Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently Smallpox, Polio, Malaria, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever and the Black Death were the feeble products of the pre-pandemic world, before global warming made things worse.
How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era
A warming world is expanding the range of deadly diseases and risking an explosion of new zoonotic pathogens from the likes of bats, mosquitoes, and ticks
By JEFF GOODELL
DECEMBER 7, 2020 7:00AM ETJennifer Jones spent most of her summer at home, as so many of us did, trying to avoid the plague. Jones, 45, lives in Tavernier, a community in the Florida Keys just south of Key Largo, and passed a lot of time in her yard, puttering around with plants. At some point, a mosquito landed on her. That’s not unusual in Florida, and Jones doesn’t remember this mosquito bite in particular. But it was not a garden-variety backyard mosquito. It was Aedes aegypti, an exquisitely designed killing machine that is one of the most deadly animals in human history. By one count, half the people who have ever lived have been killed by mosquito-borne pathogens. Aedes aegypti, which first arrived in North America on slave ships in the 17th century, is capable of carrying a whole arsenal of dangerous diseases, from yellow fever to Zika.
…
The Covid-19 pandemic is often compared to the 1918 influenza, which killed at least 50 million people globally. But it is perhaps more accurately seen as a preview of what’s to come. “We have entered a pandemic era,” wrote Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in a recent paper he co-authored with his NIAID colleague David Morens. The paper cites HIV/AIDS, which has so far killed at least 37 million, as well as “unprecedented pandemic explosions” of the past decade. It’s a deadly list, starting with the H1N1 “swine” influenza in 2009, chikungunya in 2014, and Zika in 2015. Ebola fever has burned in large parts of Africa for the past six years. In addition, there are seven different known coronaviruses that can infect humans. SARS-CoV spilled over from an animal host, likely a civet cat, in 2002–03, and caused a near-pandemic before disappearing. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus jumped from camels to people in 2012, but never found a way to spread efficiently among humans, and died out quickly. Now we have SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
The reasons for this new era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis, which is shaking up the natural world and rewriting disease algorithms on the planet. Thawing permafrost in the Arctic is releasing pathogens that haven’t seen daylight for tens of thousands of years. The Vibrio bacteria that causes cholera, a diarrheal disease that haunted big cities like London and New York in the 19th century and still kills tens of thousands each year, thrives in warmer water. An even more deadly strain of the same bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus, while rare, has been detected more and more frequently in bays and estuaries on the East Coast, particularly around Chesapeake Bay. Vibrio vulnificus, if you happen to eat shellfish, might give you a bad stomachache (in rare cases, it can be fatal). If the bacteria gets in a cut or wound, however, it becomes a flesh-eating horror and kills one in five people who come in contact with it.
…
Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
I really wish greens would stop pushing the falsehood that mosquitoes and mosquito borne diseases need a warm climate to thrive.
During the depths of the Little Ice Age, Malaria was an endemic killer in Northern Europe. It didn’t matter that far Northern Little Ice Age Summers were short, and that the climate was freezing cold most of the year. All the Malaria mosquitoes needed was a few weeks of adequately warm weather in Summer, to breed and infest the far North with deadly pathogens.
Mosquitoes are still a problem in the far North. Anyone who thinks mosquitoes are in short supply in the Arctic because of the cold climate should try visiting in late Spring / early Summer. Some of the prolific clouds of mosquitoes which thrive in cold climates are capable of carrying Malaria and other dangerous pathogens.
As for the impact of Global Warming on Covid-19, there is strong evidence Covid-19 prefers cold, dry winter weather. According to the University of Sydney, high humidity drags Covid-19 virions out of the air, dramatically reducing the risk of transmission.
… Professor Ward said there are biological reasons why humidity matters in transmission of airborne viruses.
“When the humidity is lower, the air is drier and it makes the aerosols smaller,” he said. “When you sneeze and cough those smaller infectious aerosols can stay suspended in the air for longer. That increases the exposure for other people. When the air is humid and the aerosols are larger and heavier, they fall and hit surfaces quicker.” …
Read more: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/06/02/winter-time-could-be-covid-19-time.html
If we want to get rid of Covid-19, and reduce our risk of exposure to all airborne respiratory virus infections, including viruses yet to be discovered. we need more hot, humid weather.
Bring on the global warming.
The headline reads, “Fauci: ‘We have entered the Pandemic Era’ because of Climate Change”
Propaganda on top of propaganda. (Research used for political reasons = propaganda.)
Fauci’s credibility was low before this, but now it has dropped into negative numbers.
