What's Happening?

By the time you read this, I will be dead, and so will you.
Only joking.

But if you are a small pink flower in the Antilles, or a big-eared fox, maybe in Madagascar, then it's no joke.

Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years.

Meanwhile (allowing for the above to compute):
Gold is now $525.
Oil continues to inch up.

Why is gold on the ascendency? Reports are that the buying is coming from the East. Does China know something we don't? Are they buying gold as a means of insurance, a hedge against H5N1 fallout? Or is it the awareness that Oil is...well, not in the well as well as we would like? Or are some governments looking to switch from the Petrodollar to the Eurodollar? All of the above, none of the above, some of the above?
Whatever the answer, when gold glitters, a deep frown etches over the blue white forehead of a planet called Earth.

And you have to wonder, when you see news reports saying the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are at their highest levels in 650 000 years.

It's also clear that the weather is changing. It's impacting peaoples lives everywhere. It's impacting your life and mine. Do you know how much? Do you remember (or have any sense) of what is normal?

We're beyond the tipping point, and I believe a lot of news in the future is going to be weather related.
The weather will soon have very direct impacts on countries inflation rates. This means food prices, but also house prices as the extremes set in. People will start to move and bottleneck to places that have food supplies and a nice climate. Canada might repopulate. So too, possible (possibly not for very long), Iceland.

What many people don't realise is large fluctuations in average temperature (like 10C) are now believed to occur in a very short period...less than 10 years.
So here's what we know:
1) CO2 levels are incredibly high. They are about 3 times higher than average levels measured for 100 000 year cycles.
2) CO2 levels are directly correlated to temperature. If you place a graph of CO@ levels over the centuries beside temperature levels graphs, they match very closely. The peaks and troughs are of similar altitude and steepness, or depth and breadth.

What's less well known is that we are living through the 3rd greatest extinction event in the world's history. Some writers call NOW the greatest extinction event ever (http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html). 50 species a day are rendered extinct, 20 000 per year. And today there was a report of a new species found, a large wild cat, similar to a domestic cat but reddish brown, with a long tail, discovered in Indonesia.
You can imagine the implications of this. Currently, parts of China are turning to dust, and people are throwing straw to try to keep the dust from blowing around and drowning nearby villages. In spring, this dust (from the Gobi) travels hundreds of miles, mixes with heavy metals and pollutants and forms a dangerous and toxic yellow cloud. Typically, visibly drops to a few hundred metres, schools close and so on. People become more susceptible to sore throats. I got a terrible fever and a double cold when I arrived in Korea, just in time for the Spring dusting.


Death toll from bird flu hits 70 as Thai boy dies
By Panarat Thepgumpanat and Maggie Fox

BANGKOK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Thai boy has become the 70th person to die of bird flu, authorities said on Friday, as reports warned a flu pandemic could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars as well as millions of lives.

China has also reported a new case of H5N1, the fifth person in the country known to have been infected with the deadly virus. The 31-year-old woman, who lived in Heishan county of Liaoning province, has since recovered.

Chinese officials were accused of concealing bird flu outbreaks in several provinces for many months this year, according to comments from a leading virologist in Hong Kong published in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper on Friday.

The death of the 5-year-old boy from the central province of Nakhon Nayok, 110 km from Bangkok, took Thailand's bird flu death toll to 14 out of 22 known cases since the virus swept through large parts of Asia in late 2003.

It was not certain how the boy caught the virus, which usually strikes those in close contact with infected fowl or their droppings, senior health officials said. The boy, who died in hospital on Wednesday, was not known to have had direct contact with chickens, health officials said.

"We believe that the boy contracted the virus from his surroundings because, although his family does not raise chickens, there are chickens raised in his neighbourhood," said Thawat Suntrajarn, head of the Health Ministry's Disease Control Department.

That would follow the usual pattern of human infections of the virus, which has not yet shown signs of evolving into a form which could pass easily from person to person.

Experts say that is the great fear. If the H5N1 virus did acquire that ability, it could set off a pandemic which could kill millions of people without immunity to the new strain.

The virus is now endemic in poultry in parts of Asia and countries around the world are preparing plans to deal with a pandemic that could cause massive economic losses as well as millions of deaths.

CHINA COVER-UP?

China has so far reported more than 30 outbreaks of bird flu and five cases where the virus spread to humans.

Beijing has promised resources and openness in fighting bird flu after being widely criticised for an initial cover-up of the SARS virus in 2003.

But a leading virologist claimed bird flu was "out of control in China".

"I don't know if they are brave enough to admit that they have the virus in every corner of the country," said Guan Yi of the University of Hong Kong, who the Globe said had analysed nearly 100,000 bird flu virus samples from across China.

"Quite honestly, some provinces have the virus and they still haven't announced any outbreak. I can show direct evidence, even though China is still trying very hard to block my research," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

BLEAK PICTURE

A pandemic could cause a serious recession in the U.S. economy, with immediate costs of between $500 and $675 billion, according to two new reports.

New Jersey based WBB Securities LLC predicted a pandemic could cause a one-year economic loss of $488 billion and a permanent economic loss of $1.4 trillion to the U.S. economy.

The World Bank has predicted a pandemic could cost the global economy $800 billion a year.

If the virus mutates into a form which passes between humans, it is likely to closely resemble the 1918 pandemic strain of flu that killed anywhere between 20 million and 100 million people, separate reports released by WBB and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said.

This means 30 percent of the population would be infected and more than 2 percent would die, the report from the CBO said.

"Further, CBO assumed that those who survived would miss three weeks of work, either because they were sick, because they feared the risk of infection at work, or because they needed to care of family or friends," the report reads.

The CBO said a pandemic could deal a $675 billion hit to the U.S. economy.