What Climate Change Reveals

The fact that some stubborn people don't acknowledge the existence of climate change doesn't make the effects of that change any less real. And those changes are not just reflected in melting ice caps, rising sea levels, and extreme weather patterns.

A few days ago I read this interesting article on the BBC website: There Are Diseases Hidden in Ice, and They're Waking Up. Yes, Dear Readers, as the climate warms, the warmer air is melting soils that have been frozen for thousands of years, protecting ancient bacteria and viruses that have lived on in the cold and dark. As the soils melt, they are releasing dormant viruses and bacteria to which modern humans may have no natural defenses ... and that's the serious question the article asks:

"What would happen if we were suddenly exposed to deadly bacteria and viruses that have been absent for thousands of years, or that we have never met before?"

What, indeed?

But the effects of changes in the climate aren't limited to the air and the ground and ice caps and the oceans. How about the effects of political climate change?

As our political climate has heated up, it has given new life and acceptability to all sorts of ancient viruses - racist attitudes, economic inequality, religious bigotry, rejection of facts that do not comport with our beliefs, and the spread of manufactured "facts" to justify illogical positions, just to name a few.

Unfortunately, the physical climate will be easier to repair than the political one, if only because it will become increasingly harder to deny its effects ... although many will continue to do so.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo