The Pandemic Is Not a Natural Disaster

By -

Zoonotic diseases can seem like earthquakes; they appear to be random acts of nature. In fact, they are more like hurricanes—they can occur more frequently, and become more powerful, if human beings alter the environment in the wrong ways. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that three-quarters of the “new or emerging” diseases that infect human beings have originated in wild or domesticated animals.⁠ In addition to the familiar pathogens—Ebola, Zika, avian flu, swine flu—researchers have counted around two hundred other infectious diseases that have broken out more than twelve thousand times over the past three decades.⁠ It’s no small feat to cross the species barrier; these numbers speak to the scale of our agricultural system.

Infectious diseases are only one aspect of a larger, ongoing health emergency. Two-thirds of cancers have their origins in environmental toxins, accounting for millions of annual fatalities; each year, 4.2 million people die from complications of respiratory illnesses caused by airborne toxins—forty-five thousand in the U.S. alone. Marshall Burke, an assistant professor of earth systems at Stanford, has estimated that the reduction in pollution from the shutdown of factories in Wuhan has saved between fifty-one and seventy-three thousand lives in China–twenty times more people than the virus has killed in Hubei Province as of March 8th. ⁠“We have created a set of dangerous environments, and we can’t just keep imagining that we can exclude them or put them elsewhere,” Anna Tsing, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told me. The big lesson of the virus, she said, is that “there is no place to run.” In an effort to expand our reach across the planet, we have cornered ourselves.

The sars-CoV-2 pandemic is an unfolding, global tragedy. It’s also an occasion for thinking, in broad terms, about the currents in which we swim.

Read more here from the official website 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scientists warn worse pandemics are on the way if we don’t protect nature

By -
Image
·        Pandemics like COVID-19 could occur more frequently unless we stop rapidly destroying nature, a group of biodiversity experts has warned ·        1.7 million unidentified viruses, known to infect humans, are estimated to exist in mammals and water birds. ·        Rampant deforestation, agricultural expansion and infrastructure development bring us closer to catching them.   A group of biodiversity experts warned that future pandemics are on the horizon if mankind does not stop its rapid destruction of nature. "There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic – us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity – particularly our global financial and economic systems, based on a limited paradigm that prizes economic growth at any cost. We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the chal...
Read more

How has coronavirus affected rhinos?

By -
Image
Coronavirus has affected people all over the world but it's also had a knock on impact on animals like rhinos. Now that most of the world is in lockdown and people can't visit the reserves where they live, the money to help the rhinos has dried up. Money from tourism and conservation charities helps pay the wages of people who look after endangered rhinos and anti-poaching rangers who help protect the animals from harm. It's thought that because of this illegal poaching could increase - putting these animals at even more risk. More Reading Here 
Read more

Mangrove forest and its role to save people from cyclone

By -
Image
According to recent news, in the evening 20 May 2020, cyclone hit West Bengal, India , killing at least 12 people and causing damage that will go into billions of dollars when added up. The authorities had moved over 200,000 people from the coast into shelters before the cyclone reached the coast. That however, created a complication, because these shelters were already being used as Covid-19 quarantine centres, and now people are squashed in them without any prospect of keeping enough distance to avoid infection, though all have been given masks and asked to wear them at all times. That speed went down to around 130 kmph by the time Amphan reached Kolkata, 100 kilometres inland, but was still strong enough to destroy thousands of uncemented buildings, uproot thousands of trees, turn all roads into raging torrents and short-circuit transformers all over the metropolis though the authorities had switched off power. Without the barrier from trees , the speed of wind could be even stron...
Read more