Regards,
Bob
But, with Biden, Fauci Rules will rule.
Faici is a complete fraud. he may have done good work on HIV, but he has since sold out to Big Pharma and now spouting only lies.
He is lying. No one knows what a “pandemic era” is let alone can detect one. Just like the global warming tipping points, we would have had them already, if they existed, because the planet has been much warmer than now many times in the not too distant past, the last 10,000 years.
He is an evil man and also a cosmic joke as he has positioned himself to ruin the world with bad advice.
He didn’t do good work on HIV. He’s always been a fraud.
didn’t he just plagiarise the French researcher who really did the work and then try to publish first? Since US has more weight than France, they ended up having to “share” the recognition.
Faux-xi always was a cheat a liar and a fraud. Nothing new to see.
Welcome to the Pandemocene.
That’s correct. Fauci said that HIV was predominantly not a gay disease and that 30 million Americans would eventually be infected. He should have been fired decades ago.
They sure have the people pegged. Fools herding fools.
Politics 101….
If your planning for extreme events proves to be inadequate….blame climate change.
Or just skip the planning and blame climate change anyway
Fauci is NOT a fool. He is raking in the money and also power. Unfortunately, the President is a fool as he has been badly advised to listen to Fauci. He is evil.
You are right Charles, Follow the Money!
And who is printing the money ?
Read the paper – it doesnt at all say what this report claims.
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)31012-6.pdf
If we’re going to hang Fauci let’s not fabricate false evidence
From the Rolling Stone article:
“The reasons for this era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis, which is shaking up the natural world and rewriting disease algorithms on the planet”
First time I read “Fauci and Morens”
I read it as “Fauci and Morons”
The rolling stone writer is making it up. Read the paper itself. Lots of info about pandemics through history but nowhere is climate change or climate crisis referenced. Not even in the paragraphs about environmental conditions. Always check the media, they are usually misinformed or lying. It is obvious the writer of this article hasn’t read the Morens-Fauci paper either.
I read the paper before commenting. Fauci uses the term, environment, numerous times. I assume Jeff Goodell made the leap to climate change.
But the point, have you contacted the writer or the Rolling Stone editor informing them the article incorrectly misrepresented the paper?
Most readers here know it happens all the time.
Yes, and that’s odd because the paper that this article refers to makes zero mention of “climate change” or “global warming”. You would think if that was something the authors believed influenced pandemics they would have mentioned it in the published paper. It’s almost as though the Rolling Stone author got this quote out of Fauci to push his agenda, not Fauci’s.
There is no quote from Fauci other than “We have entered a pandemic era”. Mr. Worrall’s headline is meant to confuse.
Googling “Fauci” and “climate change” yields hundreds of links to people trying to smuggle Fauci’s name into their own agendas. But probably because of the browser’s patronization of the breathless AGW-ers, it is difficult to find anything Fauci himself has said about climate change. Maybe he’s said something. Maybe he hasn’t. But it sure as heck is NOT in the article linked by the writers at Rolling Stone. Nor does Mr. Worrall make that clear. Fauci is certainly an icon for a lot of people on the left. But for that we’re supposed to hate him?
Yes, maybe a better title would be “We have entered the pandemic era because of modernity.”
Yes, because of global air travel.
If you had to trek thousands of miles on foot to get some where else, you’d either be dead from the virus you were carrying, or it would have run its course before you got anywhere.
Yes, that is it exactly….guess Fauci never even considered the Wright brothers’ invention when factoring reasons why diseases move around the planet so quickly. Such a simple explanation that doesn’t require a bunch of exotic reasons.
mr. moffat: A very quick read indicates to me that it is not in this article. Another commenter (luv u guys) found it in another article. The post doesn’t say it’s in this paper. A classic and highly unethical maneuver, don’t put in the peer-reviewed work, just tell the reporter and the story will have a climate-change flavor without exposing the authors to scientific rigor that might be applied to their work.
This reminds me of the whole Katrina meme, “we can see climate change here and now”. Gore et al made the mistake of pressing the IPCC to say so. Ultimately the IPCC debunked it based in part on the models, we had only warmed .1 C (or whatever) in the models (observations showed a pause, dammit!), not enough to affect hurricanes. The debunking was duly ignored, and warmistas and their press acolytes continue to this day with this nonsense, undeterred by the IPCC.
So, no surprise that Fauci follows the meme rather than the science. Even in the models, we have not warmed enough to make pandemics worse. Fauci could find that out if he chose to, but he chooses- not. Maybe he’s a good doctor, but he’s a lousy activist. I wouldn’t take his advice on how to wipe a bottom.
