My first question when I read this headline was:
With Passover Approaching, a Plague of Locusts Descends Upon Egypt
“how long before somebody tries to blame this on global warming, today’s universal one-size-fits-all bogeyman?”
The answer is: 30 seconds, as it is already in the article itself.
From The Atlantic Wire, bold mine:
Conflicting reports aside, Moamen insists that the government has everything under control. “Egyptian armed forces and the border guards are attempting to fight the swarm with the means at their disposal,” the agriculture minister said. “I ask the families living in the locust-plagued areas not to burn tires. This does not chase away the locusts, but only causes damage and could ignite large scale fires that would cost in lives.” Also, that smoke isn’t doing Egypt’s grandchildren any favors. Scientists anticipate that, as global warming worsens, plagues like this will also get worse.
Here is the referenced article from Nature:
Global warming may worsen locust swarms
Ancient records link a hotter climate to more damaging infestations.
Jane Qiu
Warmer weather in China has been linked to worse locust outbreaks.Kazuyoshi Nomachi / Science Photo Library
Analysis of Chinese historical records stretching back for over a thousand years show that locust outbreaks are more likely to occur in warmer and drier weather, especially in the country’s northern provinces, researchers say.
“The results are an alarm bell for yet another serious consequence of climate change,” says Ge Quansheng, deputy director of the Beijing-based Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who was not involved with the study.
The findings, by climate researcher Yu Ge and her colleagues at the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Jiangsu province, are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research1.
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Of course there were periods of warmer and drier climate in Egypt during the time of the Pharaoh and the plagues, but don’t let that fact get in the way of a good disaster story.
The 10 plagues as they appear in the Bible are listed below with actual articles connecting global warming to the plague item following in parenthesis:
- Water, which turned to blood and killed all fish and other aquatic life (global warming increases soil erosion due to drought and windswept soil which increases river silt. Aswan High Dam in Egypt is already feeling the effects)
- Frogs (Exodus 8:1–8:15) (Once it was found that global warming didn’t actually mutate/kill frogs, now it is helping frog populations thanks to less severe winters)
- Lice (Exodus 8:16–19) (Head lice increase due to warming enhanced lice egg cycle)
- Flies or [5] wild animals (Exodus 8:20–30) (Fly population set to double with global warming)
- Disease on livestock (Exodus 9:1–7) (Farm Animal Disease to Increase With Climate Change, Scientists Say)
- Incurable boils (Exodus 9:8–12) (Global Warming: Causing Acne and Other Skin Disorders)
- Hail and thunder (Exodus 9:13–35) (The latest meme: Extreme weather caused by global warming)
- Locusts (Exodus 10:1–20) (The article above and from FAO: Climate change and Desert Locust)
- Darkness (Exodus 10:21–29) (Darker atmosphere due to soot increases global warming, but look for a reversal soon, because according to
scripturespeer reviewed science, CO2 is the real cause. ) - Death of the first-born of all Egyptian humans and animals. To be saved, the Israelites had to place the blood of a lamb on the front door of their houses. (Exodus 11, Exodus 12) (Kofi Annan says Global Warming causes 300,000 deaths a year now and Climate Change Deaths Could Total 100 Million By 2030 If World Fails To Act)
I think in the case of global warming and plague #10, the chosen ones will have to nail up a hockey stick over their door so that death passes them over.
This not only proves the case for CAGW, but also proves how wise our ancestors were to believe in the bible. It’s all true.
Did increased CO2 cause Moses?
…so tell me again why we invented Yard Guard
…..snark
From memory I can recall locust plagues being a frequent problem in the 60’s and 70’s being seemingly in the news every couple of years with a plague somewhere in Africa. It may just be the reporting on these that has disappeared for a while (too much warming to report on) but otherwise I would have to say that it was more of a problem when we were facing the next ice age.
“‘The results are an alarm bell for yet another serious consequence of climate change,’ says Ge Quansheng, …”
Ok, I’d like to be prepared for this ‘yet another serious consequence of climate change’ so I’d like to, whilst trying to keep my wits about me and not panicking, ask precisely what this alarm bell sounds like so I can act at a moment’s notice once I hear it. I certainly hope it doesn’t sound like a soft plop, plop because whatever odoriferous scents may follow that sound my sniffer’s not good enough to make up for the muted tones. Does it sound like an incessant, high pitched, irritating buzz? I hope not, because one might mistake it for the usual, high pitched, incessant, irritating buzzes we hear all the time from incessant, high pitched, irritating buzzards. May I suggest that that alarm bell should sound like something appropriate like, I dunno, a slot machine? Better yet, a cash machine? Out in the real world we haven’t heard one of those since about 2007. Attention getting. Check. Appropriate. Double check.
Biblical plagues/swarms* are nothing next to the swarm that erupts when the CAGW grants are being handed out.
/sarc
*Do these locusts run on bio fuel or big oil?
@ur momisugly Barry Cullen “Locusts are always found where it’s warm, never where it’s cold”
Melanoplus spretus, the rocky mountain locust was found from Canada to the southern Rocky Mountains (currently extinct). Swarms of trillions swept across the plains of the US and Canada but ultimately shared the same fate as the passenger pigeon.
Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust
Grasshopper (=locusts) eggs are extremely sensitive to soil moisture and susceptible to fungus infection. Dry soil = low fungus = more eggs hatch
“…show that locust outbreaks are more likely to occur in warmer and drier weather, especially in the country’s northern provinces, researchers say….
