Climate Change and Animal Health

It has been reported today that the UK has its first case of an animal disease called Blue Tongue. Over the last five years or so I have been hearing of this disease as it moved up from its normal area of impact around the Mediterranean Sea.

As the virus is carried by, and infection caused by a particular midge, it is only as a result of climate change that this condition has reached this country.

For this mouse, the fact that it infected one of the rare breeds, a Highland Cow, makes this even more poignant. As the farm where this has occurred are keeping rare breeds alive as well as farming in a very sustainable way.

This is not the first impact from Climate Change (Global Warming), nor will it be the last. But it should serve us all as a reminder that we all need to act now to combat climate change.

Another piece of news that many will have missed or ignored. Food prices are set to rise by at least ten percent as a direct result of climate change this year alone. This Mouse has always said that it would always be the economic impacts of our pollution our biosphere that we would see first. Well here it comes.