Global Warming Makes Uncooked (thai) Food Dangerous

[george]

Weather expert turns up heat on the dangers of eating raw food

Temperatures this year have been the highest for the past 50 years, with the average temperature increasing by one degree Celsius according to the Thai Meteorological Department Published on October 9, 2007

Chongkolnee Yusabye, director of the Meteorological Development Bureau, said that after monitoring the impact of global warming on Thailand for the past five years, the agency predicted that the impact of natural disasters would increase in future.

Chongkolnee was speaking at a seminar called "Life, shock, climate change: how to survive the impact of global warming", held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Krungthep Turakij newspaper, which is part of the Nation Multimedia Group

She said the average temperature across the country had increased in both the winter and summer seasons.

The average temperature last November was the highest for 56 years, up by 1.7 degrees Celsius on the average temperature for winter. The average temperature last December increased from 24 degrees Celsius to 25 Celsius.

Between 1951 and 2007 the number of cool days - classified as below 16 degrees Celsius - has decreased particularly in Chiang Rai and Nakhon Sawan provinces. Information from a monitoring station in Chiang Rai province found that the number of cool days had decreased from 90 days in 1951 to 70 days in 2007.

Chongkolnee said that average summer temperatures had risen, especially in Tak province, where the average temperature was 43.7 degrees Celsius in 1983 and 44 Celsius last April. The number of hot days in the province increased from 16 to 25, the highest number for 54 years, over the same period.

The second hottest province was Phetchabun, where the average temperature rose from 41.7 Celsius in 1992 to 42.1 Celsius in 2007, and the number of hot days from 14 to 24.

The rising temperatures across the country have prompted health experts to warn the public against eating under-cooked food, which could cause severe diarrhoea.

Dr Thirawat Hemachudha, a neurologist at Chulalongkorn University Hospital, said the Public Health Ministry should issue regulations to prevent restaurants from serving semi-cooked dishes like spicy raw meat salad.

Rising temperatures could affect the life cycle of E coli and V cholerae bacteria, particularly in half-cooked dishes. These parasites can cause severe diarrhoea, Thirawat said.

"If the temperature increases by 0.5-1.5 degrees Celsius it can affect the nature of the parasite. It can reproduce more easily and thus come into contact with humans more frequently," he said.

He said restaurant owners should take responsibility for treatment cost if customers suffered diarrhoea after eating under-cooked dishes. But those who eat dishes that are traditionally served raw or semi-cooked had to bear the responsibility themselves.

-- The Nation 2007-10-09

[khall64au]

Funny you should mention that George! Just a few weeks ago, I dined at a Phuket restaurant where my friend ordered Raw Prawns in Chili, garlic, lime marinade - a dish I have enjoyed for years here in Thailand. I actually ordered a new raw tuna salad dish. Yummo!!!

Upon enjoying his raw prawns, my friend almost instantly turned white and ran for the hong nam to regurgitate his gung.

The poor restaurant owner insisted the gung were bought fresh from the market that morning but deducted the dish from the bill.

Said friend left a few days later and I was left holding an invitation for a complimentary dinner back at the restaurant.

This past week, several members of my well-travelled family- here to visit me from Oz - have come down with severe gastro ailments whilst staying in Patong...

Of course my dad was happy - "I told you not to eat the street food"!!!!

[britmaveric]

Street food is yummy!!! Won't make me think differently - got ill when gf bought a hot dog in family mart. Fed me a few pieces.

[londonthai]

the country is going to be baked and flooded - for raw food there are fridges/freezers/cool boxes/ice, better hygiene practices than some 50 years ago. Nobody pushes you to eat from the street stalls you are not comfortable with.

[chownah]

The idea that global warming will make raw meat more unhealthy or dangerous to eat is totally absurd.....totally here meaning absolutely, completely, 100%,......absurd without remainder as the Buddha might say.

[TAWP]

"It's not our lack of food hygiene or standard, it's the weather."

//TAWP, just finished one week of food poisoning after eating a sandwich from 7/Eleven

[lazeeboy]

"It's not our lack of food hygiene or standard, it's the weather."

//TAWP, just finished one week of food poisoning after eating a sandwich from 7/Eleven

if you,ve lived in thailand awhile the food is not a problem ,just got here ,watch what you eat ,the worst is salad and fresh vegetables as they clean them in tap water .

[TAWP]

"Food isn't a problem" and "Just watch what you eat" isn't compatible.

[londonthai]

the only one time I do remember being sick after eating out was in London restaurant - and the seafood was cooked right on front of your eyes. Probably some fish was off and the frying time too short.

