this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
62 points (100.0% liked)

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

5180 readers
554 users here now

Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
silence7
62
Virus-carrying tropical mosquitos found in Finland as climate heats (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by silence7 to c/climate
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] soyagi@yiffit.net 2 points 1 year ago

Archived version: https://archive.ph/7yRsO

While the heatwaves, wildfires and floods are the most dramatic examples of the way burning fossil fuels is altering our climate, there are less obvious dangers. Research into the number of mosquito species resident in Finland has just added number 44: Culex modestus. This is a surprise because this is a tropical species and a known carrier of the West Nile virus, which causes an illness that used to associated mainly with central Africa.

Since Finland is well to the north of the UK and considerably colder, it is of no surprise that this species has already moved into Kent and Essex and probably much farther north in the UK if anyone cared to look for it. In fact, the UK Health Security Agency has known that an outbreak of West Nile virus has been possible since 2012, when large populations of this species were discovered in marshes in south-east England.

The possible danger season for catching the virus is in August after a bite by an infected mosquito, but in most cases the symptoms are flu-like aches and pains so most people would not think to trouble their doctors if they felt unwell. But the disease is not always mild. The worst outbreak so far in Europe was in Romania, when 800 suspected cases resulted in 17 deaths.