You’re absolutely right. I searched the paper for “climate”. There’s just one occurrence in this sentence:
“Some of these features(e.g., ease of detecting disease and immunity, seasonality in tropical versus temperate climates) are subjective and situationally variable; see text andreferences for the individual diseases.”
No mention of climate change.
The word “global” occurs frequently, but with no connection to global warming.
So, if Fauci believes pandemics are or will get worse due to climate change, it’s remarkable that there’s no mention of it in this paper.
It’s worth looking at the quoted article, which is quite long. It quotes Fauci several times, but in no quotation does he mention climate change. In one quote he does mention human changes to the environment, which is obviously correct. Environmental factors e.g. large bodies of still water are important. But I repeat: in no actual quotation does Fauci mention climate change. The writer of the article simply made it.
The article does include quite a lot of climate change nonsense unrelated to Fauci. One example: a scientist claims that people – particularly poor people – will suffer more from viruses due to hunger caused by climate change. Of course, that’s a complete lie. Globally, the world is producing more food per head of population than ever before. Farm productivity has been increasing for many decades. A recent large NASA study showed that the planet is dramatically greening and the main driver of this is increased CO2.
In a nutshell, the article is full of climate change propaganda based on lies and exaggeration.
After a bit of googling I haven’t found an actual quote in which Fauci claims any link with climate change. Can anyone find such a quote?
Chris Wright
I agree with you, Bob, and see this essay he co-authored as another example of how far from the Infectious Disease field he has wandered into the Politicized Medicine for Fun and Profit field. I do not trust him at all.
I second that thought, Bob. Fauci is one of the worst charlatans around.
Best wishes to you.
Gee, who’d a thought Fauci was a hack?
Dr. Grouchy should have been fired decades ago. He gives wrong advice, pretends to be an expert on a new pandemic still in progress, and then reverses hs own advice. Typical goobermint bureaucrat.
Fauci said nothing about “climate crisis”, climate change, or any kind of warming in the article. The Fake News Rolling Stone made that up.
I am not a Fauci’s fan, but (Morens, Fauci, Sep-2020) is a sound scientific paper, well worth reading.
This is how the Fake News & Big Tech, supporting it, sow division & conflict.
The single worst mistake Trump made, listening to this Democrat.
Erm, 1348 Black Death et al dates as well as say 1665 The Plague et al dates were during the Little Ice Age. The problem with lefty idiots is that they didn’t pay attention in school. Their attention span is about five minutes. They never ‘read around the subject’. They die alone and ignorant.
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.
Agree.
The biggest pandemic the world is facing is the pandemic of outright ignorance of the science governing climate change and what humans could possibly do to modify such if they wanted to.
The biggest pandemic the world is facing is the pandemic of outright ignorance
You could have stopped there.
Example of a lefty teacher: https://rumble.com/embed/v918r5/?pub=4
So people are just able to make completely unfounded claims in papers and just get them published? What’s an example of “the natural order being upset” where we got a recent disease?
In the new web page journalism, you get paid per megabyte of text…it doesn’t have to be right, or researched….your track record of attracting “clicks” is all that counts… and ensures the sale of your next journalistic effort. Climate change and environmental degradation articles are especially good “end of times” keyboard fodder that you don’t even need to get out of bed to write. You can even put a “donate” button on your own website and people will send you money, especially if you have a “.org” domain, and a couple of pictures of beach litter.
This is a blatant lie. Climate change is supposedly seen for decades, right? Yet the last worldwide pandemic was in 1910. Now it’s 2020 and we have another pandemic – a couple of years ago the “experts” were saying that “we are overdue for another pandemic”. And now suddenly it’s because of Climate Change!!!
Also notice how many of those viruses and pandemics come from China. And notice how Wuhan had a level-3 bio laboratory cleared to work with military grade pathogens.
Gain of function research became prohibited in the U.S. and with Fauci’s help was exported to be carried on in China, with U.S. funding.
The CCP has infiltrated U.S. government and has corrupted officials and the media. It’s been reported that China has a majority ownership in Dominion Voting Systems. The potential ramifications are frightening.
The research was actually passed onto China’s Wuhan Virology laboratory as the director ‘Bat Lady’ had been doing the SARS-CoV gain of function research with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She took their expertise back with her to Wuhan.
Well, those are the people who think there are too many of us on the planet, so I believe it’s not as frightening for *them*.
