Disaster 24/7?

Environment | Some relief groups are diverting resources from helping the needy to climate change | Mark Bergin

Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps/AP

For almost three decades Mercy Corps has mastered the business of relieving the needs of disaster victims and suffering societies worldwide. Floods, earthquakes, poverty, famine—the organization responds to crises on the ground with swift and efficient work that produces immediate, tangible, and donor-satisfying results. When displaced people groups are without homes, Mercy Corps builds shelters. When disease ravages the world's poorest regions, Mercy Corps provides health care.

But in recent years the organization has diverted some of its time and financial resources toward tackling an issue that has yet to produce comparable consequences. Mercy Corps has joined the business of fighting climate change. Jim Jarvie, the agency's director of this new enterprise, calls rising global temperatures "the most serious threat to communities where we work" and says Mercy Corps must adapt its programs to account for this "24/7 natural disaster."