Coronavirus - a Crystal Ball Vision of the Future?
There's one causality from the coronavirus pandemic that has been pleading for its life ever since the virus initially erupted from China. Its the global neoliberal system that we're all so deeply embedded within. This seemingly impenetrable 'perfect' manifestation of modern day free-market capitalism has been left in a shambles by a tiny single celled organism.
On the 18 March 2020, the Guardian ran the heading, 'Tip of the iceberg': is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19? The article states that widespread environmental destruction is responsible for the breakout of new diseases. By Encroaching on previously untouched areas of biodiversity, we are unwittingly exposing ourselves to new diseases such as the Ebola outbreak that devastated areas of Africa in recent years.
The article refers to a paper published in the Journal Nature in 2008, in which data collected since 1940 on Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) is analysed. These include pathogens that have entered human populations for the first time. The HIV/AIDS pandemic was the last major global outbreak back in the '80's. Most (60%) of the pathogens studied are zoonotic in origin i.e. from a non-human animal source. Not surprisingly, most pathogens are concentrated in biodiversity hotspots on lower latitudes. However disease outbreaks will affect and spread through the high population centres in the global north.
An important point cited in the paper is that disease monitoring is based in developed countries, not where the actual hotspots are:
We conclude that the global effort for EID surveillance and investigation is poorly allocated, with the majority of our scientific resources focused on places from where the next important emerging pathogen is least likely to originate. We advocate re-allocation of resources for ‘smart surveillance’ of emerging disease hotspots in lower latitudes, such as tropical Africa, Latin America and Asia, including targeted surveillance of at-risk people to identify early case clusters of potentially new EIDs before their large-scale emergence.
The paper suggests that 'efforts to conserve areas rich in wildlife diversity by reducing anthropogenic activity may have added value in reducing the likelihood of future zoonotic disease emergence.'
The big danger though is that once the current crisis has subsided, it could be business as usual. That's something that's encapsulated in a 2018 report from WWF. Business as usual could result in un-impacted land around the world reduced from a current level of 25% to only 10% by 2050. Species diversity has already been reduced by 60% from 1970 to 2014.
Yet there is a great irony here. Loss of biodiversity and land degradation as well as potentially releasing pathogens that are new to science is also destroying the medicinal heritage that forms part of important biodiversity. In a paper published in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine in 2007, the role of traditional medicine (TM) and its relationship to biodiversity and ecosystem services are explored along with its importance to human health and welfare.
Many indigenous communities rely on TM as well as some established communities e.g. Chinese TM. But TM has also provided a foundation for modern medicine and many treatments that we use in medicine have their roots in TM.
The paper also makes the important observation that good health doesn't just revolve around the pathogen = disease equation. There are also issues of nutrition, poverty and quality of environment that can impact overall health. As the paper notes:
Biodiversity loss diminishes the supplies of raw materials for drug discovery and biotechnology, causes a loss of medical models, affects the spread of human diseases, and threatens food production and water quality. Its reduction has direct effects on the discovery of potential medicines.
In 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO) implemented its Traditional Medicine Strategy. Its role is to support and endorse the use of TM as part of a wider health strategy that would also include conventional medicine.
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limate change will affect disease patterns in the future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has assessed the relationship between disease, human health and climate. The 5th Assessment Report (2014) notes that the vulnerability of populations to disease is caused by various factors centred around '(education, income, health status, and responsiveness of government) that act as generic causes of vulnerability.'
Drought and flooding can bring their own particular problems. Sometimes they may be combined. But the result is land use stress, which can also be linked to socioeconomic stress. The type of environmental damage will be determined by geographical location. Rapid economic development is another factor in environmental stress. This can also have the effect of linking areas that were not previously connected by road and other transport links. This can facilitate migration and open up pathways for disease transmission. Due to rising temperatures, areas that were previously devoid of certain types of disease are now vulnerable.
