Pandemics and Possibilities

Given the recent articles claiming large areas of the Amazon rainforest are now turning into savannas, this article offers a dire warning. It explains that most pandemics are in the emerging disease hotspots of the world; the edges of forests in regions such as west Africa, the Amazon basin and south-east Asia. An estimated 1.7m viruses exist in mammals and birds (the origins of most pandemics), but less than 0.1 have been identified. The message is very clear—stop encroaching on their habitats or continue to face global pandemics. And in our hyperconnected world, their spread and the speed of transmission shown by COVID-19 surely has taught us some important lessons.

And in this article, Jane Goodall, offers advice about the impacts of large-scale industrial farming. Localization is a viable solution, where we collectively determine strategically which critical infrastructure products should be produced locally to ensure national resilience. And this letter from economists offers recommendations for how to rebuild our world and end the carbon economy. This article shows only one possibility. We do not have to be doomed to the threat of increasing global pandemics if we build back greener and more sustainably. 

Image by Chuttersnap via Unsplash

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