Back at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we published a few early blogs suggesting that our current ills might soon be eclipsed by even greater sorrows (LSS 20 4 20 et seq) Among these we listed nuclear war, magnetic flips and astronomical impacts. Now, just to show we’re still on our toes, comes a warning of further impending pandemics of awesome scope. And all the worse for being completely avoidable.
Writing in the Guardian, John Vidal suggests that the evils of habitat destruction and industrial farming are nurturing the potential of a zoonotic plague which will fell us all in hecatombs. [1] It’s not that we want to run a spoiler on John’s piece, which is excellently written, but bits like this are too good to miss:
Pandemics kill far more people and cost economies more than war, but no government or global body at present plans to address the underlying cause of Covid-19 or the question of why outbreaks of major new infectious diseases like HIV/Aids, Ebola, Marburg, avian flu, Sars, Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), mpox and Nipah have all emerged in the past 50 years.
There’s nothing new in zoonotic disease. Many common diseases like tuberculosis, smallpox, the common cold, flu and measles have their origins in the Neolithic, when humans first began living in close proximity to vast groups of tightly-packed animals. [2] It’s just that current practice is on such a vast scale, with so little regard for sustainability with with such well-entrenched media and political protection that makes it so much more dangerous. If you have children or grandchildren that you love, read John’s article. And if you think that we didn’t warn you-well he did. [3]
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/04/deadly-pandemic-inevitable-avoid
[2] Porter, Roy Breve Historia de la Medicina Taurus 2003
[3] LSS 9 2 21 Deforestation
#sars #pandemic #covid-19 #virus #bacteria #ecological destruction #factory farming #avian flu
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