NationStates Jolt Archive


Killer Fungus on the Move, Climate Change to Blame?

Dobbs Town
23-11-2004, 23:27
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/11/23/BC-fungus.html

I just read this one on CBC's website. What, is it just another fluke, or is it a sign of things upcoming for us all?
Andaluciae
23-11-2004, 23:51
or possibly careless handling of foreign plant material.
Sinuhue
23-11-2004, 23:54
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/11/23/BC-fungus.html

I just read this one on CBC's website. What, is it just another fluke, or is it a sign of things upcoming for us all?

I don't think there are all that many people left who think that climate change is not happening, or that humans have has something to do with that change. To what extent is still being debated. However, you only need to compare the weather patterns of your childhood to know...or to your parent's childhood, or to their parent's...and see that things have changed drastically. Here I am in Alberta, Canada, where we should have a couple of feet of snow already, and it's above freezing. In November. Cripes, I remember seeing only the tips of farmer's fences peeking up above the snow by this time of the year. And tornadoes where no one can ever remember there being tornadoes before! Up in Inuvik, where I've been living for the last 3 years, the permafrost is melting! The elders say that the whales have changed their migratory habits, as have the caribou...and they are working from an oral history reaching back a thousand years. Canada has been lucky to have cold enough winters to kill of many of the parasites and insects of more southern climes...but that isn't always the case anymore. Just look at how the West Nile virus has been spreading further and further west. It is certainly something to worry about.
MKULTRA
23-11-2004, 23:54
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/11/23/BC-fungus.html

I just read this one on CBC's website. What, is it just another fluke, or is it a sign of things upcoming for us all?
how many people has it killed so far?
Hajekistan
23-11-2004, 23:55
G30RG3 8USH DID I7!!!!!1!!11
L00K H3R3 ISS T3H PR00F!!shift+1!!!11!
PR00F!11! (http://www.chucknorris.com)

Heh, got here first MKULTRA.

EDIT: OK, so maybe yoou posted just seconds before me, but that doesn't make my most excellent and "uber-relevant" satire any less K3WL
Dobbs Town
23-11-2004, 23:59
how many people has it killed so far?

according to the article, at least three that are known about. Why?
Dobbs Town
24-11-2004, 00:00
G30RG3 8USH DID I7!!!!!1!!11
L00K H3R3 ISS T3H PR00F!!shift+1!!!11!
PR00F!11! (http://www.chucknorris.com)

Heh, got here first MKULTRA.

EDIT: OK, so maybe yoou posted just seconds before me, but that doesn't make my most excellent and "uber-relevant" satire any less K3WL

Huh? What? That was satire? Just what are you satirizing, Haj?
Andaluciae
24-11-2004, 00:10
*just so you know*

I'm not challenging the statement that global warming is occuring.

I'm just challenging the statement that this fungus is coming to BC because of global warming. Very few fungi I know can up and move from the equatorial belt to Canada. I'd suspect that some moron bought a foreign grown plant, that just so happened to have this fungus in it's pot, the plant died, the fellow dumped the plant, and the fugus spread.

This sort of thing is common. Kinda like the Zebra Mussels in the Great Lakes, only different.
Hajekistan
24-11-2004, 00:10
Huh? What? That was satire? Just what are you satirizing, Haj?
Your face!
I'm having a hard time thinking as of the moment, I think my roommate left an open can of paint under his bed again. Too damn cold to open the windows too. I'd think he is trying to kill me, but then he seemed really conciliatory that time he accidentally removed half of the bolts from the bannister on the stairs right outside our floor and I fell down two flights of stairs. He was real apologetic, even sent me a card while I was at the hospital, wasn't his fault that the postal service put anthrax in it.

EDIT: Additionally, Dobbs Town, I wasn't targetting you, I was targetting MKULTRA, who, predictably enough, has tagged Bush with the blame. Killer Death Fungus is nothing to laugh at, now Killer Death Fungus that is also a government operative and was trained at a Georgian Assassins School, that is pretty damn funny.
MKULTRA
24-11-2004, 00:11
G30RG3 8USH DID I7!!!!!1!!11
L00K H3R3 ISS T3H PR00F!!shift+1!!!11!
PR00F!11! (http://www.chucknorris.com)

Heh, got here first MKULTRA.

EDIT: OK, so maybe yoou posted just seconds before me, but that doesn't make my most excellent and "uber-relevant" satire any less K3WL
of course Bush did it--hes the one whose allowing global warming
MKULTRA
24-11-2004, 00:12
according to the article, at least three that are known about. Why?
how do they die and can you catch it from smoking marijuana?
Dobbs Town
24-11-2004, 00:15
I'm sure that's probably how it came there - but that's the point of it, really. Lots of little tropical fungi and other critters make it back to N.America on people's clothes, luggage, etc., not to mention in food crates or other shipping containers, but as a northern temperate zone, tropical beasties shouldn't be able to survive up here. That they are might indicate our climate is in sufficient flux that an opportunistic fungus like this might just gain a toehold into our local ecologies.