I don't remember that ever to me happening in thailand - but I do choose where I eat not purely on price but the reputation of the place.

[LifeConvo]

Temp changes in the last 50 years are not "global warming".

The overall global warming effect is visible over hundreds of years, not decades.

It's a total load of **** to say that 1C temp increase will cause more food poisonings.

My guess is that it was a slow news day.

[astral]

Come off it..........

Is ONE DEGREE celcius going to make that much difference??

I doubt it.

[popshirt]

if you,ve lived in thailand awhile the food is not a problem ,just got here ,watch what you eat ,the worst is salad and fresh vegetables as they clean them in tap water .

I've lived here a few years and always clean my salad and fresh vegetables in tap water. Never had a problem.

[jbowman1993]

Temp changes in the last 50 years are not "global warming".

The overall global warming effect is visible over hundreds of years, not decades.

It's a total load of **** to say that 1C temp increase will cause more food poisonings.

My guess is that it was a slow news day.

All of you "professors" who are still on the "global warming isn't real" bandwagon really need to the see "An Inconvenient Truth", the documentary concerning global warming with Al Gore.

The science is irrefutable and beyond question. Do you know how many scientific studies have been done on global warming in the past 40 years? Over 1000. How many refute the idea of global warming? Not one. Our children will pay a heavy price for our apathy, indifference, and greed. Anyone who continues to believe it's a "media conspiracy" is living in a dark box, in some dimension other than the one most of us inhabit.

[WaiWai]

BBC reports an accompanying increase in humidity, which might create bacteria-friendly conditions.

[plachon]

Temp changes in the last 50 years are not "global warming".

The overall global warming effect is visible over hundreds of years, not decades.

It's a total load of **** to say that 1C temp increase will cause more food poisonings.

My guess is that it was a slow news day.

All of you "professors" who are still on the "global warming isn't real" bandwagon really need to the see "An Inconvenient Truth", the documentary concerning global warming with Al Gore.

The science is irrefutable and beyond question. Do you know how many scientific studies have been done on global warming in the past 40 years? Over 1000. How many refute the idea of global warming? Not one. Our children will pay a heavy price for our apathy, indifference, and greed. Anyone who continues to believe it's a "media conspiracy" is living in a dark box, in some dimension other than the one most of us inhabit.

Funny you should mention that film Mr Spock, as there was a piece in the news in Britain today (can't find link I'm afraid) that said a judge had decided that "An Inconvenient Truth" was not totally factual in 9 points of the script, which were faithfully listed. Apparently it was in the dock as some headteacher in Kent (presumably a global warming sceptic) had complained to the govt. about showing Al Gore's films in schools. So they faifthfully scrutinised it and came out with the above mentioned finding that in nine bits the film was prone to a bit of exaggeration or not totally, 100 % scientific, but the overall message and content of the film was deemed suitable for the impressionable youth of Britain to see.

It should also be mentioned that the British government's chief scientific advisor has on several occasions said that the threat of global warming and climate change is a far more serious and potentially lethal challenge to humanity than terrorism. Now that's something for the sceptics to think about.

[londonthai]

looks like thai scientists can think no further that the plate of food on front of them

[jbowman1993]

Temp changes in the last 50 years are not "global warming".

The overall global warming effect is visible over hundreds of years, not decades.

It's a total load of **** to say that 1C temp increase will cause more food poisonings.

My guess is that it was a slow news day.

All of you "professors" who are still on the "global warming isn't real" bandwagon really need to the see "An Inconvenient Truth", the documentary concerning global warming with Al Gore.

The science is irrefutable and beyond question. Do you know how many scientific studies have been done on global warming in the past 40 years? Over 1000. How many refute the idea of global warming? Not one. Our children will pay a heavy price for our apathy, indifference, and greed. Anyone who continues to believe it's a "media conspiracy" is living in a dark box, in some dimension other than the one most of us inhabit.

Funny you should mention that film Mr Spock, as there was a piece in the news in Britain today (can't find link I'm afraid) that said a judge had decided that "An Inconvenient Truth" was not totally factual in 9 points of the script, which were faithfully listed. Apparently it was in the dock as some headteacher in Kent (presumably a global warming sceptic) had complained to the govt. about showing Al Gore's films in schools. So they faifthfully scrutinised it and came out with the above mentioned finding that in nine bits the film was prone to a bit of exaggeration or not totally, 100 % scientific, but the overall message and content of the film was deemed suitable for the impressionable youth of Britain to see.

It should also be mentioned that the British government's chief scientific advisor has on several occasions said that the threat of global warming and climate change is a far more serious and potentially lethal challenge to humanity than terrorism. Now that's something for the sceptics to think about.

Perhaps. Certainly it would be interesting to see those points, if you can locate them. If 1000 years from now it turns out that global warming was much ado about nothing, than we can all have a big laugh and go about our business. But on the other hand, if the surface ice in Greenland has melted (which it's already doing) and the ocean level raises 20 feet (which would put Bangkok pretty much underwater), it will be our children and future generations who pay the price for our arrogance in the face of nature.

[TAWP]

jbowman1993: the statement that a global warming catastrophy is comming is false. Most predictions even talk about 1-6cm if heightened waterheight in 50 years, not 10 meters or whatever Gore spat out.

Besides, the majority of the scientist does NOT support that there is overwelming evidence of a manmade global warming problem. Read the topic in forum-47 for more info.

[plachon]

jbowman1993: the statement that a global warming catastrophy is comming is false. Most predictions even talk about 1-6cm if heightened waterheight in 50 years, not 10 meters or whatever Gore spat out.

Besides, the majority of the scientist does NOT support that there is overwelming evidence of a manmade global warming problem. Read the topic in forum-47 for more info.

No.............you're pretty safe there because the majority of scientists don't work as climatologists.................but...............the scientific concensus in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a UN body that is represented by climatologists from around the world and just won the Nobel Prize for Peace today.............is that the world is getting warmer as a result of human activity and this could have serious repercussions to mankind in future, unless we do something about it now. It's not rocket science, it's quite simple stuff and can be found in elementary science textbooks available for children in primary school. Go on TAWP, overcome your fear of "science" and take a trip down to your friendly local library and read a few books, as at the moment you come across like a Flat Earther or Creationist.

Here's a link on the story I mentioned for JBowman

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...bias/article.do

And yes, I admit it, I was inexcusably inaccurate when I said "head teacher" from Kent, instead of "school governor".

[plachon]

And the points of contention were (From today's Grauniad):

The nine points: fact or fallacy?

· The film claimed that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" - but there was no evidence of any evacuation occurring

· It spoke of global warming "shutting down the ocean conveyor" - the process by which the gulf stream is carried over the north Atlantic to western Europe. The judge said that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it was "very unlikely" that the conveyor would shut down in the future, though it might slow down

· Mr Gore had also claimed - by ridiculing the opposite view - that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed "an exact fit". The judge said although scientists agreed there was a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts"

· Mr Gore said the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to human-induced climate change. The judge said the consensus was that that could not be established

· The drying up of Lake Chad was used as an example of global warming. The judge said: "It is apparently considered to be more likely to result from ... population increase, over-grazing and regional climate variability"

· Mr Gore ascribed Hurricane Katrina to global warming, but there was "insufficient evidence to show that"

· Mr Gore also referred to a study showing that polar bears were being found that had drowned "swimming long distances to find the ice". The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm"

· The film said that coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors. The judge said separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution, was difficult

· The film said a sea-level rise of up to 20ft would be caused by melting of either west Antarctica or Greenland in the near future; the judge ruled that this was "distinctly alarmist"

· This article was amended on Friday October 12 2007. A panel in the article above listing the significant errors found by a high court judge in Al Gore's documentary on global warming was labelled The nine points, but contained only eight. The point we omitted was that the film said a sea-level rise of up to 20ft would be caused by melting of either west Antarctica or Greenland in the near future; the judge ruled that this was "distinctly alarmist". The missing point has been added

The judge nevertheless admitted:

Despite his finding of significant errors, Mr Justice Barton said many of the claims made by the film were supported by the weight of scientific evidence and he identified four main hypotheses, each of which is very well supported "by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC [intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]."

All in all, Al Gore didn't come off too badly considering and got a Nobel Prize for his efforts. A more pertinent question is whether Creationism should be taught in schools as a counter view to evolution, or in some US states (Utah?), should evolution theory be taught as counter view to creationism?

And just to bring this semi back on topic, what do Thai schools teach on climate change?

[TAWP]

plachon>> This really isn't the thread to argue this and there is already one, which contains links and reports disputing what you claim, in the subforum mentioned above. As it stands I don't have to convince you of anything, you are free to think what you want.

Just avoid making blanket statements that aren't true. And to restate what you said, get educated. (And learn more about the IPCC and the hockeystick to begin with...)

Edited October 14, 2007 by TAWP

[londonthai]

OK, there is no global warming, but certainly there is thailand warming, so at least South East Asia is warming.

should we do something about it or ignore it?

She said the average temperature across the country had increased in both the winter and summer seasons.

The average temperature last November was the highest for 56 years, up by 1.7 degrees Celsius on the average temperature for winter. The average temperature last December increased from 24 degrees Celsius to 25 Celsius.

Between 1951 and 2007 the number of cool days - classified as below 16 degrees Celsius - has decreased particularly in Chiang Rai and Nakhon Sawan provinces. Information from a monitoring station in Chiang Rai province found that the number of cool days had decreased from 90 days in 1951 to 70 days in 2007.

Chongkolnee said that average summer temperatures had risen, especially in Tak province, where the average temperature was 43.7 degrees Celsius in 1983 and 44 Celsius last April. The number of hot days in the province increased from 16 to 25, the highest number for 54 years, over the same period.

The second hottest province was Phetchabun, where the average temperature rose from 41.7 Celsius in 1992 to 42.1 Celsius in 2007, and the number of hot days from 14 to 24.

[TAWP]

Ofcourse there is 'global warming', otherwise this planet would be dead...

[plachon]

plachon>> This really isn't the thread to argue this and there is already one, which contains links and reports disputing what you claim, in the subforum mentioned above. As it stands I don't have to convince you of anything, you are free to think what you want.

Just avoid making blanket statements that aren't true. And to restate what you said, get educated. (And learn more about the IPCC and the hockeystick to begin with...)

Would you care to be more specific about the "blanket statements" you think aren't true? Thank you for your advice to "get educated", so I took it and found this at top of a google search:

From BBCNews Monday, 16 August, 2004, 14:36 GMT 15:36 UK

Climate legacy of 'hockey stick'

The IPCC's version showed temperature variation over 1,000 years

Enlarge Image

There are few more provocative symbols in the debate over global warming than the "hockey stick".

The hockey stick was a term coined for a chart of temperature variation over the last 1,000 years, which suggested a recent sharp rise in temperature caused by human activities.

The chart is relatively flat from the period AD 1000 to 1900, indicating that temperatures were relatively stable for this period of time. The flat part forms the stick's "shaft".

But after 1900, temperatures appear to shoot up, forming the hockey stick's "blade".

The temperature chart originates from two seminal research papers published in Nature in 1998 and Geophysical Research Letters in 1999 by Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, Ray Bradley of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Malcolm Hughes of the University of Arizona.

Even if more data is added, I would be surprised if it changed the shape of that curve much

Joyce Penner, University of Michigan

The high-profile publication of the data led to the "hockey stick" being used as a key piece of supporting evidence in the third assessment report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001, which offered a stark warning to policymakers of the urgency for action on reducing greenhouse emissions.

The authors drew on a variety of sources that give information on past climate to reconstruct their temperature patterns.

These included tree rings, ice cores, coral, instrumental data and historical records.

The data led the researchers to the inevitable conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions were the dominant factor influencing climate variability in the 20th Century, a standpoint that remains hotly contested by some scientists.

Potent symbol

Over the years, the chart has gradually become a potent symbol of man's impact on global climate in the post-industrial age.

Ever since the publication of Mann, Bradley and Hughes' data, global warming sceptics have tried to chip away at this record. And in a recent article published by the National Center for Policy Analysis think tank one scientist even claimed that the hockey stick had been "broken".

Professor David R. Legates of the University of Delaware claims flaws in the data and methods used to fashion the hockey stick mean it can no longer be viewed as valid.

The temperature record uses data from many sources including ice cores

"There is an exaggeration of recent trends, suggesting that 1998 was the warmest year, and that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium," Dr Legates told BBC News Online.

"There is an underestimation of the uncertainty, because they did not take into account other errors associated with estimating large-scale trends and temperature from observational data."

The central thrust of Legates' article is rejected by other climate scientists, who claim that the sudden upsurge in temperatures since 1900 is all too real.

"This isn't a scientific paper, it's absolutely awful," said Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK.

Professor Jones and Mann extended the 1,000-year temperature record back to AD 200 for a research paper published in 2003. But the sharp warming trend in the post-industrial age was still clear.

Future warning

Jones says that all the evidence points to temperatures rising by about two tenths of a degree C per decade for the foreseeable future.

In an article in the publication Energy and Environment, Legates and fellow climate scientists Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas criticised Mann and Jones' chart for leaving out the so-called Medieval Warm Period (AD 800 to 1400) and the Little Ice Age (AD 1600 to 1850).

But other researchers, such as Dr Joyce Penner of the University of Michigan said they were not convinced by the case they made.

