A lot of threads on pestilence lately. This is an attempt to put many of them together, spun off from the thread: Global Warming: Death in the Deep FreezeAIDS, SARS, TB, ebola, mystery illness in T.O., What next?
I hypothesize that this is one major factor:
The loss of biodiversity leads to more diseases for humanity.
The causes of biodiversity loss are compound: human encroachment on habitat, hunting, pollution, and global warming. The reasoning for the above hypothesis is elementary: 1) bacteria and viruses act like any other living (and semi-living) things in that they try to propagate and live on 2) microorganisms will mutate and adapt to fit into their surroundings, and if there is a smaller diversity of animals to infect, they will very naturally start reproducing in human hosts.
So for eg., if you have few animals but poultry, pigs and humans densely packed in some place in southern China, it should not be surprising to have a new disease appear in humans there. Blaming and eliminating various species like bats and civet cats is just scapegoating, chasing red herrings (pardon the poor metaphors). Seems researchers and people are more panicky now about other species, pinpointed as the “source” of new diseases. But no, the source I think is the rapid decrease of other species, so killing them would only lead to a long term worsening of the problem. Biodiversity, which thrives better wild, is not a luxury but a necessity for quality human life on this planet. (This is also an argument against industrial monocrop agriculture.)
So to the aesthetic, ethical, spiritual and ecological justifications for preserving biodiversity, is added another rationale that rightist environmental marauders (for eg., those “we-are-omniscient-gods” idiots at the Economist magazine, who called preserving wildlife a “luxury,” see issue of 23Apr’05, p.9) might finally be able to grasp: self-interest.
If anyone could refer some studies that support the above hypothesis it would be nice icing on the cake. But I believe the hypothesis is correct, not because I’m some Nobel scientist, but because it’s based on such solid, fundamental principles of microbial behaviour.
Here’s what I got from a quick search:
- WHO disease outbreak news
- Biodiversity in Development, by World Conservation Union
- Biodiversity and human health
Notes:
1) An imminent flu pandemic I think is not in the same category as other “new” diseases. We’ve always had killer flus. I’ll be relying mostly on providence to save me from one. What may be new is how the next one could combine with other pathogens. (Maybe we’ve always had new diseases too, but hasn’t the rate of new appearances increased recently?)
2) To me, gene splicing in labs does not contribute to biodiversity. This is hubristic man tinkering with miraculous nature, and I’d wager if people were to disappear on the planet, not one of their GMO’s would be able to carve a niche in nature and survive in the long term.
To end on a positive note:
For health’s sake, promote natural biodiversity!
[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: mimsy ]
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posted 05 October 2005 12:53 AM
