Okay, a study confirms it. There, are you happy?
The human destruction of natural ecosystems increases the numbers of rats, bats and other animals that harbour diseases that can lead to pandemics such as Covid-19, a comprehensive analysis has found.
The research assessed nearly 7,000 animal communities on six continents and found that the conversion of wild places into farmland or settlements often wipes out larger species. It found that the damage benefits smaller, more adaptable creatures that also carry the most pathogens that can pass to humans.
The assessment found that the populations of animals hosting what are known as zoonotic diseases were up to 2.5 times bigger in degraded places, and that the proportion of species that carry these pathogens increased by up to 70% compared with in undamaged ecosystems.
Humans populations are being increasingly hit by diseases that originate in wild animals, such as HIV, Zika, Sars and Nipah virus. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, there have been a series of warnings from the UN and WHO that the world must tackle the cause of these outbreaks – the destruction of nature – and not just the health and economic symptoms.
In June, experts said the Covid-19 pandemic was an “SOS signal for the human enterprise”, while in April the world’s leading biodiversity experts said even more deadly disease outbreaks were likely unless nature was protected.I'll say it again. Mankind's tenure on planet Earth, our one and only biosphere, the life support system we share with every other lifeform, depends on one thing - our ability and willingness to live in harmony with nature.
Look at it this way. All these recent contagions have whittled down mankind's numbers by how much? They haven't. Our population has grown from 2.5 billion at my birth to nearly 8 billion today. That's 8 billion and still growing.
Now let's see how the rest of the planet is doing. Since 1970, when mankind transformed into environmental berserkers, also known as neoliberals, the overall populations of terrestrial and marine life have plummeted by 60 per cent and more.
Okay, let's swap places. Let's say human population had been slashed by 60 per cent since we embraced the neoliberal order. Instead of eight billion today, we'd be well under two billion. The world would probably be a far nicer place for all life on Earth just as it was in the 50s. There would be plenty of room, an abundance of resources, a healthy and stable environment, the "world would be our oyster" so to speak.
That's not what happened - at least not just yet. We could, however, restore Heaven on Earth if we just agreed to depopulate. We need to get back to around two billion. We've degraded the environment that about two billion humans is today's maximum carrying capacity.
Don't worry, that two billion target is not just doable, it's inevitable. We're going to get there - one way or the other. The question is whether it'll be on our terms or nature's. We still have the ability to drive at great speed right over the cliff, and we are on that course, but then nature, gravity, takes over.
UPDATE
If you like your science warnings in bullet form, here, fill your boots.
Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study.
Look, I could spend days posting links to scientific studies and reports, essays and news stories going back years, decades, that make the same points, sound the same warnings. If you don't like these links or if you want more, Google has it all at your fingertips.
The most important point, even more important than the dire warnings themselves, is that this is not going away. Shutting your eyes won't save you or your kids or your grandchildren. We've got just two choices - either a survivable crash landing or headfirst, a smoking hole in the ground.
Third to animals, second to over population humans are the dirtiest animal on the face of this earth and therefore the total problem to the survival of the human race.
ReplyDeleteWe do have it in our means to rectify the damage we've caused, at least sufficiently to ensure some future. All we're lacking is the willingness to change.
ReplyDeleteHow do we make that happen? Not from dancing around the light pole that is for sure. Grown people throwing their butts out their huge trucks makes me sick. Something as simple as that can’t be stopped. How in heck will people see the light...only when it causes them pain will it be seen. We need to be advertising all the time about the life line we are destroying......our earth, the place that feeds us. I wrote the above....Anyong
ReplyDeleteThe history of societal collapse reveals that the decisions that seal our fate are often taken in full awareness of the likely outcome. In a good proportion of those cases it is one generation taking a fateful decision to benefit itself knowing that what results in the long term will be borne by a future generation. Out of sight, out of mind. But, but, but, we might say, these are adverse consequences that will impact their great-grandkids. We have learned that, while our immediate interests are as solid as concrete, the reality of future generations, become more abstract the further off we perceive them.
ReplyDeleteIt could be said that the post-war generations have mastered the ability not only to take everything we can plunder from the present but as much as we can steal from future generations to boot. If that sounds too vague, consider the example of the environmental degradation we have bequeathed to those generations, not yet even in existence. We have despoiled the environment largely to expand our own consumption, comfort and ease, often in the realization the bill for it won't come due in our lifetimes.