The Corona 19 virus has had an unprecedented effect on our complex, interlinked global economy. It is merely a forewarning of what we have unleashed as the cryosphere and the permafrost melts.
“For the past 15,000 years, a glacier on the north-western Tibetan Plateau of China has hosted a party for some unusual guests: an ensemble of frozen viruses, many of them unknown to modern science.”
“Scientists recently broke up this party after taking a look at two ice cores from this Tibetan glacier, revealing the existence of 28 never-before-seen virus groups.” Only two ice cores uncovered 28 new viruses.
Investigating these mysterious viruses could help scientists on two fronts: For one, these stowaways can teach researchers which viruses thrived in different climates and environments over time, the researchers wrote in a paper posted on the bioRxiv database on Jan. 7. Ancient never-before-seen viruses discovered locked up in Tibetan glacier
From an article in Popular Mechanix titled “Welp, Scientists Found 28 New Virus Groups in a Melting Glacier
- “Scientists have unearthed 28 previously undiscovered viruses, which were trapped in glacial ice from 15,000 years ago.
- The team collected the samples from the Guliya ice cap in Tibet, and published their work to the pre-print website, BioRxiv.
- As glacial ice and permafrost around the world continues to thaw, scientists are concerned that ancient pathogens and toxic chemicals may be released into the environment.”
“When reindeer started dying in Siberia, at first scientists blamed the heat. But there seems to be a more insidious cause: Anthrax.”
“After an investigation, scientists have determined that the culprit is anthrax, which hasn’t been seen in the country since 1968. Scientists believe the source of the anthrax is an old reindeer carcass that was frozen during the last anthrax epidemic 75 years ago. The current heatwave thawed the carcass, allowing the dormant bacteria to spread.” Thawed Reindeer Corpse May Have Triggered Russian Anthrax Outbreak
“Mammoth bones are surfacing in the Russian Far East — so many that people have begun selling the tusks as a substitute for elephant ivory. And in 2016, more than 70 people in western Siberia were hospitalized for exposure to anthrax, likely spread from a decades-old reindeer carcass that thawed from frozen ground.”
Thawing Permafrost: “25% of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost”
Ignorance is our enemy
“In my darkest moments, I see a really horrible future for Homo sapiens because we are an animal, and when we extend our borders things will happen to us,” said Birgitta Evengard, a researcher in clinical microbiology at Umea University in Sweden.”
“Our biggest enemy is our own ignorance,” she added. “Nature is full of microorganisms.”
“Microorganisms can survive in frozen space for a long, long time,” said Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.
Climate change may bring back viruses that were long thought to be dormant
“There is zero guarantee that this set of living arrangements will hold together much longer considering the threats we know it is under with the next ‘Black Swan’ hovering in the wings about to appear.” This is the End, Beautiful Friends, The End
So much to look forward to, so little time. Brace for imminent impact. These are the ‘Good Old Days’, they certainly aren’t going to get better. Every single last analogue is heading in the wrong direction and our predicament can only be worse than we know.
“The Path of Increase is Slow but the Road to Ruin is Swift” Lucius Seneca
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas.
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
A thousand a week dying in the US, and nobody I’ve talked with knows about it.
Two native elders (in their 80s) friends just went through their first bout of it three weeks ago. It was bad, they aren’t dead. They had Paxlovid on hand just in case which helped.
I keep them abreast of what I know so they are aware of the new findings that ANY covid infection cuts down human IQ points significantly, and ups the chances of Long Covid. If they catch it again, even more of a chance as it is cumulative.
And they’ve been so damn careful, too, as I have.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/03/28/We-Ready-Next-Pandemic/
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The answer is definitely no, and the world is actually LESS fucking ready for the next one. Not that Covid is gone ‘away like a miracle’ as the Trumpenfuhrer proclaimed a few years ago anyway because a thousand a week dead would empty out the largest town in this county in… 4 1/2 weeks. Empty the entire county in 50 weeks.
Wonder when the next strain will hit?
The intermittent rain of this week is backing off for this religious holiday weekend when christians celebrate rabbits who lay colorful eggs…at least in my neck of the woods. Down south is about to be hit by a beautiful comma low pressure storm…
sealintheSelkirks
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An article published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases describes how climate change may influence the transmission efficacy of several vector-, water-, and food-borne infections and to what extent these changes can impact socioeconomically deprived and vulnerable populations.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240401/Climate-change-boosts-infectious-disease-spread-hits-the-vulnerable-hardest.aspx?fbclid=IwAR3sAVk2NI44LurAIsMXuo_osidwXKiCuN1PMxvhsUYNy8Mq_-UGpXol-7Q
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Second human in the US catches Avian Influenza:
Texas Patient Contracted Bird Flu From Infected Cows
https://weather.com/health/cold-flu/video/texas-patient-contracted-bird-flu-from-infected-cows
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sealintheSelkirks
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I’m guessing that the post yesterday didn’t go through because WP made me sign in again and then it disappeared. Unfortunately I didn’t save it but luckily the windows were still open this morning when I started the computer.
This is NOT good news:
Tests confirm avian flu on New Mexico dairy farm; probe finds cats positive
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/tests-confirm-avian-flu-new-mexico-dairy-farm-probe-finds-cats-positive
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And this came from another article that mostly was a reprint of the one above…except for this little tidbit:
“Vets are being advised to wear full PPE (personal protection) if seeing a cat with neurological symptoms, after forty cats died on a dairy farm in New Mexico. The virus has proved 100% fatal and cats die within 24-48 hours…”
“THIS IS A HIGH-RISK VIRUS. Globally, from 1 January 2003 to 26 February 2024, 887 cases of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus were reported from 23 countries. Of these 887 cases, 462 were fatal (CFR of 52%) — Source, the W.H.O.”
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We’ve been wondering what comes after the on-going SARS/CoVid-19 and this may be it. Note: I just had two more friends go down with Covid 6 weeks ago, both 80 yr old Inupiat native folk, and he brought it home from a doctor’s office in Spokane after showing up without his ever-present N95 and went in anyway even though the office didn’t provide one for him.
Three days later he went down sick, and she followed two days later. Both were up to date on the shots, and had Paxlovid on the shelf so they both said it wasn’t as nasty a bug as they had feared though it kicked both their asses for two weeks.
Dr. Catherine (who endorsed my book on the back cover) is showing signs of Sequelae/Long Covid with extreme shortness of breath with maybe half her speaking voice working, still has a rough cough from her lungs-that congested sound, and dealing with extreme fatigue. Also a noticeable loss of energy that she admitted to feeling. She still cooked an Easter supper with the help of her son who had nursed them the first two weeks (masked up of course!) and still is helping them for the last month
They picked my brain about what is going on in the world and I tried to not overload them. He wanted to hear about the latest climate, and she wanted the latest on Covid, so I sent them a large email with links and observations a couple days later. None of it was good news of course, and now I’ll be sending this link to them.
sealintheSelkirks
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Another warning from WHO about Avian today on weather:
WHO: Bird Flu Spread To Humans Of ‘Enormous Concern’
https://weather.com/health/video/who-bird-flu-spread-to-humans-of-enormous-concern
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With an over 50% death rate in humans that catch it? Yeah, wow, doesn’t take much imagination to guess what the packed warrens of New Delhi or Shanghai or Mexico City or Sao Paulo or New York would look like if this breaks out like Covid (that is, of course, still going on), eh?
sealintheSelkirks
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New Vaccines Could Give Lifelong Protection From Covid, Flu
https://weather.com/health/cold-flu/video/new-vaccines-could-give-lifelong-protection-from-covid-flu
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sealintheSelkirks
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