Vector-borne diseases (disease transmitted via insect bites) are sensitive to climate variation. Dengue fever in particular has seen a surge in recent years:
Dengue is the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral disease, showing a 30-fold increase in global incidence over the past 50 years. Each year there occur about 390 million dengue infections worldwide, of which roughly 96 million manifest with symptoms
There are other transmission routes for infections. Water-bourne Pathogens can be derived from contaminated water or from species such as shellfish. Cholera is a well known pathogen that used to be prevalent in the UK. Temperature and unsanitary conditions are ideal breeding conditions.
The report also notes the prevalence of algal blooms. Although not characterised as a disease as such, it can cause severe illness. Observations have shown that 'Increasing temperatures promote bloom formation in both freshwater and marine environments.'
As noted above, socioeconomic conditions can influence the spread of disease. Developed countries tend to be less at risk. But with increasing inequality becoming more prevalent, this could change. Indeed as the IPCC report notes:
Although modest warming has facilitated malaria transmission, the proportion of the world’s population affected by the disease has been reduced, largely due to control of P. vivax malaria in moderate climates with low transmission intensity. However, the burden of disease is still high and may actually be on the increase again, in some locations. For instance, locally transmitted malaria has re-emerged in Greece in association with economic hardship and cutbacks in government spending (emphasis added).
So far the focus has been on tropical hotspots. But the next pandemic could come from an unexpected source as, 'Long dormant bacteria and viruses, trapped in ice and permafrost for centuries, are reviving as Earth's climate warms'. Arctic temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else. This article from science writer Jasmin Fox-Skelly examines how permanent ice packs and permafrost that has been frozen for millennia is revealing some ancient inhabitants. There is evidence to suggest that diseases such as the 1918 Spanish flu and bubonic plague could re-surface. In 2005:
NASA scientists successfully revived bacteria that had been encased in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years. The microbes, called Carnobacterium pleistocenium, had been frozen since the Pleistocene period, when woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth. Once the ice melted, they began swimming around, seemingly unaffected. Once they were revived, the viruses quickly became infectious.
Although Arctic (and Antarctic) regions are mostly remote and isolated, melting ice has opened up the Arctic to oil and gas exploitation. But its not just the Arctic that's vulnerable to industrialisation. Its happening all over and China in particular has become the epicentre for rapid industrial and agricultural change. This paper published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2016, examines the relationship between China's rapid economic growth and the emergence of zoonotic diseases.
With much of the global population now based in cities and easy international travel between cites now common place, it would be difficult to control a global pandemic from developing. Global trade is another conduit for disease transmission. China has demonstrated rapid growth and urbanisation in recent years:
China’s rate of economic growth over the last 25 years has been exceptional. Real per-capita GDP (in purchasing power parity terms) rose from 1516 USD in 1990 to 12 608 USD in 2014, an average annual growth rate of over 9 %. While this has generated the resources necessary to improve biosecurity and healthcare, it has also increased the likelihood of disease emergence and transmission.
As a result of this change, 'China’s integration into international networks of trade and travel has occurred rapidly.' Another change that has occurred has been an increase in meat consumption within Chinese society. This correlates with the overall increase in affluence within the country, which has led to a considerable increase in livestock production.
In China, there is a preference for freshly slaughtered meat. The focal point for these activities is the prevalence of wet markets. These markets 'sell live and freshly slaughtered domesticated and wild animals.' As such they have become the epicentre for disease outbreaks:
Wet markets are frequently underregulated, have unhygienic environments with inadequate sanitation, and are subject to poor surveillance and little biosecurity.
As a result:
Urbanization and associated land-use changes, in conjunction with rising meat consumption, have brought reservoirs of wildlife diseases into closer contact with livestock and people.
There are many lessons from history that can be applied here, all linked to global trade and travel routes. Everyone is familiar with the black death in the 13th and 14th century, which spread along the 'silk road' trade routes from China to Europe causing mayhem wherever it spread.
Then there is the 'modern' pandemic of the Spanish flu, which wasn't Spanish in origin. It also originated from China:
Propagated by the movements of millions of servicemen during and after World War I, this strain of H1N1 influenza may have infected as many as 500 million people, or a quarter of the world’s population, and killed as many as 50–100 million.
