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‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for them

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[–] 18 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Seriously. This is going to make me start believing in Gaia Theory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It is demonstrably true that life on a planet alters the conditions of the planet (which then alters the life, etc). Most glaring is the abundance of oxygen in our atmosphere. We don't look for oxygen on other planets because oxygen is necessary for life; we look for oxygen because it's unlikely to exist in high densities without life to produce it.

    The sci-fi novel Death's End by Cixin Liu (third in a series) further suggests that life alters the universe rather than just local systems, which was a fun idea. He's a rather long-winded author, but he's easy to forgive.

    That said, this is the first time I'm hearing of the hypothesis by name, so I can't be sure what all it says. A quick skim lines up with reality though.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's more that life itself almost evolves an entire planet to best benefit life itself. Or that when life on the planet as whole is threatened, life evolves to address the crisis. For example, in the caboniferous, trees evolved undigestable lignin, and this caused a misbalance in nature as forests grew and died with nothing to digest the dead trees. In time, organisms arose that could digest wood, and the balance was restored.

    Here, the problem is greenhouse gas emissions. And meat consumption is one of the biggest drivers of meat consumption. So nature responds by making humans allergic to meat!

    The Gaia hypothesis is quite out there because it ascribes a sort of collective will or intention to nature, rather than just the blind machinations of evolution.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    The hypothesis kind of seems like selection bias to me. It seems more likely to me that in order for life to flourish as it has on earth, it has to (by pure chance) create a self regulating system, as otherwise it will eventually die off. What's interesting (and I hadnt thought about prior to reading the wikipedia article) to me is that it seems possible that the current rapid temperature rise will lead to some organism(s) we don't know or think about multiplying like crazy, and that has some form of cooling effect due to the organism's emissions or w/e. Industrialized humans appear to be the most extreme (in the sense of rapid, persistent change) climate event to happen to this planet since it has had life, but at the very least we're not the first time something fucked up the climate. Maybe we'll just get lucky after all.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I can fuck with this. Spookier if you consider humans.

    Neurodivergence (and all immune-mediated conditions) are increasing in response to the environment which results in people like Greta who directly resist the damage that’s causing the increased incidence.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Is it increasing or is testing for it increasing + becoming more socially visible?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Both.

    It's much harder to prove this for things like neurodivergence but easy to do so for things like autoimmune conditions, type-1 diabetes, MS, etc.

    And the fact that they're co-morbid isn't coincidence!

    https://me-pedia.org/wiki/RCCX_Genetic_Module_Theory

    The RCCX genetic module is a chimeric region that stays linked, adapts, and spits out mutations in response to environmental factors. Most complex gene cluster in our genome, in the most complex region, and state of the art techniques still struggle to sequence it in all its detail still. Recently shown to be behind sex biases in immune conditions by MIT. But personally I think it’s fascinating and meshes well with the Gaia hypothesis.

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