Are zombie diseases coming for us?
Read about how warming Arctic permafrost may be waking slumbering viruses, a community rewilding project growing urban biodiversity and a Colorado campground increasing outdoor accessibility.
Are zombie diseases coming for us?
In the Arctic, warming temperatures are melting the region's icy environment. While the changes forecast looming threats for the communities and wildlife that live in the cold nether reaches of the globe, beneath the thawing layers of ice zombie viruses are making their way to the surface.
These ancient viruses have been stored for thousands of years in permafrost - frozen layers of soil kept at temperatures below zero for extended periods. Covering a fifth of the northern hemisphere across Canada, Siberia and Alaska, permafrost may contain bacteria that in some areas are up to a million years old.
Strains of Methuselah microbes (or zombie viruses) have recently been identified by researchers who have voiced fears about a potential global medical emergency if these long-dead viruses were unleashed due to a warming climate. In 2015, a research team identified several live viruses in Siberian permafrost estimated to be 30,000 years old with one at 48,500 years old, demonstrating that these zombie diseases could still infect single-cell organisms.
"Our species — hence, our immune system — has never been in contact with most of those microbes during its evolution," lead author Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France wrote in an article published by Think Global Health following the publication of the research in 2023. In the case of a disease with a genetic makeup unique from modern ailments, an escaped virus could wreak havoc on our immune systems that have yet to be tested by the illness.
In 2016, the world saw this scenario play out when an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia affected dozens of people along with 2,000 reindeer. The outbreak was linked to deep thaw of the permafrost during a sweltering summer that released Bacillus anthracis spores from an old burial ground or animal carcass, found to have infected a nearby host.
Many major recent epidemic outbreaks have all been linked to changes in land use: the Nipah virus was spread by fruit bats driven from their habitats by humans, monkeypox has been linked to the spread of urbanization in Africa and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with a human animal interaction in a wet market in China. As climate change worsens, it creates increasingly dangerous conditions for facilitating the spread of devastating diseases.
While a global pandemic triggered by the undead virus is a real possibility, several factors would complicate the threat such as how long these viruses could remain infectious once exposed to present-day conditions, how likely it is that the virus would encounter a suitable host in the sparsely populated arctic and the fact that some viruses are benign and don't cause diseases.
To catalog the potential hazards frozen in Arctic permafrost, a 2021 paper published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change detailed possible dangers including buried waste from mining heavy metals and chemicals such as the pesticide DDT and radioactive material dumped by Russia and the United States.
“Abrupt thaw rapidly exposes old permafrost horizons, releasing compounds and microorganisms sequestered in deeper layers,” wrote the researchers, noting ancient microorganisms could also affect soil composition and vegetative growth which could potentially accelerate the effects of climate change.
“We’re unclear as to how these microbes are going to interact with the modern environment,” said Kimberley Miner, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for CNN. “It’s not an experiment that I think any of us want to run.”
Plant an Oasis grows biodiversity and community in West Washington Park
Avi Stopper walks out into his yard and watches a hummingbird feed from a red trumpet-shaped Zauschneria flower. Evolving together in the dry Colorado environment, the native plant and its pollinator are a feature in Stopper’s yard through the efforts of Plant an Oasis, a community group in West Washington Park working to revitalize the neighborhood’s unused grass spaces with native plants.
“We call it ‘beverage in hand maintenance,’ which is you don’t just have your yard, but you really enjoy it as your piece of nature,” said Stopper, whose experience with community organizing led him to head the project. “A great way to do this is to take a cup of coffee out in the morning, pick a weed here, water a plant there and appreciate the garden’s growth and changes,” he said.
By activating unused yard space, Plant an Oasis is transforming the urban neighborhood into a landscape of native plants, benefiting yard owners, passersby and the wider community. In time, plants attract native pollinators like bees, butterflies and birds to enhance biodiversity in the area.
Read more about the community rewilding project in “Plant an Oasis grows biodiversity and community in West Washington Park” for Colorado Community Media.
Wilderness on Wheels is improving accessibility to the outdoors
Accessible boardwalks traverse under the pine and aspen trees at Wilderness of Wheels (WOW), a 22-acre campground built to accommodate the needs of wheelchair users along with anyone who wants to enjoy the peaceful slice of nature in Grant.
“They’re classic East Coast style boardwalks, a little bumpy for wheelchairs and walkers, but it’s smooth sailing for the most part and it’s not like trying to traverse across a bunch of rocks, roots and downed logs like you might see at any other kind of state park or National Forest,” said Beth Bellamy, WOW Manager who serves as the campground’s caretaker along with her husband and son.
Read more about the campgrounds at “Wilderness on Wheels is improving accessibility to the outdoors” for the Flume.
What’s the big hoodoo about the Paint Mines?
A hoodoo is a tall spire of rock formed through erosion, usually formed over millions of years. Also called fairy chimneys, tent rocks or earth pyramids. the word “hoodoo” means to bewitch. I recently went to the Paint Mines Interpretive Park just outside of Colorado Springs to get a look at these unique rock formations and they certainly lived up to their magical namesake. Hope you enjoy the colorful pictures!
News update:
"Ecoacoustics" is helping scientists monitor soil health.
July is officially the hottest on record.
Is AI helping us decode animal conversations?
Antarctica's doomsday glacier might not be doomed.
What do rest and slowing down have to do with climate?
Should we fund a universal basic income with a carbon tax?
America has its first plan for dealing with plastic pollution.
Climate change is messing with city sewers.
What is being done about the carbon footprint of political conventions?
A Swedish energy company is developing a battery made out of salt.
Climate Corps workers are bringing solar energy to underserved communities across the country.
Book Updates
This year I self-published two books of visual poetry with Tell Tell Poetry, an independent publishing service. Figures of Speech and beeing are now available for purchase on Lulu! With your purchase of beeing, 15% will be donated to the Women’s Earth Alliance, an organization that supports women developing solutions to climate change.
To purchase my books go to my website here!!
To learn more about Women’s Earth Alliance check out their website here!!
To follow the life of my little books follow @meryl.phair on Instagram!!
Thought food: Reciprocity
Another thought that has recently been on my mind while chugging through the pages of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass has been reciprocity, the act of exchanging things with others in a mutually beneficial relationship. While I enjoy being immersed in nature, often hiking and running in the mountains of Colorado, I’ve been thinking about how nature might benefit from my existence. How does nature benefit from any of the things we do in our day-to-day life? Why do we not think of our relationship with nature as a reciprocal affair and rather one that only gives us things?
“Give thanks for what you have been given. Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken. Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever. This is why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass.