Archive for April, 2009

Marcel Thilmany +26Apr2009

April 28, 2009

marcel_sharp

Marcel Thilmany, the technician of the computing department of the LCD, a big helper for meteoLCD and a good friend passed away the 26th April 2009, aged only 43.  He will be deeply missed for his friendship, courage and help.

Please read the obituary here.

Climate Change and Malaria

April 12, 2009

iwerliewen

I was an invited speaker at the 2nd International Congress on Tropical Diseases held in Luxembourg by the NGO “Iwerliewen fir bedreete Volleker” (translation from Luxembourgish:  “Survival for endangered populations”). I gave a short presentation on some aspects of climate change, and the historical facts that malaria is spreading when people are poor and suffer from bad governance and failing infrastructure. It is remarkable how many regions that are now malaria-free have badly suffered during the 19th and even 20th centuries. The alarm of GW activist that a slight GW (if it will happen!) will endanger regions that have a healthy population of plasmodium free anopheles seems more or less baseless. Paul Reiter from the Pasteur Institute is very vocal in condemning the simplistic (but fashionable) associations with malaria resurgence and temperature.

My Powerpoint presentation (in French) is here (6.5 MB).