Mago Bill science related: More Than Virus, climate change
The water's ten foot high and rising; seems a good time to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and not mess with mister in between.
We see some thought provoking happenings and doings around us these days. Some few trained expert observers, some few men and women are keeping an expert eye on the happenings in our arctic and sub arctic around what we have called the north pole and they are saying that what they see happening there is happening more than twice as fast as are the worldwide changes. Did you get that last sentence?
I have begun to check out what they've been saying and that is what has led me to thoughts of "high water."
I'll try to write briefly and sensibly about some of that which I have been discovering. It won't be easy, because it seems to be much worse than they seem to be saying. And it seems to be happening much faster than they have been able to say. We are beginning to see bigger changes happening in shorter periods of time than gandpa and great gradpa saw in their lifetimes. Changes we have not experienced in our lifetimes are happening from one year to the next. The changes are big and important.
The only good thing seems to be that these changes are not our fault. The fact is that we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping them. We don't even have to survive them if we don't want to. There are things we can d to survive them and to help our children and youth to survive them.
Just as we don't have much chance of stopping the rising flood, there are some sensible things we can do and ought to do. I would very much like to give the young a better chance of surviving and even thriving.
For now I just offer a view of that which seems to have begun to cross our path.
To avoid being overwhelming, I'll restrict myself to telling a bit about melting ice and thawing permafrost, and that which is being released.
Here goes, to begin with its water, a lot of it. Ten feet high and rising. Not surprising, but true.
A few years ago some 75 year old anthrax was released and it killed about twenty raindeer and one boy. Merry Christmas. Some snow and ice was bulldozed over it. That snow and ice is melting.
Some radioactive waste has been exposed. And oh, oh. Some think more is being exposed.
Some very old antibiotic resistant bacteria is being released and no one is stopping that release. And, other bacteria are reviving.
Happenings keep happening.
Who is to blame. Not me. A fair number of good scientists say that slow and not so slow shifts, and wobbles, and such of our Earth's axis have been causing changes in our climate since long before Noah. Right now the best of them are saying that such axial tipping has led to a warming of our northern hemisphere, because we are tipping so as to get a bit more sunshine each year. That's probably not the fault of anyone we know.
Now that you might be semi-stunned, I'll put out some more thoughts, information, a couple of questions and a suggestion that you begin to check some of this out for yourself.
There is now a rapid release of antique methane gas from arctic and subarctic melts and thaws. Could that include the release of ancient virus?
Could such melting and thawing turn out to be an existential threat to humanity?
May pay us to wake up and be more aware.
Permafrost, by the way, is frozen wet soil and plant matter that has frozen many yards down. Its been frozen so long that it has been called permafrost and houses and airports have been built on it.
Among the matter being released from thawing permafrost are gases including CO2 and methane. We have a lot to learn. You may have to look stuff up. I did.
Methane burns and causes burning which puts more CO2 in our atmosphere--which is our "greenhouse gas." Greenhouse gas causes warming of the Earth which causes the melting of Earth's ice and permafrost which releases ... Of course burning causes the release of other stuff too. Like soot. Black soot covers white snow and frost and being as dark as soot, absorbs heat from the sun and so causes the melting of snow, ice, and permafrost which releases... You can start to figure it out.
Methane and other stuff being release can be useful. Methane's the main part of "natural gas" widely used for cooking and heating.
Then again methane is suffocating, colorless, odorless and is increasing as a percentage of our atmosphere. I remember it being called swamp gas and as causing mysterious fires in swamps.
I hope our youth find more time to learn more about chemistry than we did. There is a lot to learn. We might end up learning a thing or two ourselves. This "new" world may be a tough place for an old man and not so easy for an older woman either.
Just about thawing and melting there is much more to learn. For example, northern ice in contact with warming sea water is melting and releasing ancient matter into the sea and that includes mercury. Mercury accumulates in plants and animals and often does them harm. Top feeders, like humans, get harmed a lot.
