Essay by Eric Worrall
You might think the easiest way to stop the spread of a dangerous mosquito borne disease is to spray a few mosquitoes. But the real solution, according to Washington Post, is to combat climate change.
As Australia’s climate changes, a tropical disease advances
An outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has infected 34 people and killed three
ECHUCA, Australia — A dust cloud soars behind farmer Tim Kingma’s pickup truck as he drives down a gritty dirt track to a neat row of pig sheds. The landscapeis flat and muted: dry, mostly treeless ground and patchy grass. At this farm in the southeastern state of Victoria, there are hundreds of flies and not a single visible mosquito. It’s a world away from the verdant places one might expect to find fatal tropical diseases.
…
Japanese encephalitis is rare and mostly asymptomatic. In 99 percent of cases itpasses through the body without causing symptoms. But of the unlucky 1 percent, nearly a third die, and about half the survivors are left with permanent problems. There is no cure, and Australia is spending millions of dollars in a rush to import vaccine doses.
Public health professionals say the appearance of Japanese encephalitis here is just the latest example of how global warming is contributing to the spread of disease. Six years ago, melting permafrost in Siberia released frozen anthrax, which infected an Indigenous community. In 2007, the tropical chikungunya virus was detected in Europe for the first time in two Italian villages and has since appeared in France. In the United States, Lyme disease cases have doubled over 30 years as warmer conditions create longer tick seasons. And in Australia, experts warn Japanese encephalitis could be the first of several illnesses to spread south.
…
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/australia-japanese-encephalitis-climate-change/
The region around Echuca has seen multiple historic outbreaks of Encephalitis, such as the 1974-75 Encephalitis outbreak, which was contained with a vigorous organophosphate spraying programme. So the latest outbreak is not exactly a new problem.
The Japanese Encephalitis / climate claim is further weakened by the geographical spread of the current outbreak, which covers Echuca (36° south) to Southern Queensland (27° South). Having spent time in both regions, and visited Echuca more than once, I can personally assure you the climate in Echuca is very different to the climate of Southern Queensland.
If Japanese Encephalitis is sensitive to climate change, why is it flourishing over such a wide range of climates?
Places like Echuca do make an effort to spray the mosquitoes. Unfortunately in Australia greens tend to oppose mosquito control programmes with the same vigour they oppose forest fire fuel control burns, with hysterical claims of cancer clusters and environmental damage.
In my opinion, over the decades, this green opposition has contributed to a reduction of large scale spraying programmes, from historical proactive annual spraying programmes which fogged entire towns and surrounding regions with protective chemicals, to reactive strategies, in which vigorous spraying mostly occurs after the encephalitis outbreak or whatever has killed a few people.
Frankly I’d like to see a return to large scale proactive spraying. Admittedly the risk is small – if you visited Echuca, most likely you would have a good time admiring the architecture and enjoying the cafes and river attractions. If you picked up a few mosquito bites, you would have to be extroardinarily unlucky to catch Encephalitis, even in the middle of an outbreak. But why does anyone have to die or suffer debilitating illness, from an entirely preventable problem?
Longer tick ‘seasons,’ LMAO. I recall back in about 1989, a particularly bad tick year, being out taking pictures in central NJ on a day cold enough that I was wearing my winter jacket. My then girlfriend who was with me wandered into some dead sticks and emerged COVERED in ticks. We were finding them in the car, in her apartment, and in clothing for weeks after that.
If they’re all over in weather that cold, they didn’t need “climate change” to flourish.
In other words, as usual, bullshit alert!
Hush, AGWINS! You’re not supposed to remember inconvenient facts like that. Just like I’m not supposed to remember that 18 years ago this spring (and for at least 5-6 more springs), it was warm enough to change into my summer clothes in March. (It’s now mid-April, and it snowed at my house just yesterday.)
Agree on the BS.
I frequently battle ticks when working at our farm. They cease to be a problem at my locale (Central Plains, USA) after we get a number of hot days with low humidity conditions. When the wheat ripens, the ticks are done.
Hot and dry is death to ticks.