But…but… I thought that Climate Change caused lots of rain and snow? Was that yesterday?
Global warming – good for the locust community. Must make the polar bears envious.
Oh no – The sinners dunnit.
The cataclysmic multiple eruptions at Thera circa 1526 BC are far more likely to be the cause of the extraordinary climate events described in Exodus than any random or cyclic warming. Of course there were no Jews or Israelites existing at that point so the story was certainly hijacked from the story of the Hyksos who lived in Sinai and took over Egypt for 200 years then left in a scene right out of DeMIlle minus the wall of water and the 10 Commandments, priestly fictions added later.
There is, however,the Mormon Cricket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket
But I thought a study published in 2007 showed that historically Chinese locusts swarmed more in colder climate.
Just a month ago it was snowing in this region.
But now need to panic because the Atlantic says:
Strikes me these locusts have serious competition from the UN.
1952 – global warming traveled back in time and cause misery. Whenever I read stories like this I did into the news archives and lo and behold nothing odd here. Move along folks nothing to see here.
Well, maybe not the worst.
HorshamBren says:
March 4, 2013 at 9:49 am
During the last half hour of BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme this morning, there was an item about the walls that surround the town of Ludlow in Britain. Parts of these walls, which have stood for hundreds of years, are in a bad way, and two sections collapsed during February
Mr Collin Richards, head of conservation and archaeology for Shropshire, is in no doubt as to the cause, saying “ … the climate change that has affected them over the last couple of years has wreaked so much damage.”
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That’s a shame. I visited Ludlow a few years ago, along with visiting the nearby Roman ruins at Wroxeter (complete with the ruins of vineyard, I might add).
So I guess there are two solutions to this problem:
Solution 1: Use taxpayer money to fix the fricking walls.
Solution 2: Use taxpayer money to erect wind turbines across the British countryside, thereby reducing atmospheric CO2 levels back to their pre-industrial levels, thereby halting climate change and its consequent wreaking of damage on said walls.
Simple decision eh ?? Inserts Spaz smiley.
The heart of the issue is still whom or what will we worship? God or nature?
Radical environmentalists insist we must not influence nature and that consequently we must eliminate more than 80% of all fossil fuel use and in effect spend massive resources on controlling nature to maintain its current temperature – regardless of large natural variations. They thus require all our efforts be subservient to nature and thus to worship it.
By contrast, Exodus 9:1
Thus the choice: Whom will we serve?
For a conservative position on climate that cares for people, widows and orphans, see the Cornwall Alliance.
With 8 deaths per thousand at the moment – per CIA World factbook (7.99 actually) – we’re losing 56 million every year; St Kofi only thinks 100,000 are due to ‘Climate change’ Probably about the same as lost to illegal drugs – overdoses, drug wars, drug driving etc.
And yes, every death is a tragedy.
But a lack of perspective is pretty sad, too.
‘By 2030’ – another 17 years and about 850,000,000 deaths, HufPo’s 100,000,000 deaths that ‘could’ be caused by [CAGW inferred] Climate change is about 12% of all deaths in that time – or over 5,000,000 per year. I guess we’ll notice the leap from Annan’s 100K to HufPo’s 5M.
Won’t we?
john robertson says:
Strikes me these locusts have serious competition from the UN.
–
I nominate this for best comment of the day.
But unlike these naturally occurring locusts, the UN plague is definitely a human caused disaster.
No sign of any increase in locust plagues in Aust, even though we have supposedly just gone through our hottest summer ever, according to our illustrious BOM.
http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/locusts/about/history#australian
@ur momisugly Ron C. “I am worried about the unprecedented increase of sinkholes. First in Florida, and now in China. There must be a link to CO2 and climate change. Can someone connect the dots?”
That one is easy! You see, most caves are formed by the dissolution of limestone by slightly acidic water flowing underground through the porous strata. Normally, this slight acidity comes from CO2 in the surface soil permeating the water as it seeps downward. Now that we have the massive, overwhelming increase in atmospheric CO2, the groundwater is supercharged (yes, SUPERCHARGED !!!) with CO2, and the extreme acidity is rapidly eating away at the very bedrock below our feet! Result? Massive sinkholes gobbling up the world!
Need I say it? It is worse than we thought!
More warmth, more CO2, more plant growth => more bugs. Big deal.
” Mike Haseler says:
March 4, 2013 at 9:10 am
pat says: “This is where the Warmists routinely skewer themselves. In desperately trying to find an alarm bell that triggers irrational fear in the public , …”
Pat, you fundamentally mistake what happens here. A journalist is given a pretty daft story “lots of locusts”. They are told by their editor to fill a certain space with that story — and doubtless half a dozen other ones.”
Yes. I am aware that the Warmist in the instant case is the reporter. i read the subject article. the only real scientist consulted was quite clear he felt this plaque was within nature’s norm.
Moses would never have made it as a Green messiah. He was ‘exceeding meek’ above all other men (Numbers 12:3). That I suggest is why Jehovah gave him the job of plague-and-people manager … No preaching, but for me that concise aside has the ring of truth echoing down the centuries. Meekness in a leader is not the sort of thing that would be invented by too many ancient peoples – or imitated by the sages of Climategate.
God causes plauges and floods.
Global warming causes plauges and floods.
So then maybe God is Global Warming?