Pssst, want an Anthrax vaccine?

The dog days of summer, and the dog days of the presidential election season have coincided.  One party does not care about the daily warmth nor the long-term climate change:

The platform approved by a voice vote yesterday evening doesn’t explicitly question the science behind climate change. But it calls for reduced funding for renewable energy and international adaptation programs, and it seeks an end to the global agreement reached in Paris late year to cut greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
...
“We oppose any carbon tax,”

Only the GOP could adopt such a platform!

Meanwhile, "based on the findings of 450 scientists from 62 countries" the "new “State of the Climate” report by the American Meteorological Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information" informs us that::

Last year officially surpassed 2014 as the warmest year ever noted on record.
Rising oceans, accumulating atmospheric greenhouse gasses, and escalating temperatures on both sea and land all reached new record highs in 2015 — surpassing landmarks set a year prior.

I am sure the GOP and its loyal members merely let out a collective yawn over this latest hoax!

The record warmth, month after month, and year after year, is apparently making true what were mere theoretical scenarios.  Like how pathogens buried in the cold, cold permafrost might find it to be a hospitable place for them:

The ongoing anthrax outbreak in Siberia is offering us a preview: What was once considered a future theoretical possibility — a re-animated deadly bacterium emerging from the permafrost — is now a reality.

"Ongoing"??? And I thought I keep up with the news!  Let me tell you first about that:

Eight people are confirmed as infected with anthrax, a rare but deadly bacterial disease. It is believed to have spread from reindeer.
More than 2,300 reindeer have died in the outbreak, in the Yamalo-Nenets region of Siberia. Reindeer-herding families have been moved out.
A heatwave has fuelled the disease.
Temperatures in the danger zone - now under quarantine - have soared to 35C.
Russia has sent troops trained for biological warfare to help deal with the emergency.

Anthrax?  The first time I ever heard about it was in the days after 9/11.  Until then, I had no idea about something called Anthrax.  And now, they are coming up from the deep freeze?

Officials believe that the heat melted permafrost and exposed an infected reindeer carcass in the Siberian tundra, AFP news agency reports.
The last outbreak in the region was in 1941.

Crap!

So, back to the climate scientists and their theoretical scenarios.

Scientists have been warning for years that melting permafrost might release ancient pathogens, frozen for millennia or longer in northern soils. Over the last decade or so, bacteria have been discovered alive in Alaskan permafrost at temperatures as low as minus-40 degrees Celsius, and in permafrost layers as old as three million years in Siberia. Although the vast majority of known bacteria are harmless, we don’t yet know what’s buried up there, or how dangerous it might be to humans.
And it’s clear that, for now, weather conditions in Siberia are far outside their normal range. Last month, parts of Siberia near where the anthrax outbreak is occurring were as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, averaged over the entire month. That’s like New York City suddenly adopting the climate of Tucson, Arizona, for the whole month of July. To say the Arctic climate is off the charts this year is an understatement.

What the what?

So, if we continue to set records for warmest month and warmest year, then ...?

“This is uncharted territory in the human experience, and especially the ecosystem is likely to respond in abrupt ways”

Anything else?

Permafrost-borne diseases are only one threat of climate change, and scientists warn that further abrupt changes are possible (if not likely) unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly reduced. At this point, humanity has a decision to make — which is good news in the sense that a different course is still possible. But as with this week’s anthrax outbreak, if we continue to lock in future warming, we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned of the consequences.

Hey, thanks, Obama thanks, GOP, for reassuring us that Earth is cooling!

Kill those damn suckers!

No, I am not referring to the ISIS. Nor to this evil creature.

No, it is not the union; think again ;)

I want us to kill the most dangerous animal of all, about which I have blogged before.  For years now, I have been dreaming of a world without them.

It is the damn mosquitoes that I want us to wipe out. Forever.  Not all the 3,500 species, but only the "6% of species that draw blood from humans."  Those are the suckers that I want gone.  They have caused nothing but misery for us humans throughout our existence.  The rapidly spreading Zika is the latest misery they have inflicted on us.

I am a man of peace, yes.  But, I have no patience for the blood-thirsty, disease-spreading, mosquitoes.  BTW, did you notice that even among that 6%, it is only the female kind that troubles us?  Now, that is a group of females that I can live without ;)

Daniel Engber is even more enraged than I am:

It’s time to kill all the mosquitoes. It’s time for mass mosquito-cide.