Yet the CAGW crowd tell me their models project both more “hot and dry” AND “more ticks”.
The tick species in my area failed to get this memo. Perhaps if my ticks were granted some time on a supercomputer … ?
“Public health professionals say…”, is the clue that they say whatever they are told to say. Eric is correct, liberal application of DDT fixes this problem. Wait a minute, the last outbreak was in 1974-1975, when the world was worried about sliding into a Glacial Era? Typical CAGW nonsense, hot or cold, both are bad. Send me your money.
I saw a book on Kindle recently with the same kind of nonsense. LYME The first Epidemic of Climate Change. It was free so I downloaded it. Of course it’s a tick borne disease and ticks are found throughout the world. I got through 5 pages and had enough!
Oetzi, the 5300-year-old corpse found in the Italian Alps in 1991, is the first documented case of Lyme Disease.
Really? Lyme Connecticut is supposed to be the namesake for the disease and some folks claim it came from a government lab in that locale.
It’s generally accepted that the first detailed description of Lyme disease was made by the Rev Dr John Walker after a visit to the Isle of Jura off the west coast of Scotland in 1764.
There was an outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia in the 1790’s, during the Little Ice Age. I really doubt just how temperature sensitive mosquitos are, especially as Alaska and Siberia are well known to be mosquito ridden.
And Scotland – albeit in summer!
Auto
And Malaria in the UK.
> But the real solution, according to Washington Post…
Stopped reading.
Japanese encephalitis? Hate crime! Get outa here with your hate crimes!
/sarc /humor
Trump’s use of the word Wuhan in connection with the mention of Covid was absolute proof of his racism and xenophobia.
All of the most reliable news sources in the world recently told me that his usage was the only incidence in the entire history of the world where a disease description included a geographic area in its name!
/sarc off
Is there not one person at these newspapers who asks but is it true?
Silly boy, where do you get these foolish ideas?
I call it a reverse “Dan Rather”!
Instead of “fake but accurate”, the news story about encephalitis cases is literally true, so “accurate but fake” because the imputed link to CAGW is either tenuous, or completely speculative.
“melting permafrost in Siberia released frozen anthrax”
Hmmm…….
I wonder how that anthrax got frozen in that ice??????
I wonder what that anthrax was doing before it was frozen up and captured????
I wonder where the anthrx acme from????
Questions, questions.
all these questions, yet the Washington Post is silent on all of them.
I would say, not a very informative article.
“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.”
NPR
OK, so they are telling us it was warmer there decades ago. Good. So current patterns are just returning the arctic to conditions which previously existed there.
But the narrative is that the Global Warming is Unprecedented and threatens us all.
Got it!
The warming is both Unprecedented and threatens us all along with the warming is routine and likely periodic. Both at the same time and at the same place.
KEWL!!!!
They are telling you that anthrax has been infecting reindeer since when CO2 levels were well below 350, but this outbreak was due to climate change.
An Australian paper from 1899 tells you
“In Poland, Hungary and Siberia it has
always retained a powerful hold, and
to this day the “Siberian Plague” is
a byword and a terror among the
rural inhabitants of eastern Europe.”
ANTHRAX.” Narandera Argus and Riverina Advertiser (NSW : 1893 – 1953) 2 June 1899: 2. Web. 15 Apr 2022 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article99243202>.
I know some guys that can cut open that anthrax spore and date the rings to tell you the previous time frame for active anthrax in the area!
If that date does not support the “correct” narrative, then I am sure they can cut open a different spore and send you lab results conclusively showing the proper date.
/sarc off (This tag is now required under House Bill 8788, otherwise known as the Non-Scientist Alarmist Reading Comprehension Act.)
Question, Does anyone actually take this stuff seriously or is it just the in-group entertaining themselves by running these absurd stories to convince themselves of the damage the disobedient are causing. . A “maybe” threat rooted in a veiled ad populum, by authority, by authority of consensus. This sort of propaganda has become a global industry of nitwits who assume every one else is a nitwit. Being a nitwit is ok as along as you are an obedient nitwit. Being nitwits they don’t see just how transparent these tactics are.
