Md. Mizanur Rahman :: It has been said that the world is at the biggest health risk in the last 100 years. Recently, Antonio Guterrres, the UN Secretary General addressed the current COVID 19 circumstances as the greatest test since the World War II. He said, “The new coronavirus disease is attacking societies at their core, claiming lives and people’s livelihoods.” Ulrich Beck addressed contemporary society as ‘Risk Society’. He argued that risk was also existed in the past. The previous risk was natural but the risk in the present society is human made. According to many environmental scientists and environmental health scientists, the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases is related to the environment and the contamination of the environmental components. Because they are somehow associated to the environment and climate change.COVID19 is the self-made crisis of human beings. There is no way of denying that this disease is interrelated to the losses of bio-diversity and climate change. Either human beings forgets or doesn’t believe the interrelationship among the elements of environment. As a result, the world is constantly losing the biodiversity. We are experiencing the results.
Inger Andersen, ExecutiveDirector of the UNEP stated, “Nature is sending us message with pandemic coronavirus and climate crisis.” Data show that75% of all emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife. That is, three out of four patients of infectious diseases are infected by the wild animals. The number of infection from the wildlife can easily be assumed. The question is, “Why and how are so many people being infected by the wildlife?”
Biodiversity is declining at a faster rate than any time in the history of human civilization. People are cutting down forests and bringing wild animal the nearest to human settlement. Many of the wildlife are declining due to losing the place of the settlement. On the other hand, human beings starts domesticating of the wild animals in the name of beautification. They also start marketing of the wild animals because of being a profitable business. This vastlyintensifies the risk of theinfection of diseases. The list of the diseases infected from the animals include SARS, MERS, Zika, Dengue, Swine flu, Bird flu, Ebola etc. The latest addition to the list is COVID19.Like its predecessor, COVID19 originated from bat according to many scientists. Many of the scientists said that pangolin could be responsible for spreading COVID19. They are the most traded and trafficked animals stolen from South-east Asia, India and Africa. They are presently extinct in China because Chinese killed them for food, and making their traditional medicine. Many of the scientists argued COVID19 might be originated from sea foods.
In 1880, urban population was only 28% which has reached to 85% in the recent years. Due to rapid and unplanned urbanization, human beings are cutting down trees in a large number to create spaces for settlement. As a result, wild animals are being forced to move away from their habitat to find the food resources for survival.We know, Ebola spread in central Africa due to excessive land use and climate change monkeys and bats sifted to the densely populated areas for their survival.
Economic growth centric development greatly influences to lose of biodiversity creating environmental issues. Large scale industrial production is one of the indicators of economic growth. Large scale industrialization is the pre-requisite for the large scale production. However, large scale industrialization is one of the impediments of environmental and social development. Industries emit smokes and create wastageswhich pollute air and water. The contamination of environment has an adverse effect on social development e.g. pollution has adverse impacts on public health and livelihoods. The report of WHO says, 9 out of 10 people breathe air containing high level of pollutants and 4.2 million people die as a result of exposure to ambient air pollution. According to the report of UNDP, approximately 2.3 billion people don’t have access to safe water management system. We can easily assume the impacts of economic growth centric development to the social and environmental sustainability! Now, we are focusing on eco-friendly industries. The question is, aren’t the existing industries eco-friendly? Answer is obvious!According to the NOAA 2019 Global Climate Summary, the rate of increasing average temperature is 0.07 degree Celsius per year since 1880. But since 1981, the temperature has increased at the rate of 0.18 degree Celsius per year. Data show that the temperature is increasing at an alarming rate in the recent decades. The ice of the world is continuously melting and the sea level is rising. As a result, costal area (lower areas) is going to be submerged under water. This greatly influences to the livelihoods and settlement of human beings. Many species living to the coastal zone displacing from their settlement too. Many of them are not able to cope with the changed climatic condition. They are at risk of being extinct. Moreover, the global warming isresponsible of the extinction of many species from the world. Can the industrial activities deny aforementioned accountabilities?
Irresponsible production and consumption also leads the world towards a new threat. The Report of UNDP says, the emission of 22% of greenhouse gases increases due to the conversion of forest into farmland for producing the foods. Again, 1.3 billion tons food are being wasted every year whereas 2 billion people are living with hunger. Wastages of food are polluting environment on the one hand, hunger causes the malnutrition and diseases of many people on the others. People are using nature arbitrarily to meets their own needs. They are forgetting that nature is the friend of human beings. They are continuously polluting the natural environment. Pollution is the biggest threat to keep ecological balance. For making the world a safer place to live in, it is necessary to maintain the ecological balance. If we become failure to do so, our existence may fall into a threat of extermination in the near future. Many of the species have already been extinct from list due to incapable of coping with the altered environment and climatic condition. Who knows, human beings may also be counted in in the list of annihilation not to be able to keep pace with the changing nature of environment. Economic activities of human beings largely depend on the natural events. The current circumstancesare the bright examples. Many international agencies predicted that many employees will lose their jobs due to COVID19. Again, the human activities also influences on the nature. Data show us that presently the level of environment pollution has been reduced due to COVID19 situation.
Individual cleanliness is being prioritized to prevent COVID19. We should bear in mind that only the assurance of individual cleanliness can protect only the individual. Does it protect health concerns in societal or state or global level? We all should concentrate on the cleanliness of the environment and thus we can prevent our individual, social, state and also global health issues. Individual action should be turned into the collective actions to protect environment and to prevent the diseases.
Writer: Adjunct faculty and Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies and Sustainability (IDSS), United International University. mizanur@idss.uiu.ac.bd
