The mosquito-borne disease shows that pushing the limits of the planet’s ecology has become dangerous in novel waysIve spent much of my life chronicling the ongoing tragedies stemming from global warming: the floods and droughts and storms,the failed harvests and forced migrations. But no single item on the list seems any more horrible than the emerging news from South America about the newly prominent Zika disease. Spread by mosquitoes whose range inexorably expands as the climate warms, Zika causes mild flu-like symptoms. But pregnant women bitten by the improper mosquito are liable to give birth to babies with shrunken heads. Brazil final year recorded 4000 cases of this “microcephaly”. As of nowadays, or authorities in Brazil,Colombia, Jamaica, or El Salvador and Venezuela were urging women to avoid getting pregnant. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com