In Antarctica, an iceberg, the biggest ever, is breaking free from the Ross Ice Shelf. Measuring 295 kilometers in length, 37 kilometers in width, it’s almost twice as big as the iceberg breaking free some time ago, that was a clear and present danger to the ship traffic by Cape Horn. Related article: SEARISE
WEEK 14 March 20th to 26th
MASSIVE ICEBERG BREAKING FREE
This is one more in a series of ever bigger icebergs breaking free all over Antarctica. As in the Arctic the ice is melting in an ever faster rate. There are clear indications that the entire West Antarctic Ice Shelf (WAIS), is about to melt. If that happens the global sea level will rise between 6 and 7 meters.
And WAIS has, up to this point, also worked as a kind of buffer, protection for the much bigger East Antarctic Ice Shelf (EAIS). General melting has accelerated during the eighties and nineties, and has gone much further and happened much faster than most predictions.
If all ice on Earth should melt, global sea level will rise at least 70 meters.
WHO ISSUING WARNING AGAINST DEADLY BACTERIA
The World Health Organization (WHO) is now issuing a warning against a «superdeadly» strain of tuberculosis, about to spread globally. In as geographically distant land as Denmark/Germany and New Zealand, there are already discovered 100 cases of multiresistant tuberculosis during a relatively short time. Even if the number of cases are still small, there is cause for worry when a deadly disease is on the rise and spreading throughout the world, it’s said in the report from WHO.
This is one more disease about to turn untreatable, completely resistant by and towards antibiotics. There is a growing concern that human civilization is about to lose the race against the bacteria, and that the seemingly clear victory the past 50 years, will just reveal itself to be a passing phenomena. And also that use of antibiotics have merely camouflaged a growth in diseases caused by chemical and radioactive pollution, that the present day human population’s ability to fight off disease has been weakened, not strengthened, during the last decades. A growing number of reports are claiming that both pollution and the very use of antibiotics have weakened the immune defense system itself, and also contributed to make bacteria and viruses more virulent, more «angry».
It’s pointed out that civilization itself, is a veritable «hotbed» of a gift to any bacteria and virus. Millions of people living in close proximity to each other. Any disease spread worldwide in a matter of hours. Food stemming from huge factory - like production facilities. Material from brains and spinal cords used as animal fodder. Unhealthy food being served people, living generally unhealthy lives. Old diseases are turning more virulent, new ones are discovered every day. The use of medicine world wide are going through the roof. People jumping off the bandwagon or being sacked from the multinational drug companies, have a lot to say about their sales methods.
These, and other various concerns put together, in recent articles, don’t leave much room for optimism.
In a an interview survey on subjects randomly selected from around the world, concerning the changes in climate and the environment in general, engineer Paolo Vasquez currently residing in Sevilla, Spain, has this to say:
- The ground is dry, I mean, really Dry. It does rain occasionally, but even after heavy showers, the soil is still looking dry. I take a shuffle and stick it ten centimeters down, and when I withdraw it, the point is full of dust. This used to be a green, lush area, just ten, fifteen, even five years ago. We had a drought lasting five years from 1988 to 1993 or something. We got rain eventually, but the groundwater level never really recovered, I guess. And the ground is just drying up. You know what I heard? That it was lush forest once covering the entire North Africa, that Sahara was just a tiny pinprick in what is now Sudan or something. I can believe that, man, I really can...
Entered 2000-03-25