From an economic perspective:
It has been estimated that the economic losses from a major influenza pandemic could be as high as $7.3 trillion (12.6 % of global GDP)—a downturn on par with the Great Depression—and cause over 140 million deaths.
With China at such a high risk in terms of propagating disease, there needs to be a greater effort in mitigating such risks. International cooperation could help. China itself has acted to improve its health infrastructure:
The Ministry of Health has created the world’s largest online, real-time, case-based reporting system, called the China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention, with coverage from the national down to the county level. This system is connected to a network of Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) institutes, which collaborates with government-funded labs and other academic organizations focused on zoonotic diseases.
Despite this, infrastructure is poorer in remote areas that are likely hotspots.
The paper also highlights the role of climate change, which could 'alter ecosystem processes and functioning in ways that will influence the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases worldwide.' That coupled with similar transitions in other developing countries to China, there is a risk of outbreaks of novel diseases occurring there. As the paper concludes:
China is not the only emerging infectious disease hotspot, but it is among the most important. As the world continues to navigate a potentially new era for infectious diseases, the management of risk in China will be critical to the management of risk everywhere.
But there is a wider perspective that needs to be covered. That's the subject of the next section.
The Neoliberal Connection
I introduced this article with a reference to neoliberalism. What is it and what does it mean? It's an ideology and economic concept based on Laissez-faire free market liberal economics. At its core is the notion that Governments should not interfere in the market and that markets should exist to operate freely and be left to their own devices. It takes the view that market failure can't occur and that if it does, then it is a failure of state and Government. This contrasts with the neoclassic view that markets do fail, but which also takes the position that if a resource becomes scarce, prices will rise and substitutes can be found. Neoliberals take the position that taxation is a form of coercion and that the state should defend the right to private property and enforce contracts. This will enable the market to work.
Within the context of environmental issues such as climate change, this also ties in with the idea of property rights. The atmosphere and the land should be allocated as property to be traded and used accordingly. This means that processes such as carbon trading can be left to market devices and everything will work perfectly, resolving environmental issues!
Underpinning neoliberalism is the necessity for constant economic growth. In a finite world there is a limit to how much growth can be achieved. This was initially challenged in 1972 by the groundbreaking report 'Limits to Growth', published by a group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), commissioned by the Club of Rome.
The research was based on five factors that was seen as impacting growth; population, agricultural production, natural resources, industrial production, and pollution. The opening introduction lays the foundation for the report:
...the arms race, environmental deterioration, the population explosion, and economic stagnation are often cited as the central, long-term problems of modern man. Many people believe that the future course of human society, perhaps even the survival of human society, depends on the speed and effectiveness with which the world responds to these issues. And yet only a small fraction of the world's population is actively concerned with understanding these problems or seeking their solutions.
A recent approach that challenges the neoliberal constant is ecological economics. It takes the position that economic processes are part of the physical world. As such there are limits to economic growth and that there are some commodities that can't be substituted. The neoliberal perception of the world views everything as a commodity, to be exploited for human use. This conflicts with the position that nature is an intrinsic entity that does not exist solely for the benefit of human kind, which ties in with the notion of instrumental and intrinsic values. Someone who sees a piece of land instrumentally sees a commodity that can be exploited for timber, minerals etc. The intrinsic viewpoint sees the land as a thing of beauty or something that, for example, performs ecosystem services.
Because nature is viewed as a commodity, the neoliberal approach is to utilise the environment as an economic good. In other words, subject to property rights, we should own and exploit the environment. No surprise then that this perception of the world has led to widespread environmental degradation to the point that it could threaten our very survival.
Can ecological economics offer an alternative approach? Its a question that's certainly up for debate. Professor Jon D. Erickson, an ecological economist, of sustainability science and Policy at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont in Burlington, USA has been actively engaged in the debate. In an article published in The Anthropocene Review, he contributes to the discourse for 'A critically modern ecological economics for the Anthropocene'. The article makes some important observations, which I'll tease out here.
