Man, Nature and Pandemics

In my blog last week I have explained that the coronavirus and the present pandemic are not man-made but have a natural origin. Pandemics are of all times and the present pandemic is no exception. Nevertheless this pandemic is man-made in a sense. No, I’ll not go back on what I wrote last week. But I think that man is responsible and increasingly responsible for the circumstances that can make diseases and pandemics happen. By destroying nature and by causing air pollution and global warming, man has changed – no has impoverished – the natural environment that way that viruses and bacteria have got more chance to spread, leading to local and global epidemics. To mention a few recent infectious diseases that have their origins in the impact of man on nature and in a too narrow relationship between man and nature and that have become epidemic, if not pandemic: Ebola, bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), Rift Valley fever, severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), the West Nile virus and the Zika virus. They have all come from animals and crossed from animals to humans. Here are a few factors that make that infectious diseases can easier cross from animals to man than they did in the past. In one way or another these factors are caused by man:
- Decreasing biodiversity, especially a decreasing number of animal species.
- Destruction of nature, like wild fires ravaging rainforests. For instance, in Brazil malaria gets a chance where rainforest has been burnt down.
- Destruction of their natural habitats makes wild animals looking for places to live nearer to humans. Farming, mining and housing, which as such already lead to destruction of nature, bring men from their side in closer contacts with wild animals.
- Eating bush meat. This probably made that the coronavirus crossed over to humans.
- Intensively animal keeping for meat consumption, for the dairy industry, for animal products, etc. Moreover, animals kept for these reasons must be traded, and animal transport and animal markets are known for their contribution to the spread of infectious diseases.
- Global warming, which changes the habitats of animals and makes them more vulnerable to infectious diseases.
These are a few factors that affect the spread of viruses and make it more likely that they jump from animals to humans. According to Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, our immediate priority is to protect people from the coronavirus and prevent its spread. “But our long-term response must tackle habitat and biodiversity loss,” so Andersen. “Never before have so many opportunities existed for pathogens to pass from wild and domestic animals to people,” she told the Guardian, explaining that 75% of all emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife.
One of the problems to prevent the origin and spread of viruses is in the mind of man. Man sees man as a civilized being distinct form nature. However, this is quite Cartesian, with Descartes’s distinction mind versus body replaced by the distinction man versus nature. But man and nature are not distinct. The idea that man and nature are distinct “gives humans a central role in life on Earth, and with that, the possibility to control this life. The corona crisis provides insight into the flaws of these apparent contradictions,” so the website of Dasym. And then: “Even before modern man, there was no harmonious natural order, the earth has always been an inhospitable place where live organisms are continuously exposed to disease, parasites and natural disasters. But modern man mostly considered himself to be separate from nature and romanticized living in harmony with it.” Man must realize that man must not live against nature but with nature, for man belongs to nature and is nothing but an animal of a kind, as I explained in my last blog. Man is not simply a civilized being but a civilized animal. Man is nature. Only if we realize this and live according to this, we can possibly prevent new pandemics. 

Sources
- Benton, Tim; Richard Anthony Kok; Gitika Bhardwaj, “Coronavirus Crisis: Exploring the Human Impact on Nature”, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/05/coronavirus-crisis-exploring-human-impact-nature
- Carrington, Damian, “Coronavirus: ‘Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief”, 25 Mar 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/coronavirus-nature-is-sending-us-a-message-says-un-environment-chief
- Dasym, “Our post-corona relationship to nature”, 23 April , 2020, https://www.dasym.com/our-post-corona-relationship-to-nature/
- Taylor, L.H.; S.H. Latham; M.E. Woolhouse, “Risk factors for human disease emergence”, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11516376/