Pirate's Cove

The only way to stop this is with higher taxation, you know

Bummer: Trace CO2 might cause "hundreds of thousands" of snakebite deaths https://t.co/hfsoZHhiKe

— Tom Nelson (@TomANelson) March 23, 2017

Another reason to act now on climate change: snakes! https://t.co/wVGOtIcgZQ @NerdyChristie pic.twitter.com/iNExFPhXz3

— Discover Magazine (@DiscoverMag) March 22, 2017

From the fable

And as water supplies dwindle, rainforests burn, and corals bleach, we may have yet another thing to worry about: frickin’ snakes.

Some parts of the world know all too well the danger posed by venomous snakes. Scientists estimate that anywhere between 421,000 and over 1.8 million envenomations from snakes occur every year, with as many 94,000 deaths. Here in the United States, we’re fairly lucky: we have less than ten deaths per year. Meanwhile, our neighbors to the south are plagued by serpentine foes which cause a few thousand deaths annually.

But as our climate changes, so, too, will the habitats that these snakes call home. And with those changes comes the potential for species to expand their ranges and come in contact with people they never would have before.

How do they think this might maybe possibly feel this could happen?

To determine what might happen to American snakes under different climate change scenarios, scientists from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s Laboratorio de Biología de la Conservación and the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute used climate and habitat (niche) models to predict how the distributions of 90 species of snakes—about half the total number of venomous species in all of North and South America—will react to changes in climate. They then used current occurrence and bite data to estimate how snakebite risk will change as the snakes move around.

And, of course, with their models, they found Dooooooom!

These people. Sheesh.