Some scientists believe that the timing of these cold and warm periods varied geographically over the globe in a considerable way.

Professor Jones wants to look for long-lived trees in areas such as Alaska

There have been other criticisms. This year, David Chapman, Marshall Bartlett and Robert Harris criticised the decision to exclude borehole data from one version of the temperature chart devised by Mann and Gavin Schmidt.

By measuring temperatures in holes drilled in the ground scientists can construct a pattern of underground temperature variation to calculate the extent to which Earth's climate has warmed or cooled over hundreds of years.

But Professor Jones explains that there were valid reasons for excluding this data; namely that boreholes produce fewer data points to study than some of the other evidence included in the study.

In addition, borehole data can be influenced by changes in vegetation at the surface, Jones explains:

"If an area was forested in the 17th Century, then that surface is denuded, then that will go into the borehole and the signal will change."

Ongoing search

For Professor Jones, the priority now is obtaining as much data as he can to reduce the error bars in the chart.

He is working to obtain so-called dendroclimatic, or tree-ring, data from long-lived trees in Russia, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Tasmania and North America. He also wants to obtain more data from corals as well as documentary evidence from China and Japan.

Dr Legates says he has preliminary calculations that indicate the uncertainty in Mann and Jones' record is probably twice as large as they indicate.

This, he suggests, means that recent temperature trends do not show unprecedented global warming. Professor Legates adds that he plans to work on his analysis for publication in a scientific journal.

But Joyce Penner thinks the signs are that the analysis behind the chart of temperature variation is sound:

"Even if more data is added, I would be surprised if it changed the shape of that curve much. There is such a strong difference between pre-industrial behaviour and the growth during the last 100 years or so," she said.

Other searches of the opposing view to anthropogenic climate warming have yet to convince me, or the majority of the wordwide scientific community, that the world is not getting significantly warmer and we (specifically, industrial societies) are not mainly to blame. Furthermore, much of the opposing view's research is funded by the oil industry, which calls into question its impartiality and lowers its validity.

Edited October 14, 2007 by plachon

[TAWP]

I said educated, not googlecated. The hockeystick-slide was even removed from the political, not sciencebased, IPCC's documents since it was deemed to be incorrect.

Again, go to the relevant threads in the subforum instead. This is offtopic.

[plachon]

I said educated, not googlecated. The hockeystick-slide was even removed from the political, not sciencebased, IPCC's documents since it was deemed to be incorrect.

Again, go to the relevant threads in the subforum instead. This is offtopic.

Funny, I thought this thread was about global warming. Go back to the headline TAWP and note how the figures generally gel with the "hockey stick" theory, which is far from being debunked but is being confirmed and strengthened by findings worldwide like this. To say it is not "science-based" is laughable and exposes your own simple ignorance of current scientific research. Only a vocal minority of scientists and non-scientists (like Christopher Monckton recently, who uses his title to try and bolster his credibility) now try to deny the reality of gobal warming and its causes.

And like I said, try picking up a few basic textbooks on such theories as "global warming", the "greenhouse effect", the "ozone hole" and start joining the dots. You'd be doing yourself a favour.

[Tony Clifton]

Even without 100% proof that humans are responsible for global warming, why ignore the small percentage that we may be partly responsible for it?

Mostly anyone would react immediately at his/her doctor's mention of serious disease and act immediately. Same thing here on a bigger scale. Inaction is madness.

[Scott]

Wow, surely someone out there can find the correct and difinitive answer to this debate in the Bible!

In the meantime, I'll heed the good Dr.'s advice and stay away from those foods--which shouldn't be too difficult because I don't like them.

[TAWP]

Even without 100% proof that humans are responsible for global warming, why ignore the small percentage that we may be partly responsible for it?

Mostly anyone would react immediately at his/her doctor's mention of serious disease and act immediately. Same thing here on a bigger scale. Inaction is madness.

I agree, and proactive research is the key. Not defensive measures of shutting down industries and stopping research - that is only going to slow down the process, not revert it. Over the last 100 years we have steadidly, in the market itself, been effecticising and improving the manufaturing efficiency processes for each item of gods - this was done due to market forces, not government regulations.

[londonthai]

it's the very market forces which are chopping down and burning tropical forests; releasing into the athmosphere chemicals thinning the ozon leyer; growing huge herds of cattle producing methan; flying airplanes on untaxed, cheap aviation fuel.

those same market forces are producing goods with the only purpose to sell them for profit, without any concern for the environment or the waste of energy - the majority of the human economic activity is a waste, not producing any usuful goods