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.
Fauci, you already got the job. No need to keep sucking up.
Claims so big, so fast, so[sp]urious we can’t keep up. Hey, it works for them.
The article from Rolling Stone magazine comes to show that magazines like that aren’t always to be believed at, certainly not when it comes to climate change. It is true that new and exotic viruses have been introduced into humans because of the ever-increasing encroachment into nature – whether by means of development, the wildlife trade, poaching, or the like – and it is true that pandemics have increased from that sort of source. And this is yet another nasty side effect of the destructive humans-with-nature interaction, alongside diminishing biodiversity and endangered species and lost ecosystem services (e.g. pollination). But to tie all of this with climate change is just disingenuous and takes away from the main reasons for the rise of these new infectious diseases. For example, how could it be that such viral diseases did not appear during the Medieval Warm Period but do appear now – it’s not because of changes in global climate, but rather due to the ever-changing human-natural interface.
Another point that that article is missing is that throughout human history it’s always been an era of epidemics/pandemics – and right up until pretty recently, medicine was unable to do much of anything about those diseases, but now it can. Just in the early/mid 20th century, infectious diseases which are now preventable and/or treatable, like polio, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and typhus, were quite common, led to death or permanent disability, and scared the living daylights out of people. Besides which, while many new, exotic viral diseases have shown up in the past 50 or so years, only two of them – AIDS and COVID-19 – have become major global pandemics, and only of them (COVID-19) has massively disrupted social life, travel, entertainment, etc. all around the world.
I fully support Dr. Fauci and his sensible advice, such as wearing masks and keeping a physical social distance of 6 ft/2 m, though he falls short when describing this time around and onwards as an “era of pandemics”.
From the above excerpts of the Jeff Goodell article in Rolling Stone magazine (not my “go to” rag for medically-accurate information): the paper co-authored by Dr. Anthony Fauci “cites HIV/AIDS, which has so far killed at least 37 million, as well as “unprecedented pandemic explosions” of the past decade.”
Well, as the article itself notes, we can compare that statement to the WWI-era epidemic which killed at least 50 million people worldwide and which in the SINGLE month of October, 1918 killed about 195,000 people in just the US. — source: https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-deaths-october-1918#:~:text=After%20taking%20the%20lives%20of,11%20announcement%20of%20the%20armistice.
We have never since experienced such a high mortality rate from any pandemic or epidemic virus of any type. So, ” ‘unprecedented pandemic explosions’ of the last decade”? . . . I think not.
Also,
“The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. . . . “It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.” —source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm
In comparison, the current COVID-19-attributed worldwide death toll stands at “only” 1.55 million and the current COVID-19-attributed United States death toll stands at “only” about 285 thousand.
Naturally, Dr. Fauci strokes his own ego by claiming that what he is having to deal with (the COVID-19 pandemic) is UNPRECEDENTED. It clearly is not, even according to the CDC website.
If anybody needed more proof that Fauci is a crackpot, this should put it to rest. The guy has jumped the shark.
Lolololololol Who believes the utter nonsense DemoRat fauci speaks, after all he loves hilary Clinton, and is really good friends with pedophile Bill gates…
Bill gates was on Epsteins plane a number of times and over 60+ thousand indecent images of children were found on a computer at his personal home…
I don’t see that this article says precisely what the author claims, but it seem apparent from my reading of several of his reviews over the past couple of decades, that Fauci organizes these essays according to certain biases — bug biases. One of his biases is a tendency toward “worst-case” hysteria. And he is prone to generalizations that appear not proven, and perhaps even contrary to what he has written elsewhere. For instance, in this paper
No. While some pathologic patterns might be unusual, the clinical and epidemiological patterns seem very much like he and this same co-author described for the 1918 epidemic in a review of some 15 years ago. The claim here is slightly exaggerated, perhaps for effect. Fauci in several reviews, and by how he has behaved in this pandemic, seems guided often by a morbid vision of huge fractions of populations ill at one time, overwhelming services. And his thesis is that things are getting worse because of our increasing population, density, and behavior. Yet, has there been a better period in which to live? Until the Faucis get into the act of command from on high, we have increasing wealth, greater longevity at better health. In fact, our wealth and prior advances in life expectancy do make us susceptible to things like COVID-19, but we should give up these gains?
While I can’t see that Fauci blames climate change for much of anything directly, he does so indirectly, and he makes rather extreme claims. Here is one nearing the conclusion of the article.
We need to redesign the world, and change human behavior to stop the spread of potential future pandemics — which he claims with the usual hedge words (may, might, could…) are increasing; but his prescriptions seem to make the problem, encroachment on nature, worse rather than better. In fact, his prescriptions are vague, and inconsistent, as he seems to be trying a shot at immunizing himself from being proved wrong in any way. There is a bit of megalomania in the man.
The worst thing about this is he admits, sort of, to all of us being in a constant battle over survival of the fittest, but that we are at a disadvantage with regard to pathogens, especially single stranded RNA viruses which mutate early and often. Good luck using his vague guidance.