Sign me up for this war!

Engber writes:

Enough of the politeness: The ugly situation on the ground does not call for Integrated Mosquito Management; it demands a program of Total Mosquito Destruction. And here’s the thing: For the first time in human history, that dream could be realized. We have a better way to kill mosquitoes—a nuclear option—but up until this point we’ve been too afraid to use it.

And that option: to release millions of sterile males that would mate with the females.  (Do porn sites offer videos of mosquito sex?  hehehe)

 A PG-rated description of mosquitoes mating would go something like this: The female enters the swarm. A male seeks her out, his wing-beat slowing until it matches hers. Using his large front legs he grabs her back legs and swings under her abdomen. In less than a second the lovers are joined. And then, connected, they fly slowly out of the swarm while making out in mid-air. The entire coupling can take less than 16 seconds.
Understanding this 16 second frenzy, and making sure it doesn't lead to breeding, is the challenge

Now, if it is a sterile male that does the wild thing ... slowly we can wipe out those damn bloodsuckers.

I am sure there will be some pesky people who will complain about the unintended consequences from two issues here: a) that it is wrong to eliminate a species like this, and b) the sterile male comes via genetic modification.  To them, I have only two words as a response: who cares! This is war.  Either you are with us, or against us ;)

Whatever its unintended consequences (and there are always unintended consequences), the elimination of mosquitoes would save billions of human lives and trillions of dollars, in the decades to come. It would end untold suffering among the world’s poorest people.

Exactly.

When we eradicated the Variola virus, which caused smallpox, we rightly celebrated.

Precisely.  What is good for the smallpox and polio viruses is good for the six percent of the mosquitoes that kill and torture us humans.

"We are playing an evolutionary game with mosquitoes," says Hawkes. "Hopefully it's one we can get on top of over the next 10 to 15 years."

The good thing is that the Republican Party will not oppose this; after all, they don't even believe in evolution!  It is the bleeding-heart liberals who will oppose it without realizing that the blood is coming from mosquito bites ;)

Join us in this global war on terror.

Dear Venezuela: I really, really wish I knew how to quit you

Venezuela was the first country that I visited after coming to America.  It has been a long association with that country, which has been nothing but a poster-child for oil as a resource curse.  With the price of oil in a free fall of sorts, I was sure the news about Venezuela would not be pretty; after all, "Venezuela needs oil prices to hit $111 a barrel just to break even" and oil is trading at less than $30!

The Wall Street Journal opens its report with this:

The plunge in the price of oil is causing more investors to bet that Venezuela will default on its $120 billion pile of foreign debt, an event that would trigger a messy battle over the country’s oil shipments and deepen its economic and political crisis.

When pretty much all the oil-export revenue will go to serving the debt obligations, it leaves little for anything else:

The government owes more than $50 billion to private companies that service its economy, ranging from oil contractors and airlines to supermarkets that need dollars to import everything from flour to toilet paper. Major airlines have halted flights to the country and auto manufacturers and others have shut plants after the government was unable to pay for imports of needed parts and materials.

Oil prices are not projected to go up anytime soon.  So, more misery for the people in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s consumer inflation, already the world’s highest, will more than double this year to a level above all estimates from economists surveyed by Bloomberg, the International Monetary Fund said.
Inflation will surge to 720 percent in 2016 from 275 percent last year, according to a note published by the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Director, Alejandro Werner.

720 percent?

Venezuela’s economy will shrink 8 percent this year following a 10 percent contraction last year, according to the IMF. 

WTF!

When economic conditions worsen, then what happens to stuff that people need?  Remember this post from last April about the shortage of toilet-paper thanks to the screwed up "socialism" of Hugo Chavez and his anointed successor?

The situation has worsened, to say the least, since last April.

It’s also having a serious impact on the sex lives and health of many Venezuelans.

How so, you ask?

Contraceptives, including birth control pills and condoms, are also on the growing list of hard-to-get items. Only one-tenth of the normal volume of contraceptives used by Venezuelans was available last year, El Pais reported earlier this month, citing the head of the country's pharmaceutical federation. 

No milk. No toilet paper. No contraceptives.  Hmmm, can it get any worse?

Experts have been warning of the potentially devastating consequences of the contraceptive shortage in a country that already has one of the highest rates of HIV infection and teenage pregnancy in the region. ...Venezuela's economic crisis could turn into a health disaster.

Oh my!  Add to this the Zika virus too.

How awful!