Global Warming and Its Effects on Your Health

Blog posted by AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Mark Paquette

To those of us who do not live in a cave or under a rock somewhere, the scary swine flu pandemic is big news. Everywhere in the media, the twists, turns and updates on the goings on of this disease are a top story. This got me thinking, could this outbreak, or any future disease outbreaks, be anyway influenced by climate change?

According to this article , this threat is definitely a possibility. Will insects expand their territories where they live and spread diseases to parts of the world where the diseases where not previously found? Will tropical diseases be able to expand their areas of influence? Will strains of bacteria be able to thrive in a climate that is warmer? Will pandemics like the swine flu be more common, widespread and/or devastating? Were medieval outbreaks of the bubonic plague influenced by the slightly cooler climate?

Obviously, these questions assume that global warming is happening. We can debate that until we are blue in the face, I am just posing some questions relevant to what is going on in the world today.

Thanks to google for providing the map below of current reported cases of the swine flu as of May 2, 2009