And yes, gain of function research…
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-%201.18787
“An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) — has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.”
Article from 2015. And it seems the same guys who worked on the gain of function research this year in Wuhan, were also appointed to… find the origin of coronavirus by WHO. Who watches the watchers?
when i put my mind to it, i can be quite eloquent and, if necessary, verbose.
in this instance, i am drawn to the Infantry side of my vocabulary, but, given these august scenes, i’ll simply say … ESAD you raving loon.
you were wrong on AIDS.
you were wrong on H1N1 (swine flu)
and you’ve been wrong on the ChiCom Crud from day one.
plus you lied to the American public, then admitted to it.
yeah, FOAD, dirtbag.
no love,
me
Now, now. Unleashing military acronyms on the unsuspecting is to be avoided. Didn’t they teach you that during the transition back to civilian life? Tell us how you really feel. 😂🤣
A true infantryman wouldn’t use an acronym…
redc1c4c sez:
“yeah, FOAD, dirtbag”
Please try to be more polite so this blog keeps the respect it has earned
over the past decade, and honor your military experience. Next time please write: “FOAD, Mister Dirtbag, Sir”
So winter weather is COVID risk-free ? And summer is deadly. Funny, quite the opposite of reality. Once again.
Faux FauXi witch-doctor and hyperbolic hysterical PLANdemic.
~90 y.o. Placido Domingo recovered from CoViD-19 in March 2020
Rolling Stone as a source ?
Is this the article referred from Aug 2020 in Cell, Volume 183, Issue 4, 12 November 2020, Pages 839-840
Emerging Pandemic Diseases: How We Got to COVID-19
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420310126
And that is a very thorough overview of pandemics, and virology.
Good article but is alarmist and surprisingly has no mention of PCR, cycle threshold, testing frequency or any attempt to normalize “cases” for testing.
Like a rolling stone
A like a rolling stone
Like the FBI and the CIA
And the BBC, BB King
And Doris Day
Matt Busby
Dig it, dig it, dig it
Dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it
Congratulations on winning the prize for most stupid article of the week on WUWT!
Aedes Egypti and Anopheles species (i.e. the ones that carry the nasty stuff) have strict ranges of habitat according to (warm) temperature. As the world heats up, these ranges will increase (indeed they have already increased)- so the good Dr is correct in broad brush terms. The mosquitos that live in Sweden are a completely different species and don’t carry things like malaria, chikungunya, Japanese Encephalitis, yellow fever etc.
There is now one spill over event every year on average- mostly caused by deforestation, humans wandering into habitats where they shouldn’t, and the bloody Chinese eating all sorts of dodgy shite in their wet markets.
And yes a warming planet will lead to the increased spread of arboviruses.
Hi Steve45, You clearly are misinformed. You need to educate yourself. One of the worst outbreaks of malaria was in the early C20th in Siberia, Russia.
The link below will allow you to read what an expert says on malarial prevalence and its relation to climate. Its certainly not what you seem to think.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
Breathe Steve…just breathe
Here is an example of Malaria
https://www.intechopen.com/books/towards-malaria-elimination-a-leap-forward/malaria-eradication-in-the-european-world-historical-perspective-and-imminent-threats
Once it was as far North as Sweden.
Not anymore!
Gee I provided a link Malaria in Northern Europe. Please read it.
Steve45,
For an official view on Climate Change and Malaria, read “ Climate Change and Malaria: A Complex Relationship,” by S.D. Fernando, United Nations, UN Chronicle at-
http://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/climate-change-and-malaria-complex-relationship
“…Historically, malaria was endemic in Europe, including Scandinavia but was eliminated in 1975- despite the increase in global temperature-due to better socio economic conditions, improved irrigation and drainage,adoption of new farming methods,behavioural changes and access to better health care.”
It looks clear that malaria does not need heat and humidity alone to flourish.
Others have commented on malaria outbreaks in Russia etc.
Has Fauci the witch doctor ever studied the history of pandemics over the millennia?
And yet here is a rare disease in Winterpeg
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/trench-fever-rare-disease-winnipeg-homeless-1.5830902
It seems to do just fine in the cold as long as a lack of hygene permits it. Note in the article the references to testing and estimates of prevalence in Seattle and San Francisco. Past victories of Public Health that were achieved by public sanitation are being destroyed by neglect while while idiots like this promote various hobbyhorses.
One curio of this pandemic is how few knew someone who died of Covid-1984
Where were all the extra hearses?
