The Washington Post's environmental health and policy columnist Chelsea Harvey says climate change could worsen the spread of the mosquito-borne virus Zika, currently the subject of several travel advisories.

Or, maybe it won't. It's just a hunch.

But Harvey, with the help of University of Arizona professor and epidemiologist Heidi Brown, makes the case anyhow. All the proof she needs is that mosquitos thrive in warm, moist climates, and a steadfast belief in global warming.

Harvey writes:

In recent years, researchers have increasingly devoted themselves to the investigation of how future climate scenarios might affect these mosquito populations. And many have concluded that a warmer world is likely to be a boon to the bugs, allowing them [to] reproduce faster, emerge earlier in the season, survive longer and even spread northward. 

The appearance of Zika in the Americas, where it was likely carried by travelers from the eastern hemisphere, thus adds one more disease to the list of potential public health concerns under a warming scenario.

So, climate change is happening now and we're told these are "some of the warmest temperatures on record," but the Zika virus was brought here by "travelers." Got it.

Then the "expert" speaks, chiming in that "the issue is not as simple as it looks":

While a warmer climate may be a plus for mosquitoes, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a plus in all ways for the transmission of pathogens they carry.

The thing to remember, according to Brown, is that mosquitoes are not just “flying syringes.” In order to spread disease, they must first consume the blood of an infected person — and survive the encounter. They must then live long enough for the virus to make it out of their gut and up into their salivary glands. And then they must bite another, uninfected human and infect them.

In other words, A LOT of factors have to be just right. But that doesn't throw the narrative off course:

So access to humans is key for mosquitoes to spread disease. And as Brown pointed out, the changing climate is also likely to have effects on human behavior, in a way that may or may not make it easier for mosquitoes to get to them.

To that end, Brown explains that human behavior also changes as the weather changes. For example, if it's hot outside and the mosquitos are buzzing, humans will go inside where there is air conditioning and avoid the risk of being bitten. And with that being only one of the endless scenarios of bug-to-human interaction, all they can admit is, "it would be difficult to come up [with] a truly accurate projection for how a disease will spread."

Harvey even cites a 2013 report that solidifies the fact that too many "complex dynamics" exist between humans and ecology to understand or model a realistic outcome. But that's okay, because the minds of Harvey and Brown are made up -- or at least they are "fairly confident" that climate change will have a severe impact on mosquito-borne diseases.

See? The science is settled.