[Sparkyte]

I agree, while shit is certainly hitting the fan. Fear mongering is not essential.

Climate change is something that happens and will continue to happen long before and after humanity.

If we want to preserve our world we want to focus our energy into conservation and not resource politics.

[Jedd]

Conversely, 'everything is fine mongering' is probably actively harmful.

[Sparkyte]

This isn't an everything is fine mongering statement.

Everything is not fine, but without clear cut research linking two completely different problems is not a scientific way of understanding why what happened. Fear mongering is what the original commenter is doing.

[Jedd]

> This isn't an everything is fine mongering statement.

Then my apologies. The hand-wavey 'climate change happened before and will happen again' sounded like you thought it wasn't a critically important challenge facing us, frequently being down-graded by people with vested interests in understating the problem via dismissive 'this has happened before and we're okay' style comments.

The 'we need more science' refrain is also often heard from that quarter, so I expect you'll continue to spark a certain reaction when you use that phrase.

The problem in TFA definitely seems to be related to small rises in temperature leading to a much more favourable environment for pathogens. That it happened in elephants is profoundly sad, but what's genuinely frightening is we probably have close to zero coverage on what pathogens we're susceptible to are about to reach a viability threshold with a 2 degree rise.

In another comment you ignored TFA findings and said:

> But I am probably going to point out increased commercial farming in Africa as a potential culprit. The use of fertilizers are an issue with algae and bacteria growth.

It would be convenient for climate change apologists if that were the case, but as per TFA the event seems to be pretty clearly attributable to Pasteurella bacteria.

[Sparkyte]

WOW! I've never seen so many forms of psychosis in one post.

You quote, and say but you're an apologist. Please check your privelege. This isn't an apologist stance. One of the largest influencers of climate change is the growth of crops not deomestically supported by the environment. Agriculture in Africa has raised drastically over the last 5 years and the use of fertilizers in Africa is among the highest in the world.

I think we're done with this conversation because you don't understand someone who would rather take the scientific approach of analyzing a problem when you'll foot in mouth take the emotional route.

[Jedd]

TFA asserted cause was a specific pathogen that benefited from a temperature rise, and correlated with a similar incident wiping out 200k antelopes in 2015.

You said you thought we should 'look into fertilisers' as the root cause.

Perhaps you could argue your well-reasoned case with the authors of the paper published in Nature:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41987-z

[Sparkyte]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6924646/

TLDR fertalizers increase bacterium growth study done on bowvine. Fertalizer use in Africa as a content is up 300% and 33% higher than most developing countries. For example while USA uses a lot of fertilizer a small country like South Africa uses half. That is a lot in terms of land.

[nerdponx]

Indeed, climate change will continue to happen, but I would prefer if humanity also continued to happen for a little while. Ergo I prefer not to hasten its end by accelerating climate change beyond its natural rate.

[bruce511]

So I'll preface this by saying that it's my belief climate change is real, that it's being accelerated this time by human behaviour etc.

However I would suggest that it is not an existential threat to humanity. It IS a threat to an enormous number of individuals (literally billions) but humans will continue to populate the earth long after the climate has changed.

Humans have proved to very adaptable, living sustainably in the deserts of the Sahara as well as the ice of Alaska. I don't think we'll see the decision of humanity here.

Life as we know it? Civilization? Sure I can see cataclysmic change there over the next 100 years. Then again life now is completely different to 100 years ago, so that's no surprise.

[Sparkyte]

One of the many reasons we are doing a lot of ice age hole boring. Get a clear picture of the hot/cold and wet/dry periods. The problem is that it can only peer into that biom.

The planet has been hotter and there was still wildlife. I am not going to rule out climate change as a problem.

But I am probably going to point out increased commercial farming in Africa as a potential culprit. The use of fertilizers are an issue with algae and bacteria growth.

[Sparkyte]

I agree, we need to understand what is happening before making it an excuse for the problem.

Guarantee you the elephants dying are more in alignment of increased use of fertilizers.

[12345hn6789]

Fear mongering would be: you will no longer be able to eat red meat due to crop shortages.

What the poster you replied to wrote, is a true statement. No fear mongering required

[Sparkyte]

I think you are not understanding the comment. Much of the issues right now are a byproduct of agriculture less with temperature. Most of it is the use of fertilizers that wash out and go down stream.

Humans are the factor, but the planet has been warming up for a long time. I guarantee this bacterial growth is more connected to fertilizers uses in crops nearby.

[codeTired]

Don’t you think us humans are accelerating climate change? Like if we were still dumb and living in caves maybe we wouldn’t pollute so much?

[Sparkyte]

Polluting is the problem. But it isn't the marginal bump in temp because climate change makes temperature swings drastic which is not great for bacterial growth. And equatorial locations are not as susceptible to the temperature swings as more polar points of the planet. The problem is more likely related to the heavy unregulated use of fertilizers. Eh em, pollution.