I once worked at a place called Mortlake, in what is now South West London, where the boat race ends. The name should be a clue; it was a mass burial pit for the victims of bubonic plague in the 15th century.
Less than 1% in the UK have died of SARS-CoV-2 A sense of proportion is required. You won’t get it from the like of Fauci et al.
I really wish greens would stop pushing the falsehood that mosquitoes and mosquito borne diseases need a warm climate to thrive.”
I guess the early colonists as well as the workers on the Erie and Rideau canals REALLY did die of “bad air” rather than mosquito borne diseases.
Who knew???
We have entered the Pandemic Era (if such a thing exists) because of cheap air travel.
Phew, so cruise liners etc are off the hook.
A long haul plane will fly 350 people across the world, and do it again tomorrow. A cruise liner will take 2,000 people and shuttle them around the Mediterranean, up and down an America coast etc.
I’m of a different mind about this. I think the increased travel reduces the risk of serious pandemic because everyone is exposed to more things more frequently, which builds a broader, stronger base of immunity that can quickly squelch new things.
Oh yeah… My department, but wait… How come air crews were NOT amongst the first to be infected and decimated ? We don’t all fly only inbound overseas import cargo after all.
Covid sick leaves numbers of our industry are actually dramatically low.
What’s sure is that aircrews are made of women and men with nerves of steel, trained to ignore panic, analyze information and our Bravo-Sierra detection radars are finely tuned.
and you all have to be in very good states of health all the time.
That help imho
And we have to be in close contact with about anything you can imagine.
Traditionally there’s no segregation nor social distance. Cabin and flight deck crew travel in the same bus, stay in the same hotel, have meals together and at the end, lock themselves for long hours in a confined space shared by a few hundreds of other perfectly unknown individuals. Day after day.
So we are either somehow immune to panic or super-persons with unknown to the rest of mankind powers. Maybe both?
Cabin crew are all fairly young, that makes a huge difference.
Still dreaming of Pan Am glamour back-seam tales? Confidence, often times you’re not alone. However…
Reality check, flight attendants are very important & respected crew members, seniority matters in their career and we don’t recycle them past the age of 25.
Your post is rendered irrelevant by the opening sneer. I never believe anything from people who sneer, they are generally idiots. From observation, by far the majority of cabin crew are under 40.
Your problem Harry, deal with it. I’m good with the real seniority pyramid of our industry and wisdom of the time proven humor that comes with.
People who live or work in close proximity to others probably are building immunity. Which in part explains the lighter (known) case numbers and case fatality rates experienced by the East Asians. From recent WSJ articles…
From Fauci’s linked article:
If Trump prevails I suspect the sainted Dr. Fauci will be done and we won’t have to listen to his preaching from a position of authority again.
He can’t be fired, however, our favorite epidemiologist got the flu according to him. How does a renowned Dr known for proclamations like Masks don’t work to yeah I had to lie they do work get the flu?
Indeed. As a career civil servant (IE swamp creature), Trump can’t directly fire him. He can sideline him, as he has done to a degree already, but he can’t fire him.
“The reasons for this new era of pandemics are complex, but as Fauci and Morens point out, one of the main drivers is the climate crisis, which is shaking up the natural world and rewriting disease algorithms on the planet.”
Somehow, I doubt that Fauci actually said that. Warmunists do tend to take liberties, don’t they. In any case, it is, as someone pointed out, lies on top of the Big Lie. They like to build their lies like an onion. Peel back one lie, and there’s another beneath it.
Sometimes when the news is slow, you don’t think leftists won’t link Phenomenon X to Climate Change.
But then they do.
Andrew
“We have entered a Psychotic Era” because of Climate Clowns.
Fauci is one of them.
A woman in the Florida Keys gets bit by a mosquito so … Climate Change ©???
That has to be lamest hook for a story I can remember. Dog bites man so … Climate Change ©.
SE Wisconsin during a wet spring/summer, OMG the skeeters! EEEK! They swarm the legs and bite fast.
Two words for Fauci: Mandatory Retirement.
Doctor F has taken us from the Anthropocene to the Pandemicene.
… and with the MSM, we’ve been in the Fauxene for quite a few years.
It is a shame that great scholars in their field make fools of themselves with green political activism.
“great scholars in their field”
lol
Andrew
And with that pronouncement I’m going to have to put Dr. Anthony Fauci in the same category as: Al Gore, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and a few others; a category of people whose words I don’t accept on “face value.”
And so it begins…..
Now anyone can be a climate scientist.
The left will now use any influenzas as a means of control.