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This year has been indelibly shaped by the COVID pandemic — it literally changed everything. What has become clear as a result is that environmental injustice was exacerbated by the pandemic, and if we don’t repair our relationship with the natural world we are going to face more deadly pandemics in the future. For the early months of the lockdown, we covered COVID every day and these two themes emerged.
In May we wrote that “For communities of color in the United States, years of discriminatory policies and environmental injustice have made them more susceptible to dying from COVID-19. And now, as we’re almost 2 months into lockdown, those same communities are grappling with more severe housing insecurity and worse access to medical care than their white counterparts.” This injustice did not change over the course of the pandemic, and now as Americans begin to get the vaccine, racial injustice is making Blacks and other minorities wary of taking it, further exacerbating the disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities.
At the same time, we learned that the pandemic originated in bats and due to unsafe interactions between humans and animals, spread around the world, leaving no country untouched. Last August we wrote about this problem — Tara Stoinski, the president, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, explained our current predicament best:
“Covid-19 has made abundantly clear that our assault on the world’s biodiversity is also an assault on ourselves. It has proven that we can no longer afford to dismiss the problems scientists and conservationists uncover in faraway places. As forests are destroyed, people and wildlife increasingly come into contact; as the commercial wildlife trade expands, the crossover of diseases from animals to people occurs. We simply must take better care of the natural world.”
One way we can take better care of the natural world and prevent the next pandemic is by protecting 30% of the planet by 2030. And if we do, we will be helping to tackle climate change as well. A win-win.
by Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer A new Danish study has found that elevated levels of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of man-made chemicals linked to cancer, in the bloodstream are linked to severe COVID-19. The study observed 323 patients infected with the virus and found that those with elevated levels of the […]
Why This Matters: Rising seas and rising temperatures are public health issues. More extreme heat worldwide means that people with pre-existing conditions, people who work outdoors, and the elderly all face a higher risk of heat-related death.
by Natasha Lasky, ODP Contributing Writer A new study presented during the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Annual Meeting revealed that ticks carrying the bacterium that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever are more than twice as likely to feed on humans rather than dogs when temperatures rise. Why This Matters: Ticks are thriving […]
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