From: Nancy Schimmel global warming and gerbils
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:32:11 -0700
Inspired by this article from Grist (online environmental zine) Is It Frogs Next, or Locusts? Warmer climate could lead to increased bubonic plague Ever feel like we live in End Times? Well, you may be right. Apparently, in coming years we can expect more bubonic plague -- yes, plague, as in "bring out your dead!"
Researchers publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a rise of just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the springtime temperature led to a 59 percent increase in plague prevalence (currently, up to 3,000 cases are reported each year around the world). The researchers focused their study in Kazakhstan, where the primary host of the plague is the great gerbil (no, really). The gerbils carry fleas, which carry the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes the plague, which gets transmitted to humans by the fleas. Yersinia likely triggered both the Black Death, which killed more than 20 million people in the Middle Ages, and a 19th century pandemic in Asia that killed tens of millions. Depressingly, both outbreaks occurred during warm, wet climatic periods. Hmm, warm, wet climate ... sounds familiar. If you need us, we'll be in the bunker, hiding from the gerbils.
I have written this parody:
Is It Frogs Next, or Locusts?Tune: Traditional (She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain)
New words by Nancy Schimmel
She’ll be coming out of Asia when she comes.
She’ll be coming out of Asia when she comes.
Oh she rides upon the gerbil And her wrath is something ter’ble,
She’ll be coming out of Asia when she comes.
Nobody wants to meet her when she comes.
Nobody wants to meet her when she comes.
Although we do expect ’er, The great gerbil is the vector,
Nobody wants to meet her when she comes.
She’ll be riding lots of fleases when she comes.
She’ll be riding lots of fleases when she comes.
Now the fleas like global warming, On the gerbils they are swarming,
She’ll be riding lots of fleases when she comes.
Once she decimated Europe, here she comes!
Then she decimated Asia, here she comes!
Well, she goes by many handles And there’s no use burning candles,
She’s iconic and bubonic, here she comes!
Sun, sun, shine on me, Sunbeam's warm and sunbeam's free. Put solar panels in your path, And I'll have sunshine in my bath... Sun Sun Shine and other recordings and books by Nancy Schimmel, Malvina Reynolds, Candy Forest and Fran Avni at www.sisterschoice.com Berkeley, California
Sun, sun, shine on me, Sunbeam's warm and sunbeam's free. Put solar panels in your path, And I'll have sunshine in my bath... Sun Sun Shine and other recordings and books by Nancy Schimmel, Malvina Reynolds, Candy Forest and Fran Avni at www.sisterschoice.com Berkeley, California