Solution. Crispr Cas 9 a new genome of mosquitos that don’t care viruses so we can burn as much hydrocarbon fuel that we need to until a miracle happens and we don’t need to anymore. Or just stick a big Nuke plant in that swamp. LOL
OT, but not reported in the West
Serbian press is reporting that 20 Russian generals from the Ministry of Defense have been arrested.
“Everything is clear here – the total embezzlement of funds for the preparation for the new Ukrainian invasion. Since 2014, about 10 billion dollars that Putin set aside for the preparation of the blitzkrieg in Ukraine have been stolen”
It is also said that the Russian defense Minister Sergei Shoigu who “suddenly” suffered a severe heart attack and could become disabled if he survives was an attempted suicide.
Ah, so Siberian mosquitos are not the only organisms in the region that suck their hosts dry!
That’s hilarious – Putin’s Potemkin Army. Putin might end up killing more Russian generals than Zelensky.
Well there is a precedent with Stalin’s 1930’s purges of the Red Army officer corps
Better be careful what you wish for. The Red Army did quite well in WW11.
I’m not wishing for anything Stalin and the Red Army in a pact with Nazi Germany started WWII …….The Soviet Union only recovered when the winter set in and they received military aid from Britain and the United States
Russians are claiming that ‘Moskva’ cruiser sunk in bad weather.
No one told them that Ventusky said that sea off Sevastopol was as calm as millpond
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=44.65;32.82;8&l=wind-wave
When you have no obvious solution… cry climate change.
Didn’t see this mentioned in my quick scan of that article
link
Just maybe La Nina wet conditions may explain it, just like 1974-75
Are Canadian mosquitos different?
Anyone who ventures out of Mom’s basement knows that skeeters thrive in cool damp weather and virtually disappear with a few hot dry days. They always emerge just around sundown because it is cool or do they just like crashing BBQs? The further North you go the more mosquitoes you find or find you. I don’t think they are there for the sunny beaches. I can’t recall ever being bit by a mosquito in Mexico but I have many times been swarmed in Alberta.
I have to admit, though, I have never seen a mosquito at 40 below. Damn few people outside with bare skin to eat on must be the reason for that.
Well, it is the WAPO. Isn’t that the less reputable sister of the NY times? That was easy to shoot down. Next?
That picture is from my home state in India. We have generous spraying here and people here are very thankful.
Thankyou for commenting Vijay. I wish the Australian government was as sensible as the government in your state.
Olden days we had
Spanish flu
In late 2019 we had
Covid 19
which became
UK variant
South African variant
Brazil variant
INdian variant
then the woker people decided to change to Delta and Omicron
But now we’re back to
JAPANESE encephalitis.
The Japanese people will surely be upset
When I was a kid in Townsville in the 1960s the mossie truck came round every fortnight during the wet season & sprayed the streets. We knew it was coming, we went inside & closed the windows and let the glorious insecticide do its thing outside. Mossies went away. Everybody happy.
I was in a town near Townsville a few days ago. There were lots of mossies sadly.
Heck, back in the 1950’s we use to spend a couple of weeks each summer down at Pawleys Island, SC. When there was a land breeze the mosquitos were so thick you could barely see the yellow light on the back porch. The next evening the DDT truck would come by and the porch would be covered with dead skeeters.
This might be a problem if some mosquitoes become resistant.
Meme – mosquitoes in the South 2.png (450×524) (googleusercontent.com)
It’s true. As an infectious disease physician I can attest that if we could just get ourselves out of this interglacial and back into full glaciation, we will no longer need to worry about JEV. A lot of other problems will also be solved: overeating, retirement planning, sun burn, oil sands development, lack of snow pack for skiing, Biden’s perpetually visits to the Delaware Beach to eat ice cream.
It’s so easy to be a rent seeking climate scientist. X is increasing (or decreasing), which is bad. CO2 is also increasing. Since climate change caused CO2 to increase (no evidence offered of course), climate change must have caused X to increase (or decrease), which is of course a catastrophe. Send money for more research and conferences in Tahiti.