Protecting the environment will make us healthier, so we can withstand the next pandemic — or prevent it.
But fighting a pandemic and fighting climate destruction are not at cross purposes, argues Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital who heads the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In fact, they are one and the same.
In the instance of another recent and very concerning infection that was on everyone’s mind not so long ago ― Ebola ― we have evidence that suggests that the destruction of forests in West Africa contributed to the movement of bats north. And that deforestation may have forced animal-human encounters that [otherwise] wouldn’t have happened.We have lots of evidence that deforestation drives disease emergence. Deforestation is also a major driver of climate change.
So, these are the arguments that I think, among many others, are critical to making sure that everyone is able to take actions that will promote lesser carbon pollution. The more we can focus on the near term gains of climate actions for health that people can really grab onto, I think the better off we’ll be in terms of promoting where we need to get with climate change.
And I think another crucial point is when there are huge disruptions like COVID, economies get rebuilt. And we have opportunities to implement solutions in ways that weren’t possible before. We’ve got all kinds of businesses that are shuttered. This affords an opportunity to potentially do stuff that may improve their energy efficiency, may be able to transition them off of fossil fuels, and who knows what else.
And also, critically, with all these pollution and obesity concerns that tie climate and COVID together, being poor amplifies those risks tremendously. We’ve already seen that poor communities and states are being ravaged in contrast to those that are better off both economically and in terms of their health.
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