Global Warming Blamed for Pandemic, Civilisation on Brink of Collapse.
Apr 11, 01:05 AM
I read an article this week in New Scientist magazine about how a pandemic would bring about the fall of our civilisation. It was an eye opening read. Basically as a civilisation grows and matures it becomes more complex and as complexity increases, so does the importance of every part of the system. Our society has not become more robust as it grows, but more fragile.
The example they used to emphasise the impact was truck drivers. If the pandemic resulted in truck drivers not going to work, the economy would grind to a halt. They deliver the food, they take away the waste, they bring the fuel, they provide the power stations with their inputs. One seemingly small link in the chain has disastrous flow on effects due to the integrated complexity of the economy. Truck drivers are easy to train and replace. But what happens if the power-plant operators all get sick or die. Who would replace them? The reality of the society we live in where specialisation has become the norm is that individuals matter. If they go, things fall apart.
A city will have barely three days worth of supplies at any one time. One reason for this is that cost cutting and profit maximising strategies means that factories produce to order. Inventories are low because storage costs are high. The world has become truly integrated, with food, resources, labour, money all bouncing around the globe on a daily basis at ever increasing rates. Few economies are self-sufficient, economies of scale and comparative advantages have globalised the markets. We’ll give you iron ore, you make us TV’s. Wherever a pandemic begins the effects will be felt across the world.
What the article failed to note was how this frailty of our civilisation would be impacted by that lumbering giant global warming. The world is warming. Yes it is. Don’t be fooled by non-science and political babble, this is happening. How bad the consequences will be are debatable but there will be consequences. Some we are seeing already. Increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes, wide-spread drought and numerous extreme weather events are common place in the news.
One of the less publicised impacts of global warming is the spread of disease. Evidence of this occurring already exists. Disease-carrying mosquitoes are spreading as climate shifts allow them to survive in formerly inhospitable areas. Mosquitoes that can carry dengue fever viruses were previously limited to elevations of 3,300 feet but recently appeared at 7,200 feet in the Andes Mountains of Colombia.
A warming globe means the pathogens can spread, grow and mutate at faster rates. This isn’t a prediction, this is already happening.
So not only do we face a fragile civilisation, capable of collapsing at the onset of a pandemic. The ability of such a pandemic to occur is increasing as the world warms and the pathogens are able to spread.
So there’s some food for thought. Don’t eat it all though.. you might want to keep some for an emergency.
Filed under: Ramblings