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How many of us are affected due to climate change?

As per the journal publication "Global Hotspots of Climate-related Disasters" (June 2024) [1] climate-related disaster events directly impacted over 44 % of the global population in 2020. The climate related disasters are drought, riverine flood, tropical cyclone, flash flood, land slide and mudslide, wildfire and heatwave. Droughts have affected the most people, with over 1.4 billion, followed by riverine floods, which have affected more than 1.2 billion. The percentage of the population impacted understandably decreases with an increase in Human Development Index.

Climate-related disasters affected substantially less people in European countries than in Australia, Africa, North America, Asia, and South America. The low percentage of individuals harmed by climate-related disasters in countries with high levels of Human Development Index, as well as in European countries, could be attributed to people's ability to execute adaption techniques.

Climate-related disasters have touched more than 100% (cumulative percentage) of people in 19 nations, indicating that vast numbers of people in certain countries, particularly in the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, have been affected year after year. This recurring impact most likely indicates that adaptation efforts in those countries have fallen short in assisting people and ecosystems to adjust to climate change.

Due to 205 climate disaster related events (mostly riverine flood, heatwave, flash flood and land slide) in India between 2000 and 2020, more than one billion Indians were impacted. India ranked 131 out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index in 2020 and 134 in 2022.

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212420924002504

#Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #HumanDevelopmentIndex #MastodonIndians #MastIndia #India

Digital Arrest is the fastest growing cyber crime in India.

Dec 23, 2024

1. A 39 year-old Bengaluru software engineer fell prey to a digital arrest fraud recently and ended up losing ₹118 million (~1.4 million USD).

2. Bengaluru woman duped of ₹3 million (~35K USD) in digital arrest scam; forced to break FDs and empty bank accounts.

3. A 32-year-old home-maker from Pune was scammed of ₹3.3 million (~38.7K USD) by fraudsters who posed as officials from the Mumbai police and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The criminals intimidated her by claiming she was under “digital arrest” for alleged misuse of a SIM card issued in her name.

Dec 26, 2024

1. A Japanese national working in Bengaluru lost ₹3.55 million (~ 41.6K USD) to cyber fraudsters, who posed as Mumbai Police officers and placed him under "digital arrest", alleging his involvement in a money laundering case.

The term "Digital Arrest" describes a kind of sophisticated cyber fraud in which scammers use video conversations, emails, or text messages to pose as government or law enforcement officers. They coerce victims into making significant financial transfers or disclosing private information by threatening to arrest them or take legal action against them for supposed crimes including drug trafficking, money laundering, or internet fraud. In India, people reportedly lost about ₹1200 million (about $14 million) as a result of these frauds in the first quarter of 2024 alone.

Digital Arrest is not a legitimate legal concept and does not exist under Indian law.

Reference: https://www.deccanherald.com/india/explained-what-is-a-digital-arrest-scam-3250891#1

#MastodonIndians #MastIndia #India #CyberCrime #CyberAttack #DigitalArrest

myrmepropagandist has interesting Fediverse advice [1] regarding (a) following more and more real persons if their posts are good, (b) boost posts and replies, and (c) write thoughtful replies.

In addition, I strongly advocate usage of hashtags in posts and also following hashtags. We may just write thoughtful posts without caring about reach and visibility. Good posts will find relevant audience.

I have learnt in the hard way that beyond 3000 characters, the probability of a Fediverse post being read is low.

In this context, I must highlight a quote by John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873). This quote encourages individuals to embrace their right to free expression and to engage in respectful and constructive dialogue with others.

> "Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions."

1. https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/113458638836376645

#Fediverse #FreeExpression #SocialWeb #Hashtag

Last month, on 13th Nov 2024, The Guardian announced that will no longer post on Elon Musk’s X from its official accounts.

This is interesting. The Guardian continues to be active on Meta products which is not toxic for them and not enough disturbing content is being promoted there as per their observations. They also seem to have no immediate plans to have an official presence in ActivityPub based Fediverse.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/the-guardian-no-longer-post-on-x-twitter-elon-musk

#TheGuardian #Fediverse

Propagation of a post, with a hashtag, across ActivityPub based Fediverse instances is inconsistent.

If I publish a post with a hashtag from a Fediverse instance A, there is no guarantee that the post will appear on another instance B when searched against the same hashtag in that instance B.

If I follow a hashtag in a Fediverse instance, I may not see all the posts against that hashtag at a given time.

I did some random tests recently. In my opinion, typically (i.e. not always) the fastest refresh of a hashtag, with new posts, happens in https://mastodon.social.

#Hashtag