Friday, February 5, 2021

RT — Climate change ‘key’ in Covid-19 spreading to humans – study

A study by researchers at the University of Cambridge has found that climate change played a key role in Covid-19 spreading from animals to humans, as the two groups were forced closer together as populations grow.

Scientists examined changes to temperature and rainfall over the last 100 years, specifically modelling bat populations against their habitat needs. They found that climate change had resulted in 40 species relocating during that time to areas in China, Laos and Myanmar. “Bats are the likely zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2,” the study noted.

The university researchers outlined how this essentially created a Covid-19 “hotspot” in the area, with the bats carrying around 100 strains of the virus throughout the region.

“I find it difficult to see that this climate-driven increase in bats and bat-borne coronaviruses make something like [the pandemic] less likely to happen,” Robert Beyer, the study’s lead author and a zoology researcher at Cambridge, told AFP. However, he clarified that “Our paper is a long way away from saying the pandemic would not have happened without climate change.”
Climate change was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the pandemic, but it was apparently a factor increasing the likelihood of a virus jumping from animal to human.

There are other effects of climate change that threaten humans, such as mass migrations stemming land desolation and water and food shortages, leading to conflict.

Add these to increasing geopolitical instability with the world order in flux owing a variety of factors such as decolonization and the chance of conflict is amplified.


See also

PopularResistance 
Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Affordable Housing
Terrace 

Here is another issue that is tangentially related to threat but doesn't merit a separate post.

Col. Lang brings up a dilemma. On one hand, the US military needs to control extremism in the ranks and officer corps. On the other hand, if extremists are drummed out of the service, then they are likely to form the military-trained backbone of militias that will train others. Hmm?

Sic Semper Tyrannis 
A political purge that will drive people into militias.
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)

At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period, he also briefed President George H. W. Bush at the White House, as he had during Operation Desert Storm.

He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. — Wikipedia

3 comments:

Peter Pan said...

PP - Destruction of habitat key in zoonotic viruses spreading to humans

It's not a coincidence that outbreaks of influenza tend to begin in China. Farming practices involving ducks, pigs and humans living in close quarters is believed to be responsible. Encroachment into remote biodiverse regions, sale of bushmeat, and wet markets contribute to the spread of exotic viruses.

Global travel is key to initiating pandemics.

Climate change is implicated in changes to the geographical range of viruses, and/or their carriers.

Peter Pan said...

Could be a culling coming?

Energy consumption per capita has to be reduced.
There are two ways to accomplish this.
One of these is a reduction in the number of humans.
It is the simplest method.

Peter Pan said...

RE. "extremism"

The drive for censorship in the US is a guarantor of future extremism and violence. This is a lesson that some people refuse to learn.