The New Climate Change (II)
Written by Alfonso Elizondo
We turn now to effect # 3, that the permafrost is melting. This is not good news for Russia, Canada, Alaska and China; they have frozen ground and their human infrastructure is full of dwelling houses, roads and railroad tracks. It is estimated that Russian towns such as Vorkuta have some 80% of their buildings on this type of land that is slowly melting and liquefying, causing the trains in some areas to stop travelling at high speed because the tracks are warped.
What is happening in these areas is that the methane accumulated for millennia is melting. As it weighs less than air it tends to rise, forming bubbles that can cause deadly diseases such as old anthrax strains. The same methane that releases permafrost is a greenhouse gas 56 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. That explains the great beauty of the sunsets produced by current climate change when the sun’s rays are refracted by the cold methane bubbles escaping slowly from the ice.
Turning to effect # 5, in which equatorial and tropical diseases are reaching Europe, it is now known that the old plague of pests came to Europe from Asia, driven by the weather. Mosquitoes, like plants and other animals that live in Siberia, move at 1.67 meters per day towards the poles. So it won’t be long before certain species of mites from the Asian tiger mosquito and other carriers of disease will reach southern Spain, Turkey and Italy.
Unfortunately, these animals bring diseases such as lyme, tick-borne encephalitis, West Nile virus infection, dengue fever, chikungunya fever and leishmaniasis, according to the EEE (European Environment Agency).
As a final point, there are the lung diseases that will be increasingly frequent, as we know that the Saharan dust exceeds the thresholds classified as dangerous by the WHO (World Health Organization).
Furthermore, in the cities of northern Europe it is very unlikely that the phenomenon of the African haze will occur because there are no natural sand or airborne particles, but there is air pollution.
The heat island effect that occurs in cities produces, in turn, other events such as thermal inversion. This causes pollutants such as COx and NxOy from exhaust pipes, boilers and climate systems to be suspended just at the height of our lungs.
According to the UN, climate change attributed to human activity is our fault, and we have created it by generally fueling the fires that human beings use. Very slowly we are learning to use other types of fuels to transport ourselves around the world with clean energy and to change our lifestyle habits.
Addendum: There is no doubt that this new climate change will determine the beginning of a new stage, perhaps the end of the human race.