Take a Cool Guess—The Fun Quiz on Renewable Energy and Environmental Sustainability. Today’s Topic: Climate Change and Mosquitos
Question: According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) what percent of the contiguous United States has become, due to climate change, suitable breeding habitat for mosquitoes that are capable of transmitting the Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses?
Answer: Can be found at Clean Energy Answers.
Relevance: Per the Sierra Club, “Since West Nile virus made its debut in New York City over a decade ago, outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases, especially West Nile virus, have become increasingly commonplace. As temperatures reach new highs as a result of global climate change, mosquitoes that once called the tropics home find the United States just as habitable.”
Somebody forgot to tell all those mosquitoes (across 75% of the continental 48 US states) that Global Warming is a hoax.
It’s a fairly straightforward proposition… We’ll either adapt our global civilization to the requirements of a healthy natural world, or our global civilization will be increasingly unhealthy.
Exactly.
Criag,
Mosquito’s have arrived in North America as a result of Climate Change ?!
Craig, do you just read the musings of some environmental group or journalist and instantly believe it to be accurate with any analysis or questioning ? Don’t you realize how attributing everything, no matter how tenuous the connection , to “climate change” wearies the general public ?
With the increase in international travel, global bio control fights a losing battle to prevent colonization of new area’s by once localized species.
Climate Change has absolutely nothing to do with the mosquito population in North America.
North America was always inhabited by a diverse population of mosquito species. ( same as Siberia ! ) Tropical species can adapt and thrive in most climes. Over 3,500 species of mosquitoes exist. Some mosquito species spread diseases affecting humans such as malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile virus, dengue fever, filariasis, Zika virus, arboviruses etc, making the tiny Mosquito the world deadliest pest to humans. Other species are not fussy attacking and animal animals,even fish ! Of particular concern in North America is the rise in mosquito transmitted Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus.
The reemergence of a mosquito problem in the US has nothing to do with “Climate Change” but is the result of a combination of two principle factors;
International travel creating a wider pool of humans and animals with transmittable diseases (mosquito’s are only carriers). International travel and trade also allows a greater migration of different mosquitoes, diseases and mosquito crossbreeding.
The end of effective US eradication programs in the 1980’s is only now being realized. The effectiveness of the mosquito eradication programs between 1930 and 1970 in the US including the deployment of the chemical pesticide DDT was highly effective and for several decades the US was one of the most mosquito free nation on the planet.
The effects of mosquito borne disease in countries with first world medical care is considerably reduced by a lack of victims with infectious diseases.
(DDT was a highly effective mosquito eradication method, and although banned in the 1970’s, it’s residual effects lasted another 20 years. Recent research has discovered many of the claims against DDT were ill-foundered and the result of inaccurate and flawed research.
(Ironically, birth defects such as microcephaly attributed to DDT use are now proven to be caused by the mosquito transmitted Zika virus).
Mosquito control and eradication is a controversial area of research. Many conservationists express concern for the survival of some wildlife species if widespread mosquito eradication occurs. Another concern is poorly conducted control or eradication programs promotes the evolution of increasingly resistant mosquito species.
The misuse of pesticides can be attributed to a lack of coordinating eradication programs on a global scale. The fight against mosquito transmission of disease is hampered by national borders, politics, money and environmental concerns, including objections from influential organizations for largely ideological reasons.
Curiously, the mosquito is a bit of a gourmet when selecting a victim. Only female mosquitoes feed on blood, and while all humans can be victims, the female mosquito seems to prefer humans with type O blood. Mosquitoes are drawn to certain types of humans, especially pregnant women, basically by smell and detects certain aspects of human sweat such as CO2,1-octen-3-ol nonanal, sulcatone or 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one.
Mosquitoes kill infect over 700 million people per year, killing at least 2 million.
But none of this has anything to do with “climate Change” !
You know all about the biochemistry of human sweat and you don’t know that warm weather is conducive to growing mosquitoes? No, that’s not possible, and we both know it. If you want to obfuscate the truth about climate change, you’ll need to do a much better job; no one is stupid enough to believe that.