Treehugger.com’s Melissa Breyer reports on the latest real-world problem caused by climate change – anthrax:
The latest horror-story-plotline come to life? “Anthrax spewing zombie deer,” as Bloomberg News describes them, have emerged from thawing permafrost in northern Siberia, sparking an outbreak of the rare and deadly bacterial disease.
The outbreak has occurred on the Yamal Peninsula in northern Siberia, a region that hasn’t seen anthrax since 1941. The Arctic Siberian district has faced temperatures ranging from 77F to 95F for a month or so; officials believe that the heat melted permafrost and exposed an infected reindeer carcass. Although many of us may be more familiar with anthrax as an agent used in warfare, it is a natural disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis and can survive in the environment for a century or more by forming spores. In the Sakha Republic, just east of the region where the outbreak occurred, there are some 200 burial grounds of animals that died from anthrax in the past.
Having surveyed the BBC, Bloomberg News, and Siberian Times reports, it’s not clear how they may have ruled out deliberate release of spores, much like the United States suffered in 2001. The locals are understandably nervous as they appear to have an active venison industry, with exports to Germany, Sweden, Finland and the UK, according to the Siberian Times. All the sources view this as a predictable outcome of climate change.