So, if “overcrowding in dwellings ” is a bad thing, lockdowns were the worst thing one could have done, especially to ethnic communities who tend to have multi-generational households.
Therefore, those who demand lockdowns are racists.
Fauci’s magic mask is special, because it doubles as a chin-guard.
Look at his picture…mask down and laughing at this very serious matter….Fauci will be 80 in a few weeks….even older than his new benefactor – Joey the Clown Biden.
Not to worry, Biden’s pick of Xaviera Becerra as his administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in to save the day. 😉
I mean, just look a Becerra’s extensive, relevant experience gained earning a degree in Law and then serving as a lawyer at a legal assistance corporation, than as an administrative assistant for a state senator, then as a deputy attorney general in the California DoJ, then serving one term in the California State Assembly, then serving as US House of Representative member from California for 24 undistinguished years, finally becoming California’s 33rd Attorney General in 2017.
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Becerra ) cites Becerra’s voting record but does not list ANY legislation that he authored or co-authored during his jobs in the California Assembly and the US House . . . and that includes legislation specific to health care and human services.
However, the aforementioned Wikipedia article does have this to say about his recent performance as California Attorney General:
“In December 2020, Becerra was faulted by state district attorneys for not taking leadership to help stop what was described as the biggest taxpayer fraud in California’s history. Investigators said federal pandemic unemployment benefits worth $400 million to possibly over $1 billion were fraudulently obtained in the names of ineligible prisoners by criminal associates. The vast majority of this money will likely never be recovered, prosecutors said.”
Right man for the job? . . . clearly doesn’t seem so to me.
But he is Hispanic, so Biden and Harris can tick off one of their many campaign pledges.
Most of the comments so far seem to be from people who haven’t bothered reading Fauci’s paper. If they had they would know that there is no mention of climate, never mind “climate crisis” It is a detailed and informative article on pandemics. His conclusions as to causes of the problems lead with:
“Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues. In such a transformation we will need to prioritize changes in those human behaviors that constitute risks for the emergence of infectious diseases. Chief among them are reducing crowding at home, work, and in public places as well as minimizing environmental perturbations such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming. Equally important are ending global poverty, improving sanitation and hygiene, and reducing unsafe exposure to animals, so that humans and potential human pathogens have limited opportunities for contact.”
No doubt by now the commentators above will have spread the fake news around – but maybe they could at least apologise?
“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”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
Bill, are you stating that rollingstone.com is wrong about what Fauci and Morens wrote?
Andrew
So Fauci and co-author Morens call for “rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence”?
What the frack? Now there’s are couple of $quadrillions to be spent over a couple of centuries.
In reality, as good ol’ Bill Shakespeare once penned, “it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
BTW, Bill Ockham, you first post: “. . . they would know that there is no mention of climate, never mind “climate crisis”. But then you go on to quote a paragraph from the Fauci & Morens paper’s conclusion that includes this wording: ” . . . we will need to prioritize changes . . . Chief among them are . . . minimizing environmental perturbations . . .”
It’s a pity that you cannot see the equivalence of “minimizing environmental perturbations” with controlling climate change.
Gordon, it’s a pity you can’t see what Fauci plainly wrote. The phrase “minimizing environmental perturbations” continues “such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming”. It takes considerable intellectual ingenuity to translate this into “controlling climate change”.
Hmmm . . . I never knew that the phrase “such as” was to be interpreted as being all inclusive.
Thanks, Bill, for the lesson in translating “modern English”.
Indeed, I’m now more pitiful than I was before.
I know very little about Fauci as I am safely away from him in the UK. Judging by the vituperation on this list he’s obviously a very naught boy, so there must be plenty of overt climate alarmist claims by him on record without the need to interpret phrases in the paper as climate hysteria.
He lists some of his “environmental perturbations” but doesn’t include climate change. As the latter seems to be almost obligatory if you want to get a paper published these days, I wonder why he doesn’t?
If you ever needed proof that Fauci is a fraud now you have it.
PCR > 35 = BS
Mosquitoes have been unofficially considered the Alaska State Bird for decades. Nothing new here.
When Fauci retires in ’21 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that he helped create and fund with US Treasury money (funneled through his money laundering operations at NIAID-NIH (and cohort universities in the US), everyone will understand the “how – when – where and why” he won the Bullshit award for 2020.
Ha ha!
Here’s another one:
“This ominous forecast comes from a paper that Fauci and another medical expert published in the scientific journal Cell, with the scientists attributing their grim outlook on pandemics to one factor in particular: Climate change.”
https://bestlifeonline.com/climate-change-pandemics/
Andrew
Could you tell me where in Fauci’s article he attributes “pandemics to one factor in particular: Climate change”? He does list several factors “in particular” which contribute to pandemics but climate change isn’t one of them. Unless you think that factors like bad sanitation, deforestation and intensive animal farming are somehow the result of climate change.
