Climate Change Is Not Causing New England’s ‘Creepy’ Bacteria and Bugs, Boston Globe

Guest essay by Linnea Lueken

The Boston Globe posted an article titled “Climate change is bringing creepy — and dangerous — bacteria, bugs, and viruses to New England,” claiming that global warming is “fueling an increase in bacteria and disease” in New England. The headline and the attached story are highly misleading. For things like mosquito-borne illness, mosquitos carrying diseases previously thrived even in New England in previous centuries, with 20^th century human intervention wiping them out, not temperature changes. Also, bacteria in waterways are a seasonal phenomenon which has always existed.

The Globe writes that warming temperatures and heavier rainfall in New England are leading to “a hospitable environment across the region for waterborne bacteria, bugs that can transmit life-threatening viruses, and invasive species that threaten to destabilize ecosystems.”

The first focus of the article is on bacterial blooms in water. While it is true that bacteria grows better in warmer waters, this does not seem to be what is driving the proliferation of cyanobacteria in New England waters, but rather major problems with older sewer systems. The Boston Globe links to an article discussing this issue, which does make some gesture towards warming, but the main thrust of the focus is on sewage pollution. The Globe says that sewers and storm water drainage is the usual culprit for bacteria making beaches unsafe, explaining that “while newer systems separate sewage and storm water, some older cities still have so-called combined sewer overflows, which transport both of these flows in the same pipes.”

Records on the overflow issue only begin in 2002, so there is not a long history to lean on. The cited article claims that bacterial blooms have been getting worse since 2002, and they blame this on climate change causing more heavy precipitation events. Heavy rain can cause more overflows, this is true, but analysis from the National Centers for Environmental Information show that although there was a very modest increase in “extreme” rainfall events across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine from the 1960s through the 1990s, when temperatures were cooler and emissions lower, since then New England states show no upward trend in such events and some states have even experienced a decline. So more flooding from more rain can’t be causing more pollution and frequent overflows.

The second focus of this recent Boston Globe article is the claim that climate change is “helping mosquito-borne viruses once limited to more tropical climes find a foothold in New England.”

Their explanation is that warmer temperatures let the mosquitos have a longer breeding season and aid in viral replication, and the aforementioned rainfall “leaves behind stagnant pools in which their larvae develop.”

This is a category of claim that Climate Realism has rebutted extensively in previous posts. In short, disease bearing mosquitos were common across the United States, including New England before the widespread use of DDT knocked their populations down from the 1950s through the 1970s. While it may be the case that more people have caught West Nile or Eastern Equine Encephalitis in New England of late, this is not tied directly to increased temperatures. Rather, the spread of mosquitos is tied to human activity, such as the using less effective vector control methods, and the increased creation of micro-habitats for mosquitos with landscaped urbanization, and moving them via global transportation networks.

Studies on mosquito-borne illnesses show that the range of diseases is tied to human development, like in cities where nighttime temperatures stay elevated, and where a lot of standing water ends up in containers sitting around outside, and in drainage ditches, bird baths, fountains, stagnant or disused swimming pools, and other human structures.

Puzzlingly, The Boston Globe writes later in the article that Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus –two disease carrying mosquito species—are “making their way north.” But these two mosquitoes have long thrived in colder parts of the world like Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia.

Studies like this one from Nature Microbiology  show that temperature may be a necessary condition for mosquito populations to move and thrive, but it is not a sufficient condition. Mosquito populations move to suitable habitats, often carried in trading vessels and the crops, plants, and other goods they carry.

The Boston Globe also blames climate change for the spread of “kissing bugs” which cause Chagas disease, even while admitting that “other factors seem to be involved.” Those “other factors” that the article neglects to go into detail on include deforestation forcing the bugs into more contact with humans and the loss of their usual prey, as well as international trade carrying insects to new areas of the world regardless of habitat suitability.

Blaming these health threats on the modest warming of the past century is an example of missing the forest for the trees. Hyper-focusing on one element and ignoring the rest, especially factors that weigh far heavier, is the kind of mistake that can hamper the adoption of policies and individual actions that would do far more, far faster, to mitigate the problems or prevent the harms than misguidedly attempting to solve them indirectly be limiting fossil fuel use. The Boston Globe should know better, especially since they reported on many of more factors in previous stories.