Another result of climate change: "zombie" viruses

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Content warning: scary article implying likely future pandemics

'Zombie' Viruses, Up to 50,000 Years Old, Are Awakening: Climate change is arousing ancient pathogens in the Siberian permafrost, posing a threat to amoebas and people alike, by Sam Walters, Discover, Dec 20, 2022.

Excerpt:

Oh joy

That's how humanity died sometime before the events of The Talos Principle.

Another apocalyptic conspiracy theory?  Oh, puh-leez!  Do we really need another scare story to keep us awake at night?

This is not a conspiracy theory. This is an actual scientific finding.

The point is simply this: One of the likely consequences of climate change is more pandemics than there would otherwise be.

Yeah, sorry Mona. Bad hangover this morning. Should have said something more like, “Probably not that bad” instead.

Permafrost has been thawing for decades, and the worst pandemic so far has come out of Wuhan, China.

Besides, those virii were present early in human evolution, so we likely have some built-in resistances by now.

I read about this 5+ years ago. It's a real thing. Spanish flu and other viruses locked in the ice/frozen animals, ice melts, live animals eat/drink/breathe/come in contact, spread it amongst herds, then on to people - maybe.

Possible, but in the grand scheme of viruses do spread like wildfire and people get sick/die then... that's what happens and the rest of life goes on for the living like every time viruses circulate. No sense in getting all worked up about mother nature doing what mother nature does.

A bit ironic, though, that it may be man made climate change that's thawing the ice and bringing this upon ourselves. Nature has a way of balancing things out.. this is just one of them. F with the Earth and the Earth will F you back just as hard to keep things in balance.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Another BS conspiracy theory just for an excuse to control everybody and enforce lockdowns and isolations and social distancing.

OK I was panicking and covering it up by acting all skeptic about it. I wish I hadn't seen this thread now though because it's just triggered my anxiety and depression.

I'm already worrying about the NHS collapsing and poor people like me with no health insurance to back us up are going to be massively affected the most. Now with all these viruses we're all going to be getting I won't be able to afford treatment so I'll probably just die a slow, painful death.

I like Fnord's first reply, as that is what I'm feeling right now. Everybody else in this thread seems to lack panic. I envy you.

Worst thing that could happen is that you and everyone you care about dies, which is going to happen anyway.
A virus is not going to destroy the planet and neither will climate change.

It's difficult to live in a society run by government that want to control everybody to "save lives" yet they want health care to be unaffordable so people will die from lack of health care.

I really don't want to live under control like that. In 2020 and 2021 I wasn't allowed to see my mother when she was dying of cancer. She's not around any more and I never got to spend her last two years with her. She even got too ill to talk over the phone.

I don't want to be controlled like that any more. My friend just asked me if we could meet up this summer but I feel like saying we can't because we'll probably be in lockdown again with the bubonic plague or something.

It's all right for most of you logical scientists on WP, you don't freak out about s**t like this.

It will be just like it used to be in days gone by. People lived and they died... There was no healthcare except for the knowledge of plants that people passed along, the wise women/men of the communities. We've sort of be afforded a false sense of security through modern medicine, but I believe we've always been just one big virus away from extinction.
I will add that when I was younger, hadn't yet lived quite what I felt was my fair share of years, I got much more worked up over things like this. Since life knocked me upside the head for about 20 years straight I've come to believe that there are worse things than death.
What will be will be, I will no longer squander what remains of my life worrying about what I can't change. And I believe the earth freezes and warms, in cycles. There are ruins of old civilizations at the bottoms of oceans. Earthquakes, Volcanoes, tectonic shifts, tsunamis, floods, mud slides... Things get buried and then come to light again.

Viruses 'coming to life' in the thawing Siberian Taiga, or northwoods of Canada, wouldve been active 50 thousand years ago during the last warm break between two Ice Ages.

Said virus might be gunning to infect saber tooth tigers that dont exist anymore. Even if they were dangerous to modern critters, or to humans, they would affect areas of the world still remote and thinly populated. Siberia is not NYC, and its not Wuhan. Not a crowded major transportation hub.