Now I find that shallow seas and not so shallow seas have at their bottom earth and vegetative matter frozen to great depths much like permafrost. And now like permafrost it has begun to melt and release methane and much else. There in the sea depths CO2, virus, bacteria, and uncounted other materials are being released into the water and air.
The sun shines east and the sun shines west. The sun shines best on that part of the Earth tipped toward it. That's us here in our northern hemisphere. Earth's axis slowly nd not so slowly wobbles and tips a bit differently each year. The tip we are now experiencing is one of the more extreme tips of recent centuries. Lucky us.
Changes are a bit more extreme than we have experienced in our history. So, for example, Canada may soon have the best far north year round sea ports seen in our time on Earth. They can expect some competition from Russia. Canada may grow tropical fruit in their south. However they may both hundreds of years before either grows another good wheat crop. I may be exaggerating a bit but, great climate changes lead to great changes in growing patterns
Some of this stuff needs to be repeated to sink in. From the thaws and melts in our north come massive emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases, and also a variety of microorganisms. These emissions lead to other changes.
Metals are being released, among them, mercury. Mercury is toxic, causes brain damage and it accumulates in human bodies as well as in fish, fowl, cattle, etc. Mercury accumulates in seaweed I'm told. We use a seaweed product to make ice-cream. So, one way we may help our children is to take away their ice-cream.
Sorry, but stuff is happening and more shit is coming. Its a good thing that we can learn, We have a lot of learning to do. We still have the job of taking care of ourselves and our children. There are not only massive emissions of CO2 and methane already here, but ancient and new sources of disease are also being released. And we are still having trouble protecting ourselves from one weak little c19 virus.
Frozen fungi, spore, bacteria, and virus are being released from 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, 20,000 years, 30, 40, an 50 thousand years of frozen sleep! Many are reviving. Some have been revived. Most are of little danger to us even when they are very live. Some are of value to humanity. Some others would sicken and kill us. Where did C19 come from. Weak little bugger.
Researchers have revived one virus which had been frozen for more than 30,000 years. It was reactivated, revived right before their eyes. It is one, it seems, which does us no harm.
There are thinks we can do to protect ourselves and our children. You can think of a thing or two yourself. With friends and neighbors, more. With the help of students of the problems and of scientists, even more. With cooperation we can do a lot. We can organize, We can handle these dangerous changes. Trying seems a lot better than calling one another names.
Some few persons began to do what they can some years ago. They have been doing what they can to protect themselves and others. Some have been collecting and saving seeds and storing them in 'safe'' places. Crops that were once grown on one continent may no longer grow there. That's a big change which can cause massive movements of people and crops. Some people will find it useful to have seeds which will grow where they are. One of the largest and most famous of these 'safe' sites for seeds came to be called the Doomsday Vault. That vault for preserving seed has been invaded by melt water. Melting is proceeding faster than anticipated.
Change continues at a faster rare then we have been accustomed to.
Bacteria dormant for many centuries and trapped in permafrost and ice are reviving with warming and melting, and thawing. This release is happening much more rapidly than we were prepared for. Time to get busy.
Some good things may happen automatically. Perhaps one of the few bacteria that can be deadly to humans will kill enough of us so that we will no longer feel the need to kill so many of one another as we have for so long.
We know that vectors for anthrax, smallpox, Spanish flu have long been trapped in ice and permafrost. And now that some are reviving. Might we be able to learn something from our public health expert that we can use to help one another.
We were once accustomed to cooperate to protect one another. I bet that there are some truly helpful things we can do. We could try killing fewer foreign health experts. I'm willing to try.
Recently history seems to be catching up with us. A couple of years ago a 30,000 year old non dangerous virus revived. An 8 million year old virus is said to have revived. A giant virus has revived. Potentially dangerous virus are reviving. Recent studies suggest that antibiotic resistant bacteria many millions of years old are reviving. Holy Moly!
It might be good to start some conversation about practical doings for interested parties to take up. We could ask experts what's what. We can get ourselves taught. We could try to arrange to cooperate to live.
Do you think that this has been less than a pile of words. Check it out for veracity. If you don't know how to check it out, this might be the time to learn.
Thank you for reading.
RCS