The effects of climate change are escalating at a frightening pace
Two must read articles. This isn’t reassuring. This from a peer reviewed study from the University of Hawaii:
In their paper, UH researchers break down the ways one crisis has helped fuel another. Climate change has brought people and pathogens in closer proximity. Warming temperatures and precipitation changes have allowed for mosquitoes, ticks, birds and other disease vectors to expand their range, while human displacement and migration from sea-level rise and extreme weather has resulted in new contacts with dangerous pathogens, the analysis notes. Hotter land temperatures are driving a surge in mosquito-borne viruses like dengue fever, while warming oceans have been linked to major increases in vibriosis, bacterial infections caused by eating contaminated seafood or swimming in tainted water. Additionally, climate impacts have allowed for pathogens to more successfully reproduce and become more virulent, while simultaneously blunting our own ability to avoid and fight off disease.
Many infectious diseases have been negatively influenced by multiple climate hazards. For example, leptospirosis, a bacterial disease transmitted through contact with the urine of infected animals, has been made worse by eight separate climate impacts, including warming, flooding, extreme precipitation and even drought, according to the findings.
But the problem is far more complex than how any single climate stressor might interact with and exacerbate each infectious disease. It’s not a 1-to-1 connection; many pathogens can be transmitted to humans in multiple different ways. The paper identified more than 1,000 unique pathways between climate hazards and disease outbreaks.
The study covers variables like increased transmissibility and increased severity, but also brings up some things previously known like the melting ice caps at the poles releasing other pathogens and viruses that might be contained within them.
Mora said that dynamic presents monumental challenges.
“It is so naive for us to think that we are going to be able to adapt to this,” he said. “There is no way, with so many diseases and so many different pathways, that we can fully adapt. For me, that made it super clear that if we really want to avoid this problem, the best way to avoid it is to deal with the emission of greenhouse gasses. The last thing that we want to do is unleash the power of one of these diseases that can be impacted by greenhouse gasses.”
One particularly alarming example of how warming can let diseases loose occurred in 2016, when anthrax, a rare bacterial illness, broke out in a remote village in Siberia. One child died and dozens of people were hospitalized. Scientists ultimately attributed the outbreak to a summer heat wave that thawed permafrost and exposed the carcass of a 75-year-old infected reindeer, releasing spores of the bacteria that cause anthrax. Thousands of reindeer ultimately died from the outbreak.
“You can imagine how many diseases that have accumulated over time in these ice caps, and now as they start melting all of these diseases start being exposed,” Mora said.
And:
In recent years, mycologists have documented significant geographic shifts to fungi that for centuries were only found in certain regions, he said. Histoplasmosis, for example, is an infection caused by inhaling the spores of a fungus found in bird and bat feces. While it historically was found only in the eastern half of the United States, it is now starting to pop up in western states. Similarly, coccidioidomycosis, a fungal disease better known as “valley fever,” is increasingly turning up outside its common range in the Southwest.
“This is thought to be related to climate change and bird migration, both deeply tied to each other,” Ostrosky said of the shifts.
The article is pretty short and I recommend you read it. It’s probably had an impact on covid and monkeypox, for example.
That’s not all. The heat itself is going to have a severe impact on the US (and every country). A fresh NBC news report shows what the temps are likely to be 3 decades from now. By 2053, major migration is likely to move much of the southern US north to escape temps like currently found in Death Valley, with weeks of temps as high as 125 degrees.
And moving north won’t work as well in the middle of the country, unless people move to Canada.
The report, released Monday by the nonprofit research group First Street Foundation, found that within a column of America's heartland stretching from Texas and Louisiana north to the Great Lakes, residents could experience heat index temperatures above 125 degrees Fahrenheit by 2053 — conditions that are more commonly found in California's Death Valley or in parts of the Middle East.
It means nearly a third of the US population (107 million) may be compelled to move. Think what that will mean to the property values in the areas being abandoned… or the areas in high demand.
Pretty frightening when you also consider all the extra viruses and diseases that mobile population may be spreading.
We should be on red alert with just 3 decades to go, but instead there’s plenty of conservative anti-science politicians who think climate change is fake. That’s no longer a group to trust unless you think massive dislocation, increased illnesses and mass die-offs to be okie-dokie.
Check out that article and the maps to get a clearer picture.
It’s all very sobering and should scare the bejeebers out of everyone with a measurable IQ.