Solar Storms Affirmative – 4 Week Lab [1/3]
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Impact – AIDsWarming causes AIDs to spread The Age, 8- (Tamara McLean, “Global warming set to fan the HIV fire,” http://news.theage.com.au/national/global-warming-set-to-fan-the-hiv-fire-20080430-29eh.html) Climate change is the latest threat to the world's growing HIV epidemic, say Australian experts who warn of the "grim" outlook in the fight against the infectious disease. A leading professor of health and human rights, Daniel Tarantola, has cautioned that global warming will indirectly make citizens of developing countries even more vulnerable to death and severe ill health from HIV/AIDS. "It wa s clear soon after the emergence of the HIV epidemic that discrimination, gender inequality and lack of access to essential services have made some populations more vulnerable than others," said Prof Tarantola, of the University of NSW. Those problems had not gone away, he said, and extra threats were lurking on the horizon "as the global economic situation deteriorates, food scarcity worsens and climate change begins to affect those who were already dependent on survival economies". "Climate change will trigger a chain of events which is likely to increase the stress on society and result in higher vulnerability to diseases including HIV," said Prof Tarantola, due to address an HIV forum in Sydney. Prominent HIV scientist Professor David Cooper, director of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, agreed environmental change would have a negative impact on HIV sufferers. "Climate change will lead to food scarcity and poorer nutrition, putting people with perilous immune systems at more risk of dying of HIV, as well as contracting and transmitting new and unusual infections," Prof Cooper said. "And this would effect Australia too, because these infections could potentially spread. Just look at the horror that SARS and avian flu have caused." The specialist said the HIV landscape was grim, with 16,000 new infections worldwide each day and the failure of research to produce a much-needed cure or vaccine. Impact – WildfiresWarming causes extensive wildfires across the world Ecobridge, 10-5-06, “Evidence of Global Warming” http://www.ecobridge.org/content/g_dgr.htm Wildfires Increasing The forests of Canada, Alaska and the former Soviet Union including Siberia are apparently burning like never before, experts said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco (Dec.18, 2000). The likely reason: Global warming is drying out northern timber and brush. As a result, lightning bolts spark infernos of colossal extent. In Alaska and Canada's boreal forests, fire consumed an average of more than 7 million acres a year in the 1990s. That's a sharp rise from the average of 3 million acres per year in the 1960s, scientists said on the third day of the conference. See Source Article or 103************The year 2000 was the worst U.S. wildfire season in 50 years. A replay is proving that the year 2001 is producing scorching summer weather, again turning the Western United States into a tinderbox, where a few sparks could easily ignite a new inferno. Officials at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, say bone-dry conditions coupled with thick underbrush make for another potential record-breaking fire season in 2001. Firestorms in 2000 scorched some 7.5 million acres — an area roughly the size of Maryland — and cost some $1.7 billion to fight. See Article or 106 <>With wildfires come the prospect of flooding and mudslides. The record California wildfires of October - November 2003 that destroyed 100s of thousands of forest acreage, together with thousands of homes and businesses, promise more destruction from floods and landslides, say forest officials. See Planet Ark Story Also See ENN Article The wildfires burning in the late summer of 2001 across the Western United States were releasing tons of mercury into the atmosphere, say researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Hans Friedli and colleague Lawrence Radke conducted laboratory tests to find out how much mercury a fire could release. About half the atmospheric mercury got there from natural sources in soil, oceans and volcanoes, and the other half through human activity. Mercury is transformed in the atmosphere through chemical processes and then rains or falls out as wet or dry deposition to the surface. For trees, "wet deposition is most important," said Friedli. "Mercury is picked up by the surfaces - the leaves or needles - and it stays there." Forest fires destroy biodiversity by altering water cycles, soil fertility, and forest structure World Wildlife Foundation 9/12/06 http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/problems/forest_fires/index.cfm The immediate impact of forest fires can be devastating to human communities and forest ecosystems alike. Fires can alter the structure and composition of forests, opening up areas to invasion by fast-colonizing alien species and threaten biological diversity. Buildings, crops and plantations are destroyed and lives can be lost. For companies, fire can mean the destruction of assets; for communities, besides loss of an important resource base, fire can also lead to environmental degradation through impacts on water cycles, soil fertility and biodiversity; and for farmers, fire may mean the loss of crops or even livelihoods. 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