• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate Impacts & Adaptation Biodiversity & Habitat

Formula to Prevent Pandemics: Less Meat, Less Wildland Encroachment

June 9, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes

Pixnio/Maysam Yabandeh

Pixnio/Maysam Yabandeh

7
SHARES
 

Humans must eat less meat and processed foods, create less food waste, and limit population growth if we are to stop the degradation of tropical rainforests—degradation that science is connecting ever more closely to the rise of infectious diseases like COVID-19.

As humanity’s craving for red meat and packaged food drives further encroachment of cattle farms and palm oil plantations into the world’s tropical rainforests, we are coming into contact with wild species that should have been left undisturbed within the deep jungle, write the editors of Scientific American. It is through these interactions that the scariest and most infectious modern viruses have come into the human population: SARS, Ebola, and now COVID-19. 

Zika, nipah, malaria, cholera, and HIV also trace their origins to the deep, dense forest. “Three-quarters of the emerging pathogens that infect humans leaped from animals, many of them creatures in the forest habitats that we are slashing and burning to create land for crops, including biofuel plants, and for mining and housing,” Scientific American says. “The more we clear, the more we come into contact with wildlife that carries microbes well suited to kill us—and the more we concentrate those animals in smaller areas where they can swap infectious microbes, raising the chances of novel strains.” 

But it doesn’t have to continue this way—there are many individual actions that can help slow deforestation. “Eating less meat, which physicians say will improve our health anyway, will lessen demand for crops and pastures,” the article states. “Eating fewer processed foods will reduce the demand for palm oil.” As well, as much as 40% of all the food humanity produces is currently thrown away; reducing that waste could also ease some of the pressure to clear forests and make way for agriculture. 

Other actions, however, will require wider social changes likely to be challenged by status quo interests. “The need for land also will ease if nations slow population growth—something that can happen in developing nations only if women are given better education, equal social status with men, and easy access to affordable contraceptives,” Scientific American writes. More immediate imperatives include the prohibition of wet markets, eradication of the illegal wildlife trade—“which can spread infectious agents far and wide”—and rigorous examination of factory farming. Those farms were “the source of the 2009 swine flu outbreak that killed more than 10,000 people in the U.S. and multitudes worldwide,” the magazine notes.

In an ironic twist, some measures to place barriers between the human and animal worlds will require scientists to cross those lines—carefully. To better understand the zoonotic diseases that are spreading in human populations, epidemiologists must “tiptoe into wild habitats and test mammals known to carry coronaviruses—bats, rodents, badgers, civets, pangolins, and monkeys—to map how the germs are moving,” Scientific American says. Such surveillance, and the necessary follow-up testing, will need to be “widespread and well-funded”.

But the results of that research could move humanity forward on multiple fronts: “Pandemic solutions are sustainability solutions,” the article stresses. “Ending deforestation and thwarting pandemics would address six of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals: the guarantee of healthy lives, zero hunger, gender equality, responsible consumption and production, sustainably managed land, and climate action.”



in Biodiversity & Habitat, Forests & Deforestation, Health & Safety, International, International Agencies & Studies, Supply Chains & Consumption

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Jason Woodhead/Flickr
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
314
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay
Petrochemicals & Plastics

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
197
Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons
Severe Storms & Flooding

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.1k
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
197
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
170
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
314
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
Michael and Diane Weidner/Unsplash

Scientists, Politicians Debate Ethics of ‘Climate Tinkering’

June 7, 2022
74

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
95
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
37
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
95
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
51
Next Post
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Capital_Region_(Canada)

No More Skating the Canal: Ottawa Study Predicts Less Winter, More Extreme Weather

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}