It’s all your fault. You flushed your toilet, wasted water while shaving in the shower, and drove a fossil fueled vehicle to work this morning, so, pathogens like anthrax will kill us all
(The Daily Climate) Diarrhea, cholera and tick-borne illness: As the climate changes, a host of health threats are predicted to escalate, experts say.
Everybody panic!!!!!!1!!!!!
Environmental changes already underway are allowing public health experts to establish stronger links between global warming and infectious disease.
An analysis of pathogens in Europe that pose a serious threat to humans or animals, such as anthrax and cholera, found that climate change could influence 60 percent of these diseases. That’s “a remarkably high number,” said Matthew Baylis, an epidemiologist at the University of Liverpool in the UK, who presented his work this week at a symposium on infectious diseases and climate change at the University of Georgia.
He predicts temperatures and rainfall will have an “overwhelming” effect on tick-borne disease. Strong winds could spread anthrax. West Nile virus is susceptible to changes in temperature and rainfall.
I told you that leaving your DVR plugged in while at work was evil, but, did you listen? Nooooooooo! You thought it would be a hoot to record Cheaters while at work. And, because you did that, the climate, which had never changed prior to 1980, will now be hotcoldwetdry and make diseases worse. Just like back in 14th century, when the Black Plague killed an estimated 75 million people as the world entered the Little Ice Age. But, don’t worry, because anthropogenic global warming is making things hotter, so disease will be worse
In developing countries, diarrhea, which is a symptom of gastrointestinal infection, is one of the biggest health concerns. Diarrhea kills 2.5 million children each year, but little data about diarrhea and climate exists. Karen Levy, an environmental epidemiologist at Emory University in Atlanta, found that rotavirus, which causes diarrhea, becomes more active in tropical regions when the climate is cooler and drier. Levy will soon focus on predicting how other triggers of diarrhea – norovirus, a highly contagious bug and the leading cause of food-borne disease outbreaks in the United States, is her group’s next target – will change with the climate.
Wait, wait, it’s worse when cooler and drier? So, what we want is to make the climate hotter and wetter. Interesting.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Why are they combitching? If we have a new series of plagues, and kill off a billion or so people, why that will reduce humanity’s carbon footprint, thereby saving the polar bears.
Well, they have to have something to bitch about. Then they’d bitch about all the decomposing bodies releasing methane.
Wait… how is this even news?
Meaning, he wrote a model to predict something that would support his future career.
Which 60%? Can we get a shot just for those 60% then? What if we are off by one? Is there a +/- error? Or, can we just assume some diseases might benefit and some might not…. you know.. like any organism in a changing environment?
What number comprises “overwhelming”? So we have an “overwhelming” MODELED affect on 60% of certain diseases. But, thanks to a model we now know for certain that temperature and rainfall affects the growth of ticks. Thank you for that. Whodathunkit.
And dust. Granted, we’ve never had strong winds before so this is all new territory.
So, how is the West Nile Virus susceptible? Don’t viruses die easily when exposed to open air? Don’t they usually live in a vector before they infect us?
Guess it just sounds nastier to say the VIRUS can live … wait.. all they said is the virus is “Susceptible”. So.. what does that mean? NOTHING. It only means that its survivability is changed in an environment that changes from what is measured.
DUUUUUUHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
(stupid new science)
Dude, you’re bringing up that “sciencey” stuff again. You know this isn’t about science.