Do Our Leaders Really Care About Future Pandemics?
This weekend leaders of the world will gather in Cornwall, UK, to discuss the Corona pandemic, among other things. The countries that the leaders represent are among the world's largest industries, including the USA, India, and South Korea. One outcome of the gathering is expected to be an anti pandemic plan, which will outline how to make sure the vaccine reaches all corners of the world.
Even though we should celebrate the effort, there is another side to the story. I’m going to explain why the leaders knew this pandemic was going to happen and that they aren’t doing what they can to stop the next one. To wrap our heads around this statement, we need to think about what the gathering is about. All of the leaders represent the largest economies in the world. What does it imply? It means that only counties with a huge GDP, gross domestic product are allowed to join this club. Gross domestic product is a combination between the size of the population and the income of each inhabitant.
This is where things get interesting, a larger GDP equals increased environmental destruction, and increased environmental destruction, in its turn, results in a larger risk of a pandemic happening. If you want to read more about why “Green growth” is a lie, read this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/why-growth-cant-be-green/. Green growth, in this case, means boosting GDP while lowering the environmental impact. And if you are unsure whether or not increased environmental destruction results in a higher risk of pandemics taking place, read here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/17/pandemics-destruction-nature-un-who-legislation-trade-green-recovery.
The connection between environmental degradation and the risk of a pandemic has been known for quite some time. Even as early as the 1930:s. Read more about it here: https://thefern.org/2020/12/in-the-jungles-of-borneo-a-novel-approach-to-end-deforestation-and-the-spread-of-disease/. Therefore, no leader of a country could claim they were unaware of the connection.
If leaders of the world really are serious about the pandemic threat, they would act like it. Right now, the opposite is happening; both population density and environmental degradation are on the rise. Thus creating a perfect storm of situations, increasing the likelihood of diseases spreading. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/31/11638796/why-there-are-more-infectious-disease-outbreaks
Connecting back to the article's title, if you don’t want pandemics to happen, act like it. Otherwise, it looks the opposite.
