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So much for next summer's vacation. |
Posted on 11/14/2005 8:00:07 PM PST by ChildOfThe60s
OSLO (Reuters) - Warmer, wetter weather brought on by global warming could increase outbreaks of the plague, which has killed millions down the ages and wiped out one third of Europe's population in the 14th century, academics said.
Migratory birds spreading avian flu from Asia today could also carry the plague bacteria westward from their source in Central Asia, Nils Stenseth, head of a three-day conference on the plague and how it spreads, told Reuters on Monday.
"Wetter, warmer weather conditions mean there are likely to be more of the bacteria around than normal and the chance of it spreading to humans is higher," he said.
The European Union-funded group has just finished analyzing Soviet-era data from Kazakhstan which show a link between warmer weather and outbreaks of the plague.
This analysis was important as it had not previously been clear whether warmer conditions encouraged the bacteria, fleas and rats to grow or killed them off, Stenseth said. Plague bacteria are often carried by fleas on rats.
"But if it becomes too hot it would kill off the fleas and rodents," he said.
Many scientists say a build-up of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels is pushing up temperatures around the world and changing Earth's climate.
KILLER BACTERIA
The plague -- caused by the virulent, aggressive and mutating Yersinia Pestis bacteria -- periodically breaks out in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries and has been carried around the globe by fleas on the back of rats, birds and in clothing for centuries, Stenseth said.
"If you treat it with antibiotics in a few days it should be all right, but if you leave it any longer there is a 60 percent chance of death."
In the 14th century the plague killed around 34 million people and some academics believe it reappeared every generation, including the Great Plague of London in 1665-66.
"The link is very important and it is also important to link it back to the Black Death in the 1300s because there were the kind of weather conditions then -- warmer and wetter -- that we predict for the future," Stenseth said.
"After 1855, when it (plague) reappeared again, there were once again similar weather conditions."
Scientists are still unsure why the plague originates in Central Asia. It has spread throughout the world, including recently to east Africa, and this is due at least partly to birds.
"Many, many bird species are spreading bacteria from one place to another, from one rodent to another, by carrying fleas," Stenseth said.
"That birds spread the bacteria is not in question but how important that is in the big picture is not yet clear."
Unlike the bird flu virus, which infects and kills domestic birds, plague-carrying fleas do not harm the birds that carry them.
On the other hand, global cooling wipes out huge numbers of idiots that can't compete intellectually.
What kind of dope is this guy on?
This Rooters article has convinced me we are all doomed...time to stockpile canned goods and wait for the end.
There appears to be only one solution if we are to save mankind. SHOOT EVERY BIRD YOU SEE ON SIGHT!
So exactly when did global warming start? Were there glaciers in the northern part of the lower 48 of the U.S. when Henry Ford invented the automobile?
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So much for next summer's vacation. |
Works every time.
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Abortion and muzzies will wipe out Europe this time around; the plague should be the least of their worries at this point!
Why did Mom and Dad keep this from me?
My own fault for spending 9 1/2 years on an island in the South Pacific...
Probably when the feminists convinced Mommy to work outside the home.
That's the troublemakers right there. Those wascally migratory fellas. LOL!
Working on 'em whenever I can! Though now its time to take care of that nagging chronic wasting problem that plagues the deer popluation :-)
Whatever happens in the next few centuries and millenia, we can be very glad there's been lots of "global warming" in the past 10,000 years else there would still be enormous glacial ice sheets over much of Canada and the northern USA and even down to Long Island, NY:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
"Glaciation in North America:
The Wisconsinan glaciation has had a considerable effect on the landscape of the Northern Hemisphere. In North America, the Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes were carved by ice's deepening of old valleys. The old Teays River drainage system was radically altered and largely reshaped into the Ohio River drainage system. Other rivers were dammed and diverted to new channels, such as the Niagara, which formed a dramatic waterfall and gorge, when the waterflow encountered a limestone escarpment. Another similar waterfall near Syracuse, New York is now dry. Long Island was formed from glacial till, and the watersheds of Canada were so severely disrupted that they are still sorting themselves out — the plethora of lakes on the Canadian Shield in northern Canada can be almost entirely attributed to the action of the ice. As the ice retreated and the rock dust dried, winds carried the material hundreds of miles, forming beds of loess many dozens of feet thick in the Missouri Valley. Isostatic rebound continues to reshape the Great Lakes and other areas formerly under the weight of the ice sheets."
There is some academic debate about whether the Black Plague (so named only since the 19th century - it was simply named "pestilence" before that) was entirely the work of Yersinia pestis. A fellow named Graham Twiggs proposed that its pattern of migration implied that part of the cases were bovine-related - anthrax or brucellosis. They had no way of telling the difference in 1347 AD. Whatever it was - I am inclined toward the Y. pestis theory - it killed 30-50% of Europe. They didn't have antibiotics. We do.
I knew it had to come back to Bush somehow.
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