coal production, for example, is supposed to double in the next decade.

Colombians are also burning more and more fossil fuels domestically, driven by record automobile sales - which will only accelerate when new free trade agreements with the U.S. and Korea take effect.

Up, up, and away: Colombian coal production. (Source: Simco.gov.co)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Man vs. Nature: Both Lose

The collapse of Colombia's Canal del Dique, which connects the Magdalena River to Cartagena Bay, has inundated many towns and 600,000-hectares of farmland. As Louisiana residents learned not long ago, nature can't be held back forever.

In Colombia's case, man not only built a wall to vainly hold back water, but man's impacts on the environment also increased the intensity of Colombia's weather, contributing to this year's phenomenal rains and flooding.

The scene in Bogotá today. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours