Introduction
To start, I acknowledge that some of my readers may not believe in anthropogenic climate change. If that’s the case, I encourage you to research it, if you have the time. I’d also encourage you to continue reading this post anyway, because in addition to climate, it comments on COVID-19 and environmental health in general, which most of us would agree are important.
In researching the connections between these two issues (you can see my sources below), it’s unclear whether the shifting climate has bolstered the spread of coronavirus, but it is clear that both issues stem from a similar set of environmental abuses. We harmed nature, and by doing so, we harmed ourselves, reminding us that the welfare of humanity and nature are inextricably linked. Luckily, though, when we find the common root of these issues, we also find their solutions, which I will address later in this post.
Anyway, I’ll talk about COVID and climate change in turn, but to start, let’s analyze the coronavirus!
Wildlife and Wuhan
COVID-19 is an environmental issue. Specifically, it’s an issue with how we relate to animals and their habitat. Like Ebola, tuberculosis, and the flu (as well as many other sicknesses throughout history), the coronavirus is an animal-borne disease (Price). It probably originated in bats, and according to a peer-reviewed article in The Lancet, it most likely passed on to us through an intermediary animal in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in the Huanan seafood market (Lu). Though these kinds of “wet markets” are a vital aspect of daily life for many people, and selling wild meat in them is uncommon, some of the vendors in Huanan sold or slaughtered wild animals such as “snakes, beavers, porcupines, and baby crocodiles,” and at some point (from what we’ve guessed), a sick animal passed COVID-19 on to a human visitor (Maron). Since the virus came from a human-animal interaction, there’s already an environmental aspect to this pandemic. (See this article from the CDC for more information on zoonotic diseases.)
In addition to wildlife trade, habitat destruction may have played a role in the outbreak. According to Lee Hannah, a senior climate change scientist working with Conservation International, the disease-resistance of wildlife is closely linked to species diversity and to the size of their habitat (Price). When we destroy natural habitat and force animals close together, those animals often become “stressed or sick, as well as more likely to come into contact with people,” so that “diseases bounce back and forth between wildlife populations and humans” (Price). Moreover, if we continue destroying habitats at our current rate, Hannah claims that “animal-borne diseases are going to become more frequent” (Price).
In short, habitat destruction makes animals vulnerable to disease, and unregulated wildlife trade can spread that disease to us. When we relate to nature in these harmful ways, things like what happened in Wuhan become a lot more likely. To be clear, I’m not saying that the virus is “China’s fault.” Even if the virus originated in China, it stemmed from a pattern of environmental abuse that people all across the globe (ourselves included) have adopted and contributed to. This moral failing is not limited to any one country.
That aside, from what I understand, we can’t prove for certain that COVID-19 wouldn’t have happened if we’d preserved habitat and set more restrictions on wildlife trade, but such precautions will make viral outbreaks a lot less likely in the future. We’ll always have diseases, but if we cultivate a healthier relationship with wildlife and their habitat, we’ll make these kinds of zoonotic outbreaks less frequent and less extreme in years to come.
Habitat and Climate
So, judging from these facts, our abuse of wild habitat increases the risk of animal-borne disease. How does that link to climate change? Well, practices such as “mining, logging, and slash-and-burn agriculture” not only destroy habitats, but also remove large amounts of trees, which increases the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (Selby 105). Trees breathe carbon dioxide, so cutting them down prevents them from absorbing a prominent greenhouse gas, and in some cases, the treatment of the wood (e.g. burning) also releases the stored CO2 back into the atmosphere (Pimm). Thus, habitat destruction also exacerbates climate change.
In light of this, we see that harming natural habitat can contribute to both zoonotic disease and greenhouse gas emissions, two problems that entail serious and global consequences for human beings. COVID-19 has wounded economies, ratcheted up unemployment, and infected and killed people across the globe. As for the consequences of climate change, we have already experienced serious repercussions, such as “a three-month-long flood in the Florida Keys, wildfires across a record hot and dry Australia,” and “deadly heat waves in Europe” (Sengupta). Beyond that, if climate change keeps progressing at its current rate, it will increase the probability and severity of issues such as droughts, insect outbreaks, heat waves, wildfires, and hurricanes (NASA).
