The Climate Crisis-Pandemic Link

The unsettling reason that climate change could lead to more pandemics; As the climate changes, wild animals and humans are apt to cross paths more often — opening the door for disease

Matthew Rosza, May 2, 2022 (Salon)

“…[As humanity careens toward a climate crisis, it is entirely possible] that a man-made event will lead to a pandemic, rather than a pandemic changing the course of man-made events…[A new paper argues] that as climate change worsens, animals will be forced to move out of their now-unlivable habitats. As they do this, mammals with foreign viromes (or the ecosystem of viruses that exist within their bodies) will have more opportunities to interact with both humans and other unfamiliar animals. This will give viruses more chances to either directly infect people or to do so by using another animal…

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…[This shows an] urgent need to pair viral surveillance and discovery efforts with biodiversity surveys tracking species' range shifts, especially in tropical regions that harbor the most zoonoses and are experiencing rapid warming…[A] similar process may have triggered the COVID-19 pandemic…[I]t is clear from DNA evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 previously evolved to live in bats and pangolins before spreading to humans…[Dr. Michael E. Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, and Dr. Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology, said] habitat destruction and deforestation as two among many variables…” click here for more

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