Global warming will cause ice to melt, which will release bacteria that had remained dormant for thousands of years
Posted on 10/16/2018 8:20:53 AM PDT by ETL
The melting of permafrost would release millennia-old bacteria into the global ecosystem, it has been claimed
GLOBAL warming could re-awaken ancient diseases and even the Black Death, according to an Oxford University professor.
Higher global temperatures would melt ice sheets that store long-buried bacteria, which could spread disease and potentially cause new global pandemics.
Global warming will cause ice to melt, which will release bacteria that had remained dormant for thousands of years
Professor Peter Frankopan offered his speculative prediction at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on Friday, as reported by The Times.
The professor of global history began by stating his view that there was "absolutely no chance" the international community would hit the Paris Agreement's target of keeping global temperature rises under 1.5C.
He said, "If we go over that degree change, it’s not about the Maldives being harder to visit on holiday or migration of people — it’s about what happens when permafrost unfreezes and the release of biological agents that have been buried for millennia."
And because ancient bacteria would be released again into the Earth's ecosystems, there would be a big risk of the global population being hit by diseases it can't handle.
Chief amongst such diseases is the plague, which Frankopan states was spread in the Middle Ages largely due to a rise in global temperatures.
"For example, in the 1340s, a 1.5 degree movement of heating of the earth’s atmosphere — probably because of solar flares or volcanic activity — changes the cycle of Yersinia pestis bacterium," he explained.
"That one and a half degree difference allowed a small microbe to develop into the Black Death."
According to Frankopan, such a possibility should be taken more seriously than a rise in sea levels or droughts, not least because the Black Death wiped out between 75 and 200 million people in Europe in the 14th Century.
"These are the things we should be hugely worried about," he said.
While his warnings draw a worst-case scenario for future global warming, there are recent examples of melting permafrost presenting a serious hazard to people.
In 2016, a 12-year-old boy died and over 40 people were hospitalised in Siberia, after having been infected by anthrax.
The anthrax had been released when high summer temperatures melted permafrost, which had kept a deer buried for decades following a previous outbreak of the dangerous bacteria.
Since this deer had been killed by anthrax, its exposure caused the previously frozen bacteria to be released into the area's water and soil, where it then entered the food chain.
Over 1,500 reindeer were infected and killed as a result, and since some of these had been eaten by local residents, they too were infected.
Frankopan's predictions also come amid a growing slew of studies examining some of the more indirect effects of global warming.
Yesterday, an international team of climate scientists publishing in the Nature Plants journal wrote that severe climate change would cause worldwide beer shortages.
Last month, a paper published in the influential Nature journal concluded that global warming is already causing a rise in large landslides and tsunamis.
While in July, researchers at Stanford University published research which found that rising global temperatures could result in 40,000 more suicides in the US and Mexico by 2050.
What worries you most about global warming? Let us know in the comments.
I’m just wondering when the dragons are coming back.
At least I have my SUV to race away from the ice-melted, rejuvenated space aliens sure to be freed by Global Warming.
Here is AGW in a nutshell:
“Nice climate-based world economy you got here. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Yesterday’s topic was beer, today they add the plague.
Give them credit for creativity and organization.
what they never say is they can fix it with all our money let’s see,
the sky is falling, give me cash or we are all doomed,
what are you going to do with the money to fix it?
your’e a racist and climate change denier..
one thing I know, regardless of the affect of humanity on the planet, we cannot even figure out how to live with each other much less cure cosmic processes..incomplete thought circles is the way of the left..no results , lies and deceit are always empty promises
Removing Marxist Liberal propaganda and the use of brainwashing from the US public schools from K through 12 would help along with throwing out the Liberal textbooks. Teaching reading, writing, and math would be a bonus. Secondly, removing Marxist from our colleges and universities would also be a good start.
Book publishers, then Radio broadcasters, TV broadcasters, and now Internet websites have spend billions over hundreds of years on finding out how to manipulate people.
Sex sells. They know that, but it only works on a certain percentage of the population, at certain ages.
The thing that works on EVERYONE, and is the most effective is FEAR.
Humans will do a lot to gain pleasure, but they will do almost anything to avoid pain.
Jane Fonda sounds climate change alarm in Toronto
The Star ^ | July 4, 2015 | Christopher Reynolds
"The climate change problem is the issue of our civilization. It will affect everything about our lives if we don’t do something about it," she [Jane Fonda] says.
___________________________________________________
November 22, 1970 -- During a fund-raising tour for GI deserters, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Black Panthers, Jane Fonda is quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a University of Michigan audience:
"I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would someday become communist," and "The peace proposal of the Viet Cong is the only honorable, just, possible way to achieve peace in Vietnam."
cool, mummy aliens awaken..like it, if the ice melts come from canada will everyone get stoned drinking the water?
From the article at the top...
"Yesterday, an international team of climate scientists publishing in the Nature Plants journal wrote that severe climate change would cause worldwide beer shortages.
Last month, a paper published in the influential Nature journal concluded that global warming is already causing a rise in large landslides and tsunamis."
Global warming and climate change could awaken Godzilla.
The ‘dragons’ are currently gainfully employed mining the Moon, however, they could be cajoled into coming back and mining Earth once more. If you ask nicely and make it worth their while ...
“The environment is suffering damage that could be irreversible — global warming, the greenhouse effect, the melting of the polar ice caps, the rising sea level, hurricanes — with terrible social occurrences that will shake life on this planet.”
“I believe this idea has a strong connection with reality. I don’t think we have much time. Fidel Castro said in one of his speeches I read not so long ago, ‘tomorrow could be too late, let’s do now what we need to do’.”
“I believe it is time that we take up with courage and clarity a political, social, collective and ideological offensive across the world — a real offensive that permits us to move progressively, over the next years, the next decades, leaving behind the perverse, destructive, destroyer, capitalist model and go forward in constructing the socialist model to avoid barbarism and beyond that the annihilation of life on this planet.”
—Hugo Chavez, at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Caracas on August 8-15, 2005
Exactly. And these capabilities will still be available if the average temperature rises another degree or two.
Good morning to you too, I guess. :-)
We’re doomed. DOOMED!
Wow! They are really grabbing at straws here!
Ok, so let’s review...…. There is no Climate Change.
Man is not the enemy.
Global warming etc., …. is a CROC!
It’s called Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring.
It’s been going on for as long as the Earth has been here.
Thank you for not posting Herr Goebbels’ photo.
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