Amoeba Kills Humans — Another Global Warming Ramification? (+ Top Science & Extreme Weather Stories)

A deadly, brain-eating amoeba has killed at least one boy and one girl recently. The amoeba proliferates at high water temperatures. Water temperatures are higher than normal due to human-caused global warming. Connect the dots.

Seriously, have climate scientists not predicted more and more problems such as this due to global warming, which is without any doubt due to human greenhouse gas emissions? Still, I imagine, like me, you are a little surprised to hear about a brain-eating amoeba that is thriving in warm and stagnant waters, swimming up children’s and and teenagers’ noses, and eating away at their brains (primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is the technical term).

A boy in Virginia is reported to have died from from such an amoeba recently (the first known death of this sort since 1969). A teenage girl in Florida died from one of these amoeba recently as well after swimming in some freshwater lakes or smaller bodies of water in Volusia County. “Her biological family has swam in that area for three generations and never had a problem,” her uncle said. “You would think more about alligators and snakes than you would a one-celled amoeba.”

Such amoeba exist in every country of the world, Dr. Bonnie Sorensen informs us, but it is only really dangerous in waters that go over 80 degrees.

“Most U.S. infections from this amoeba have occurred in the southern tier of states,” the Daytona Beach News Journal reports. “Swimmers are urged to avoid all swimming areas except the ocean, springs and well-maintained swimming pools. When swimming in freshwater, use nose plugs.”

Yet another thing to watch out for in a warming world.

Here’s some more climate and environmental science news of the week, as well as some extreme weather news we haven’t covered yet:

Record Snowstorm in New Zealand (yes, snow — or precipitation, in general — is expected to increase due to global warming as well, as it has been):

  1. New Zealand Blanketed By Record Snowstorm

Somali Suffering in Drought:

  1. Somali refugees fight cholera and measles as hunger spreads

Record Heat Wave in U.S.:

  1. Record Heat Causes Nation’s Water Pipes to ‘Burst Like Geysers’
  2. Global temperatures were seventh warmest on record for July
  3. Heat wave leads to fourth warmest July on record for the U.S.
  4. Oklahoma Drought Now Far Worse Than When Gov. Mary Falin Asked All Oklahomans to Pray for Rain
  5. Texas In Worst Ever Drought, Hottest Ever Heat Wave
  6. U.S. Sees Most Extreme July Climate, Oklahoma Sees Hottest Average Temperature of Any State on Record
  7. Records Fall During Extended Heat Wave

New York City Breaks Rainfall Record (again, precipitation, especially in violent spurts, expected to increase from climate change):

  1. New York Breaks City’s Rainfall Record

Climate Science is NOT in Dispute (or that Humans are Causing Catastrophic Climate Change):

  1. Politifact: It is not “fair to say the science [behind climate change] is in dispute.”
  2. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn’t add up
More Climate Science:
  1. SkS Weekly Digest #11
  2. Soil Carbon in the Australian Political Debate (Part 1 of 2)
  3. OA not OK part 15: No accounting for taste
  4. OA not OK part 16: Omega
  5. Atmospheric Data Websites for All
  6. Arctic Ice Thinning 4 Times Faster Than Predicted by IPCC Models, Semi-Stunning M.I.T. Study Finds
  7. Wallace Broecker’s Remarkable 1975 Global Warming Prediction
  8. New gravity wave treatments for GISS climate models
  9. Tracking climate models
  10. Climate Responses to the Ocean Temperature Maximum in the Tropical Eastern Atlantic Ocean
  11. Arctic Death Spiral: Sea Ice Passes De Facto Tipping Point Thanks to Deniers, Media Blow The Story, Again
  12. Bombshell: Warming May Shrink Russian Permafrost 30% by 2050
  13. Climate change endangering public health; new interactive site gives state by state data
  14. NOAA study: Slowing climate change by targeting gases other than carbon dioxide
  15. Right In Your Backyard: Climate Change Threatens Health
  16. SkS Weekly Digest #10
Global Warming Deniers:
  1. Joe Bastardi Pulls a Charlie Sheen on Fox News, Pushing “Utter Nonsense” on Climate Science
  2. The Attacks on Climate Science Education Are Picking Up Steam
  3. Christy Crock #7: Expensive and inaccessible (Part 2)
  4. Skeptical Science Helps Students Debunk Climate Myths
  5. Lou Dobbs Breaks His Promise To “Debunk Climate Change”
  6. Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
  7. Polluters & Climate Change Deniers Use Same Tactics As The Tobacco Industry (Video)
  8. Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
  9. Top Climate Skeptic Patrick Michaels Complains that Skeptics Can’t Get on TV. On TV. (Video)
  10. Cherry Picking Data, A Climate Deniers’ Favorite Weapon (Video)
More Environmental Science:
  1. A Mother’s Nightmare: Bacteria Resistant To Antibiotics
  2. Map Documents Stresses Facing the World’s Coral Reefs
  3. four out of eight samples of various fish from five ports in Fukushima Prefecture exceeded the government-set limit
  4. High levels of toxic PBDE found in pregnant California women
  5. Persecution Of Polar Bear Scientist Continues
  6. Weeds Crossbreeding with GMO crops
  7. NOAA: Prepare for ‘High Hurricane Activity’ in the Atlantic
  8. Coral kick out their algae partners as the oceans heat up.
  9. Canadian Government Fires Environment Ministry Scientists and Meteorologists, Hires Oil Lobbyists
  10. 20 Scientists call on President Obama to block Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and invite public to join protests

1 thought on “Amoeba Kills Humans — Another Global Warming Ramification? (+ Top Science & Extreme Weather Stories)”

  1. I get it! Before the industrial revolution, there was no such thing as a flesh eating amoeba, because bodies of water could not get hot enough without excess CO2 in the air.

    Thanks for that logical, scientific explanation.

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