Bill,
That’s a question for the author of the story I linked. Do you get that?
Andrew
So now Fauci thinks he’s the Pope.
A strange comment when the world’s population is increasing at a million a week with the fastest growth in the far hotter 3rd world countries. Moreover we are living longer and have healthier lives. The average age of death for covid was 81 years the same as the average life span. No one was dying who shouldn’t have been dying . The majority of deaths were from sick people with 2-3 other serious diseases.
of more concern – “The World Food Program is now predicting 270 Million people to face starvation in 2021 due to supply chain disruption”
of more concern – “The World Food Program is now predicting 270 Million people to face starvation in 2021 due to supply chain disruption”
And there will be worldwide famine – by the 1970s/80s – due to overpopulation. (According to the “Population Bomb” by Paul & Anne Ehrlich. Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million and that England will not exist in the year 2000.
And lack of vital resource, according to , ” The Doomsday Book” by Gordon Taylor “by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them [the world’s resources].” leaving none for the rest of the world.
In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, “The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000.”
Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, “… civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind .”
History is full of doom-sayers and their failed predictions of overpopulation, starvation, resource scarcity, etc. Why should we believe “The World Food Program” is capable of making any better predictions than all those previous failed doom-sayers (many of whom have impressive degrees from prestigious universities) did?
Bearing in mind the feeling (in some quarters) that the US has been taken over (bought out) by (US) supporters of the CCP I was interested to see what some people think of patriotism nowadays when this quote came up, quite unsolicited:
The problem there is, which country is she talking about?
NO. We can be patriotic for supporting the principles of our country (if noble and good) but not for any and all actions that a politician might take.
Well, let’s see. for the past 4 years Kamala and her fellow Dems have most definitely not been condoning the conduct of the county (under the leadership of DJT) and fought against the ideals of the constitution (as seen in their vehement rejection of constitutionalist judges, as seen in their rejection of the ideals of innocent until proven guilty, as seen in their shame impeachment where they tossed due process out the window, etc) every chance they got. Guess that proves it, by her own definition, Kamala and the Dems are *not* patriots 😀
USA Today playing both sides:
A: “COVID-19 may only be the beginning of global pandemics – a future scenario in which climate change may also play a role.”
B: “As for whether climate change could exacerbate future pandemics, Morens told USA TODAY it is too early to draw definitive conclusions.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/10/climate-change-covid-19-does-global-warming-fuel-pandemics/5749582002/
Andrew
MSN:
“This ominous forecast comes from a paper that Fauci and another medical expert published in the scientific journal Cell, with the scientists attributing their grim outlook on pandemics to one factor in particular: Climate change.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/dr-fauci-says-to-prepare-for-an-acceleration-of-pandemics/ar-BB18Uw6C
Andrew
No good crisis is now allowed to fade away without first being firmly attached to and caused by ‘Climate Change / Global Warming’. Fauci is a fraud and a danger to Public Health.
Climate change???!! Thats a new one. Many people will be fooled by such rhetoric, but there still some clear minded people who know the virus was man made and deliberately unleashed on the world.
As old P T Barnunn said, You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.
More people have been killed by fraud…
Perhaps Fauci has some inside information that the Chicoms are about to unleash another virus.
Fauci successfully got the FDA to effectively ban HCQ which has prevented use of the Zelenko protocol which has demonstrated 80% reduction in bad outcomes from covid. This has shortened the lives of many people and paves the way for big bucks to be made on the vaccines.
Eric,
I have read the paper by Morens and Fauci (2020),”Emerging Pandemic diseases:How we got to CoVid-19.”
Morens and Fauci have been ‘verballed’ by Rolling Stone.
They did not say the passage you have highlighted in red “. ….one of the main drivers is the climate crisis etc.”
What they did say is set out by Bill Ockham at 8-37am above.
That passage appears in an otherwise unremarkable and sound paper on the pandemic.
Gordon Dessler in this thread in response to Bill Ockham makes the not unreasonable point that you may read their remarks about “ rebuilding the structure of human existence” and “ prioritising changes” and “ minimising environmental perturbations” as the equivalence of endorsing the climate change dogma.
That is the line Rolling Stone and others have taken.
However the examples they give can be lauded quite independently of any endorsement of the “climate crisis”.
But there is a more important issue.
If you look at S.D. Fernando “ Climate Change and Malaria:A Complex Relationship”, United Nations, UN Chronicle at http://www.un.org/en/un/chronicle/article/climate-change-and-malaria-complex-relationship
you will see what is the “official” UN position on the topic.
There are papers footnoted there that expressly claim climate change is exacerbating malaria and widening malarial regions while others deny that.
So all Al Gore and others needed to do was quote the papers supporting the proposition that malarial regions were moving north from East Africa etc. and ignore any contrary views.
Which is precisely what the UN IPCC Assessment Reports do on issues like polar bears and other topics.
Thanks, Herbert. A model of relevance, succinctness, and clarity.