We're melting the Arctic and reviving deadly germs

 

In December 2016, a remote community in Siberia Experienced a mysterious outbreak. 90 people were hospitalized, and a 12-year-old boy died. Soon, Russian officials identified what killed him. The deadly infectious disease anthrax. The outbreak had started among reindeer and to contain the spread they burned over 2000 reindeer carcasses. The strange thing was there had not been an anthrax outbreak in the area for more than 70 years. So, to figure out where it came from, scientists started looking underground.

In the coldest parts of the world, there is a layer of the earth that stays frozen all year. Every summer the soil above it thaws, but this deeper layer stays hard as a rock. This is known as permafrost. Most permafrost is here in the Northern hemisphere around the Arctic. And because it never thaws, permafrost acts kind of like the freezer in our kitchen. When plants and animals here die, they do not decompose. Instead, they become preserved in the frozen earth, like a time capsule and it has been that way for thousands of years. But that is changing. Today humans are burning carbon and making the atmosphere warmer, and that is causing the permafrost to thaw out and shrink. By 2100 only 60% of the land will have any permafrost and that is causing some problems. When permafrost melts the land above it becomes unstable, which can lead to landslides. Man-made structures start to fall apart as the ground underneath them collapses. And dead plants and animals that had been frozen for years are starting to thaw out.

As they are exposed to air and bacteria, this organic material starts to decompose. That releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. But that is not all it releases. In Siberia, scientists think that the anthrax outbreak came from a long-dead reindeer carcass that thawed out along with the permafrost. Anthrax spores from the carcass would have spread across the area and infected reindeer grazing nearby. And it is not just anthrax. Scientists worry that as permafrost melts, it could unearth all sorts of diseases like Spanish flu, bubonic plague, and chicken poxes we thought we had under control. 35 million people live around permafrost. But the carbon released as permafrost melts will accelerate the impacts of climate change everywhere rising seas heatwaves. Droughts in some places, and floods in others. And now we can add one more thing to that list. Diseases we thought we conquered.

We have already in midst of an animal-generated virus COVID-19, and it has shaken the supply chain and medical facilities of nations around the world to the core. Only time will tell what other man-made destructions the human race will face because of the greed and carelessness.