A Texas rancher, unfortunately, found some of his livestock, which has been standing near a fence, dead from a lightning strike. Each year, world-wide it is estimated that domestic, as well as feral animals, are killed in the hundreds of thousands by lightning strikes. The cost to the owners of the herds is prodigious. The reality of the matter is not much has been done to protect livestock in such weather. If one ‘thinks outside the box’ there is no reason insulated transportable small ‘barns’ could not be designed and inexpensively manufactured for herd shelters.
In the areas, such as Arkhangai Province near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, herders lose thousands of their animals yearly due to horrendous lightning storms, snow and wind. In -30C [-22F] temperatures; this loss can be reduced significantly with the aforementioned portable insulated ‘small barns’. Losses from electrical storms, in particular, could be prevented. As for humans, we are better off.
The capacity to kill, from lightning’s electrical energy, is well-known by all. In fact, it kills on average, approximately 6 people per million, per year, world wide. If one presumes there exists approximately 7.8 billion people on Earth, one sees that 46,850+/- people perish yearly from strikes. In agricultural areas around the world, for humans, the death toll is higher, due to lack of effective shelters, than of residents in cities. In urban areas one is safer due to effective housing. Since lightning injuries exceed deaths, by ten times, human suffering is quite vast. Numerically, lightning strikes to humans,and animals, as well damage such as forest fire started from the strikes, are as destructive as many ‘Influenza Pandemics’. As to ‘Flora’ damage, there is no contest.
Having engaged in hard rock mining, many of us are quite familiar with lightning storms causing ignition of blasting caps for dynamite charges. [We are also aware of firearms shots detonating sticks of dynamite; This we have witnessed]. For miners, several thousand feet underground, lightning can kill; as historical evidence in Africa has shown. It behooves executives of mining companies to secure the best of insulation for their miners in remote locales, world-wide.
It is imperative for effectively-insulated building designs to be employed, as the, in-fashion phrase, ‘Climate Change’ [no longer, “Global Warming”] evidences climatic deviance in weather patterns. This evolution in climate may produce more electrical storms in greater varied locations, and of stronger electrical intensities. At present, it appears that Japan is the leader in building fabrications with the fewest lightning strike victims in the world; a fact of which the country’s leaders should be proud.
Reality: For all living creatures and humanity, respect for ‘Mother Nature’ with her powers is essential. Those unaware, or in denial, can pay the price for this lack of acknowledgement.