I don't like the implications much, I just thought this'd serve as good fodder for topical conversation.
Sinuhue
24-11-2004, 00:20
of course Bush did it--hes the one whose allowing global warming
Isn't it a little risky to blame all the evils in the world on one person? I mean, what if Bush dies suddenly? Will everything be alright? Will all our problems be solved? Surely you are aware that it is a much wider ideological issue, with many more players than this new one...so why do you constantly come across so single-mindedly? Bush isn't "allowing" global warming to happen any more than he can "forbid" it. He is obstructing efforts to deal with it, and he is probably too dumb to understand it, but that certainly doesn't make him a mastermind of a global warming plot. That's giving him ENTIRELY too much credit.

By the way, it's who's (who is)...not whose (as in belonging to). He's needs an apostrophe, and when did it become okay to drop the capital off from the beginning of a sentence? PUNCTUATION, people!

*Takes a deep breath..has marked too many poorly written essays today...*
Goed Twee
24-11-2004, 00:58
Isn't it a little risky to blame all the evils in the world on one person? I mean, what if Bush dies suddenly? Will everything be alright? Will all our problems be solved? Surely you are aware that it is a much wider ideological issue, with many more players than this new one...so why do you constantly come across so single-mindedly? Bush isn't "allowing" global warming to happen any more than he can "forbid" it. He is obstructing efforts to deal with it, and he is probably too dumb to understand it, but that certainly doesn't make him a mastermind of a global warming plot. That's giving him ENTIRELY too much credit.

By the way, it's who's (who is)...not whose (as in belonging to). He's needs an apostrophe, and when did it become okay to drop the capital off from the beginning of a sentence? PUNCTUATION, people!

*Takes a deep breath..has marked too many poorly written essays today...*

"In global news, George W Bush died today. Strangly enough, with his death, a large number of lawyers have seemingly vanished into thin air, the Middle East has petitioned to be renamed the Man, Screw Those Wars, I Fucking Love You Bro East, and-this being the most unsettling change-every single country in the world has suddenly become a communist paradise where everyone lives together in harmony."
MKULTRA
24-11-2004, 01:56
Your face!
I'm having a hard time thinking as of the moment, I think my roommate left an open can of paint under his bed again. Too damn cold to open the windows too. I'd think he is trying to kill me, but then he seemed really conciliatory that time he accidentally removed half of the bolts from the bannister on the stairs right outside our floor and I fell down two flights of stairs. He was real apologetic, even sent me a card while I was at the hospital, wasn't his fault that the postal service put anthrax in it.

EDIT: Additionally, Dobbs Town, I wasn't targetting you, I was targetting MKULTRA, who, predictably enough, has tagged Bush with the blame. Killer Death Fungus is nothing to laugh at, now Killer Death Fungus that is also a government operative and was trained at a Georgian Assassins School, that is pretty damn funny.
whats so "funny" about it is that its within the realm of possibility
MKULTRA
24-11-2004, 01:57
I'm sure that's probably how it came there - but that's the point of it, really. Lots of little tropical fungi and other critters make it back to N.America on people's clothes, luggage, etc., not to mention in food crates or other shipping containers, but as a northern temperate zone, tropical beasties shouldn't be able to survive up here. That they are might indicate our climate is in sufficient flux that an opportunistic fungus like this might just gain a toehold into our local ecologies.

I don't like the implications much, I just thought this'd serve as good fodder for topical conversation.
Kinda like west nile virus ?
MKULTRA
24-11-2004, 01:59
Isn't it a little risky to blame all the evils in the world on one person? I mean, what if Bush dies suddenly? Will everything be alright? Will all our problems be solved? Surely you are aware that it is a much wider ideological issue, with many more players than this new one...so why do you constantly come across so single-mindedly? Bush isn't "allowing" global warming to happen any more than he can "forbid" it. He is obstructing efforts to deal with it, and he is probably too dumb to understand it, but that certainly doesn't make him a mastermind of a global warming plot. That's giving him ENTIRELY too much credit.

By the way, it's who's (who is)...not whose (as in belonging to). He's needs an apostrophe, and when did it become okay to drop the capital off from the beginning of a sentence? PUNCTUATION, people!

*Takes a deep breath..has marked too many poorly written essays today...*
oh I know Bush doesnt single handeldy do it
Andaluciae
24-11-2004, 02:06
I'm sure that's probably how it came there - but that's the point of it, really. Lots of little tropical fungi and other critters make it back to N.America on people's clothes, luggage, etc., not to mention in food crates or other shipping containers, but as a northern temperate zone, tropical beasties shouldn't be able to survive up here. That they are might indicate our climate is in sufficient flux that an opportunistic fungus like this might just gain a toehold into our local ecologies.

I don't like the implications much, I just thought this'd serve as good fodder for topical conversation.
Life is incredibly resilient. Fungi and bacteria are amongst the most rapidly evolving forms of life on the planet. Just a random case of natural selection.

Although I do agree, this incident highlights what will happen if we do not figure out something about global warming within the next 70 years.