The climate change discussion appears to be on the elite list of the morality of humankind that elevates human beings on the same pedestal as the creator of the universe. Having said that, if climate changes are not handled seriously, it will make the earth unhospitable to live in. We are still in the grip of COVID-19, which causes many deaths across the world, as per the recent report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) to send out an alert message before the mega event like the Paris Olympics 2024. Nipah and Chandipura viruses have always been parading here and there.
With better health infrastructure and awareness, we fail to curb the growth of virus outbreaks in the world. Day by day, it is becoming so severe that it keeps the scientists on their toes to find the reason behind it. Ed Young, a science writer, writes, “We have created the age of Pandemicene—a transition from Holocene to Anthropocene. Extreme weather, forest fires, heat waves, floods, erratic rainfall, and drying rivers are just a few of the compelling arguments being made for taking action to stop malicious viruses from invading human territory. Humans are coming into contact with lethal viruses as a result of deforestation and the rearing of animals for meat and dairy products. Deadly infections can easily jump into human bodies via this.
Apart from this, the rising population tends to accelerate the deforestation and intervention of human activities into wildlife territory, making the viruses come and be a part of the human ecosystem. Rising temperatures and depleting freshwater are not only compelling human beings to search for alternatives, but also animals are searching for land that could help them meet their basic requirements of life. This intermingling of animals and human beings is paving the way for deadly viruses to search for new hosts of animal bodies as well as human bodies to survive and thrive upon.
The same concern has been addressed by a group of scientists led by Colin Carlson, a biologist, in his publication in Nature. Carlson writes in his research paper that at least 10,000 species of viruses have the potential to infect human beings. At present, these dangerous viruses are surviving on the wild animals. The commercial and marketing aspects of human life are going to invite them all to become part of human life and its environment. The group of scientists has developed a phylogeographical model of interactions between wild species and their land use mechanisms for survival due to the challenges they are facing through climate change. The scientists have been quite apprehensive that the cross-species transfer of viruses will be 4,000 times greater than they are right now. For example, the Ebola virus was confined to West Africa initially, but now it has gained its presence in throughput Africa. In the same way, all dangerous viruses will be greater in amount to spread diseases and killings in the civilized world.
The study done by Carlson and his colleagues over the years has been nicknamed The Iceberg Study and predicts at least 300,000 interactions between dangerous viruses carried by wild species and human beings will interact with each other in the near future. The process of this beginning has already begun quite before the Paris Agreement on Climate Change for setting a target to get temperature below 2 degrees by 2100.
If the world fails to notice the takeaways of The Iceberg Study, be ready to face the consequences, which will be hard to control, and tackle the onslaught of viruses and their related diseases in the near future.