The article opens with the comment that, 'The rise of the Anthropocene discourse reflects growing consensus in the scientific community that humans are transforming the earth system in profound ways.' The narrative then explores a historical context from the emergence of the enlightenment to post-modernism.
It cites ecological economics as 'a transdisciplinary approach to economics concerned with the interaction of economic, social, and ecological systems.' It emerged as an alternative to the neoclassical approach in the light of an impending environmental crisis 'with economic activity seen as root cause', aiming to incorporate natural science, social science, and the humanities.
The challenge that lies ahead is highlighted succinctly:
The Anthropocene discourse describes an enormous coordination challenge beyond the scope of any one discipline. Managing the decisions and actions of a “superorganism” species with the power to shape a planet, yet without a central nervous system operating under a single command, will require (1) negotiating the constraints imposed by biophysical reality and the multiple constructed social realities characteristic of diverse human societies and (2) addressing the complexity, uncertainty, and conflict that arise as one moves across multiple levels and scales.
Underpinning the discipline is the recognition that:
there is an ecological crisis that threatens the welfare of humans and the rest of nature. But this diagnosis is not universally shared. Questions emerge, for example, about which societies will be threatened, how broadly the impacts will be felt, and whether this is a threat, an opportunity, or a trifling affair. This reflects a fundamental tension in the ecological economics paradigm: the tools of science can illuminate the world, yet interpretation of the meaning, significance, and implications of the empirical results is inevitably a subjective, contestable, political process.
And the article argues:
institutions of central importance in modern political theory (e.g. the sovereign nation-state) have become increasingly unable to govern a globalized economy comprised of transnational corporations and highly mobile financial capital able to traverse multiple levels and scales.
For some of the most intractable ecological problems, such as climate change, the problem is global and so solutions must be collective and comprehensive, giving intransigent local or regional actors disproportionate power. The Anthropocene is rife with these local and global collective action problems.
Summing up the article:
As a critical discipline, ecological economics has made the case that the current trajectory of human society is unsustainable and unjust. What is needed now is theory and praxis that can support the transition to a new, ecological economy at local-to-global levels.
There can be no doubt that the current crisis has exposed the cracks in the system. It simply isn't fit for purpose. What it has also exposed is the total disconnection of people from nature and an inability to conceive what a crisis is, because few of us are exposed to survival conditions unlike some other disadvantaged parts of the world. As such inequality is a pervading condition. The gulf between the so-called 1% and the rest is becoming a chasm. And that's been highlighted by a study from Leeds University, released in March 2020, that 'has found extreme disparity in the use of energy among richer and poorer people - both within countries and between them.'
Based on the data examined by the researchers:
Among all the countries and income classes in the study, the top 10% consume roughly 20 times more energy than the bottom 10%.
187 times more vehicle fuel energy is used by the top 10% consumers relative to the bottom 10%.
Perhaps those who paid lip service to the climate emergency may now have a clearer understanding of what an emergency is. When our life support systems collapse within an amplifying positive feedback loop of ecological degradation exasperated by climate change, there will be no turning back. Coronavirus will be brought under control eventually, but environmental collapse will be permanent from a human perspective. A global catastrophe of that magnitude hasn't occurred for 65 million years. That was when an asteroid or comet hit the Earth causing a global winter, wiping out the dinosaurs.
Climate change itself isn't so much a problem as the result of a problem. In a relatively stable global ecosystem, we would have some breathing space for adaptation. But we don't. The biosphere has been subjected to constant abuse since the dawn of the industrial revolution. That's why climate change is such a potent threat. Its also why the current system desperately needs wholesale deconstruction. Because that is real threat, the root cause of global environmental degradation.
Nobody has a Crystal ball. But we can make educated predictions. And an education is something we all desperately need right now. But as far as the current crisis is concerned, I'll leave the last word, as expressed in this editorial, with Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of highly respected medical journal, The Lancet.
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