March 28th 2007
Deadly Global Warming Jellyfish Delay Hollywood Filming
Filed under: healthy living, movies — michael @ 5:22 pm
Attack of the global warming jellyfish! That’s one thing Al Gore left off his presentation.
According to the UK Telegraph, filming on the romantic movie Fool’s Gold starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey has been delayed due to a highly-toxic jellyfish infiltrating warmer waters. From the article,
“A deadly species of jellyfish, translucent and the size of a thumbnail, is spreading along Australia’s coastline as a result of global warming, scientists warned today. Irukandji jellyfish are among the world’s most toxic creatures – all but impossible to detect in the water but packing a potentially lethal punch belying their tiny size.”
Apparently, Hudson and McConaughey were scheduled to start filming in the water but are now stuck waiting for an “all clear”. The crew are working on Queensland’s Fraser Island; about 400 miles south of the Irukandji’s normal habitat. I’ve got some news for Hudson and McConaughey — the jellyfish aren’t your only threat.
See, I’ve been to Fraser Island. It’s this absolutely gorgeous remote place that screams “paradise”. However, Fraser is also known for its off-shore reputation of sharks. Lots of ‘em. I took an airplane ride above the waters around the island and actually pointed out several fairly close to shore. So, if the jellyfish don’t get you, the sharks might. Regardless of impacts to filming, this development is pretty serious for water sports around the eastern shore.
“Increased sea temperatures caused by global warming would extend the species’ range south, Dr Seymour said. But the tourism industry said it would be alarmist and premature to warn tourists of the new threat to their safety. ‘We don’t want a perception to spread that every Sunshine Coast beach is a killing field,’ said Daniel Gschwind, the head of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council”
True, but I’m not so sure if I want to go swimming anymore.
Thanks to Shea for the tip!
I am planning on writing about this within the coming week on my Global Warming blog: http://www.globalwarming-factorfiction.com and I will be filing it under the Ridiculous category. While I am sure that the jelly fish are causing great inconvenience to the local businesses, what factual evidence is there that this migration has anything to do with global warming - answer:NONE.
[...] a surfer, always a surfer. Just watch out for those jellyfish, Jack. [...]
[...] As we mentioned last year, during the filming of Fool’s Gold starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, things got a little sticky after the waters the two were in became infested with killer jellyfish. This ultimately delayed filming and caused producers to shift locations various times to avoid any fatal mishaps. The little killers in question are called irukandji and are no bigger than the size of a fingernail. As if that alone didn’t make them hard enough to spot, they’re also translucent. [...]
Sean O says on, there is many headlines blaming the environment for increase of Jellyfish.
Scientists blame the problem in part on overfishing, which has sapped stocks of natural jellyfish predators like tuna and turtles, and of small fish that compete with jellyfish to feed on plankton.
Another factor is global warming: jellyfish are drifting close to beaches more frequently as decreasing rainfall causes a drop in cooler, freshwater runoff from rivers — a natural barrier for the creatures.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19170076/
Now we can see Jellyfish mid winter in Oslo, Norway. And that is very unusual for Norway. normally they are gone in Oktober.