Though the effects of climate change are more gradual than COVID-19, if they aren’t kept in check, they’ll bring about a series of natural and societal problems that will match or even exceed the pandemic that we’re experiencing now. Our response to climate change will look different than our response to the virus, but we must still treat it with the same level of urgency.
Common Solutions
To return to my earlier point, it’s clear that habitat destruction can be a major factor in both animal-borne disease and climate change. By isolating a common root between these issues, however, we find a common solution as well. Lee Hannah (the climate scientist I cited earlier) advises, “We must take care of nature to take care of ourselves,” and she lists several initiatives that governments can take to preserve natural habitat: “protected areas, national parks, community conservancies and indigenous-managed conservation areas” (Price). As voters, we can support leaders at the State and Federal levels who support these kinds of measures.
Voting is helpful, but in writing this post, I still wondered: is there anything else that we can do as individuals to preserve and restore natural habitat? After doing some research, I did find a couple of potential starting points for individual action, which I’ve included in the “Further Reading” section below. I hope to use those myself. I’m certainly not an expert on this topic, though, so if any of you have thoughts or suggestions, please share them in the comments section!
Conclusion
COVID-19 and climate change are both global issues with serious consequences for the natural and human world, and both have roots in our abusive relationship with our environment, revealing how interconnected we are. “Nature” and “humanity” are two parts of one system, not separate entities, so what affects one affects the other, for better or for worse. During this pandemic, our fundamental reliance on the health of natural systems has become abundantly clear.
As awful as it is, the very concept of infection reminds us of our interdependence. If an animal is sick, if a neighbor is sick, or if a country across the globe is sick, then our own health is at risk. If the inherent worth and beauty of the natural world weren’t enough to convince us to care for it before (though it should have been), we should certainly care for it now, when it’s so clear that our own health is at stake. As we emerge from this pandemic, and as we go about rebuilding our lives, our communities, and our economic systems, perhaps we can view this as a turning point, not simply to return to normal life, but to explore new ways of cultivating mutual thriving between ourselves and our environment.
Further Reading
For those of you who want to learn more about the connections between COVID-19 and climate change, and for those of you who want to donate, write petitions, or learn in order to support the preservation of wild habitat, feel free to use the links (or the Works Cited) below!
Conservation International on COVID-19 and Climate Change: https://www.conservation.org/blog/what-does-covid-19-have-to-do-with-nature-these-5-articles-explain
The Nature Conservancy: https://support.nature.org/site/SPageNavigator/action_center/action_center.html
The Natural Resources Defense Council:
Forest Peoples Programme (because ensuring justice for indigenous peoples is vital for ethical environmental protection): http://www.forestpeoples.org/en/about
Land Rights Now:
Works Cited
Lu, Roujian, et al. “Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus.”
The Lancet, vol. 395, no. 10224, 30 Jan. 2020, pp. 565-574. ScienceDirect,
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30251-8. Accessed 27 May 2020.
Maron, Dina Fine. “‘Wet markets’ likely launched the coronavirus.” National Geographic, 15
Apr. 2020, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavirus
linked-to-chinese-wet-markets/#close. Accessed 27 May 2020.
NASA Climate. “The Effects of Climate Change.” NASA, https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/.
Accessed 27 May 2020.
Pimm, Stuart L. “Deforestation.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 08 Jan. 2018,
https://www.britannica.com/science/deforestation. Accessed 27 May 2020.
Price, Kiley. “Expert: To prevent pandemics like COVID-19, ‘take care of nature.’”
Conservation International, 27 Mar. 2020, https://www.conservation.org/blog/expert-
to-prevent-pandemics-like-COVID-19-take-care-of-nature. Accessed 27 May 2020.
Selby, David, and Fumiyo Kagawa. “Climate Change and Coronavirus: A Confluence of
Two Emergencies as Learning and Teaching Challenge.” Policy and Practice: A
Development Education Review, no. 30, pp. 104-114, 2020, https://www.developmente
ducationreview.com/sites/default/files/Full%20Issue%2030%20final%20%281%29_0.
pdf#page=107. Accessed 27 May 2020.
Sengupta, Somini. “Climate Change Has Lessons for Fighting the Coronavirus.” The New
York Times, 12 Mar. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/climate/climate-
change-coronavirus-lessons.html. Accessed 27 May 2020.
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