Should We Be Worried About Global Warming?

Anthrax Outbreak In Russia Thought To Be Result Of Thawing Permafrost

Russia is fighting a mysterious anthrax outbreak in a remote corner of Siberia. Dozens of people have been hospitalized; one child has died. The government airlifted some families out because more than 2,000 reindeer have been infected.

Officials don't know exactly how the outbreak started, but the current hypothesis is almost unbelievable: A heat wave has thawed the frozen soil there and with it, a reindeer carcass infected with anthrax decades ago.

Some scientists think this incident could be an example of what climate change may increasingly surface in the tundra. The place where the outbreak is occurring is called the Yamal Peninsula. It lies high above the Arctic Circle at the top of the world. It's so cold there, the soil — called permafrost — is frozen solid, more than 1,000 feet deep in some places, or about the height of the Empire State Building.  

"The soil in the Yamal Pennisula is like a giant freezer," says Jean-Michel Claverie at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. "Those are very, very good conditions for bacteria to remain alive for a very long time."

In this case, the bacteria were anthrax, and more than 75 years ago, they killed a reindeer. The carcass got covered in a thin layer of permafrost, Russian officials think. For decades, it lay there frozen. Then this summer, a heat wave hit and a thicker layer of permafrost melted, and the reindeer's carcass rose to the surface, the theory goes. As it warmed up, so did the anthrax.

Russian officials say they're working hard to get the outbreak under control. They're vaccinating reindeer and burning the carcasses of dead animals.

There's likely to be more cases of anthrax resurfacing, says Birgitta Evengard, a microbiologist at Umea University in Sweden. That's because climate change is causing the temperature in the Arctic Circle to rise very quickly.

"It's rising about three times faster in the Arctic than in the rest of the world," she says. "And that means the ice is melting and the permafrost is thawing."

In the early 20th century, there were repeated anthrax outbreaks in Siberia. More than a million reindeer died. Now there are about 7,000 burial grounds with infected carcasses scattered across northern Russia.

"It's not that easy to dig in the permafrost to bury these animals," Evengard says. "So they are kind of very close to the surface."

That means anthrax outbreaks in Siberia could occur every summer, she says. And it's not just anthrax that could be a problem.

People and animals have been buried in permafrost for centuries. There could be bodies infected with all kinds of viruses and bacteria, frozen in time. She says scientists are just starting look for it.

"So we really don't know what's buried up there," she says. "This is Pandora's box."

For example, researchers have found pieces of the 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in Alaska's tundra. There's also likely smallpox and the bubonic plague buried in Siberia.


So the question for researchers is: Could these pathogens — like anthrax — ever be reactivated?  READ ON......

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/14/thawing-siberian-permafrost-soil-risks-rise-anthrax-prehistoric/

School pupils call for radical climate action in UK-wide strike

If there are changes going  to be made in how the environment is caretakered, its going to be kids. A great many of the old farts making short term decisions today are not going to be around when the #$@% hits the fan 20 years from now. Unless we get greenhouse emissions under control with all inhabitants of this planet working for the greater good, the future for youngster and babies of today  being born will not be uncertain, it will be terminal.  

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/15/uk-climate-change-strike-school-pupils-children-environment-protest

Trudeau falls short on commitment to Grassy Narrows mercury problems, chief says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/prime-minister-grassy-narrows-1.3939095

And Trudeau's government is failing their children. 

The level of mercury found in the umbilical cords of babies in Grassy Narrows First Nation was high enough to affect their brain development, according to a new report obtained by the Star.

Between 1978 and 1994 Health Canada tested the umbilical cord blood of 139 infants in Grassy Narrows.

“At these cord blood concentrations, there is consensus from the scientific literature that there would be effects on children’s neurodevelopment,” the report, written by Dr. Donna Mergler, says.

In the report, the leading expert reviews decades of scientific research on mercury’s effects and highlights the hidden impact of contamination on a community.

Mergler said that what recent science tells us is that mercury poisoning occurs at low levels previously thought harmless. At these low levels, a fetus is vulnerable to cognitive damage even if the child’s mother does not show signs of poisoning.

The scientist, whose research specializes in the effects of environmental pollutants such as mercury, wrote it was “surprising” that although world-renowned Japanese researchers had identified many cases of mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows, there has never been a “scientifically sound” community-wide examination of pre- and postnatal mercury contamination.

Advocates for Grassy Narrows have been trying to obtain the original cord blood data and other information collected by Health Canada over more than two decades so that their own experts can analyze it.

For six months, Health Canada said it would not release the data — even with identifying information removed — citing privacy concerns, according to email correspondence obtained by the Star.

On Thursday, one day after the Star asked Health Canada why the information could not be released, First Nation community advocates received an email from the regulator saying they could have the data.

The original contamination began when a Dryden, Ont., paper plant dumped 10 tonnes of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, into the English-Wabigoon River system between 1962 and 1970. The site of the plant, now under different ownership, is about 100 kilometres upstream from Grassy Narrows.

The locals, who’d built a livelihood as fishing and hunting guides, were told to stop eating the fish. The robust fishing tourism industry was decimated. The fishermen and guides went on welfare.

More than 300 residents (50 of them children) from Grassy Narrows and another community were diagnosed with “symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning” — including loss of muscle co-ordination, vision loss, slurred speech and tunnel vision — and awarded compensation from a Mercury Disability Board. A separate protocol was set up for children that also tests for cerebral palsy and some developmental delays.