One Health in an Age of Climate Change Extinctions and a Pandemic
[Music]
you may be feeling how i
am and i’m feeling tired covered tired
i feel anxious about whether those i
love will get sick or whether
i will get sick whether i or my family
and friends will have a job or
my son will handle learning in his
virtual classroom in our house
this all makes me tired however i am
also
strangely energized even during this
public health crisis in which
untold suffering and loss has impacted
communities around the world
there is some good as we talk about
flattening the curve social distancing
and who is wearing the best face mask
the world is waking up to the concept of
one health
if covin has taught us anything it is
that our human health is dependent
on the health of other species there
truly is only one health
and the health of human and non-human
animals and ecosystems are all connected
this growing understanding gives me hope
but make no mistake
we are in the middle of a global health
crisis
crisis is the perfect word for this
pandemic
did you know that the word crisis comes
from the latinized form of the greek for
crisis
a crisis is the turning point in a
disease
the moment a patient can get better or
worse
live or die so here we are in a global
health crisis
the question is whether the collective
we will get better or worse
live or die but to fully understand the
prognosis
is it’s important to understand how a
patient became sick in the first place
how did we get here many people say we
couldn’t have seen
this coronavirus pandemic coming but the
warning signs have been there for years
and many scientists and conservationists
have been talking about an event such as
covid19 for decades
those of us that work on the front line
of understanding diseases
shared between human and non-human
animals these zoonotic diseases
we were not surprised by this pandemic
we even predicted the possibility
of a covid19 type event but here we are
with nearly a million human deaths from
a virus that began in a non-human animal
a virus that moved from an animal host
to a human
spilled over an epidemiological parlance
a virus that once in a human host was
able to become
incredibly human adapted so it could
move human to human
to human but how did it actually move
from an animal to a human
this is the trillion dollar question
this pandemic started at a live animal
market also called
called wet markets these are places
where animals both living and dead
domestic and wild are often housed
together
under crowded unhygienic and stressful
conditions
there they stay waiting to be sold for
human consumption
in these markets infectious agents may
easily move
between animals as they are breathing
and urinating and defecating in the same
space
and even are often slaughtered on site
all this mixing allows infectious agents
to reassort and mutate
to change their ability to be
transmitted between
and within species and to even change
their ability to make an
individual sick sick but let’s be honest
covet is not the only crisis in town
2020 is not just the year of pandemics
climate change continues unchecked with
record-breaking heat waves and wildfires
around the world
remember australia a few months ago that
was 2020
or california oregon and washington
state right now
and one of the animals lost because of
climate change
and the australian wildfires alone
billions of animals died
the loss of non-human species isn’t just
because of climate change
since january 1st 2020
it is estimated that 39 900 species have
gone extinct
extinct meaning no more
now in september 2020 with a third of
the year remaining
in our whole lives after that where do
we go from here
i am optimistic that these three major
planetary ills of climate change
the loss of non-human species and even a
global viral pandemic have
made humanity wake up it has made us
realize
that now is the time to turn our coveted
fatigue
into one health action with this growing
awareness that we are in a planetary
health crisis
we know that we must take action to get
past this historical moment
we will get to the other side of this
pandemic but we must follow this science
we can do this 2020 is a threshold year
we are awake but what will we do now
abe lincoln is credited with the
statement that the only way to predict
the future
is to create it we must create a
post-pandemic future
in which we don’t continue to destroy
the animals and plants and ecosystems
that humans need for survival
and health our past actions have created
2020 to be the year of climate change
species loss and yes even a global human
pandemic
we created this year of planetary
sickness
so now let’s create the future just as
this global pandemic was predictable by
many of us
the future is also predictable if we are
ready to create it
2020 can be a threshold year for good
the year that a one health approach of
people working together
for the health of environments animals
and humans
is put into action to overcome the
challenges of today and prevent them
from becoming even
bigger challenges tomorrow two years ago
i gave a talk on the same platform
where i warned of a coming planetary
heart attack
in 2018 we were like the human patient
who doesn’t take the warnings her doctor
has said of a heart attack
if she continues with her current
lifestyle even as the signs add up
a tingling in the arm shortness of
breath weight loss
nausea fatigue now in 2020 we are smack
in the middle of a planetary heart
attack
the symptoms are all there wildfires
moving across countries
the extinction of non-human species at a
rate night
not seen since dinosaurs went extinct
and yes
even a global pandemic a human pandemic
that came from our
unbalanced relationship with other
animals we shouldn’t blame
bats or pangolins the probable original
host
from which sars covid ii the virus that
causes covid19
what we should do is reevaluate our
relationship with bats and pangolins and
other non-human animals and with the
environments that sustain
all life and yes even with each other
we will get to the other side of this
pandemic it will take resilience to
recover
to come back stronger than we were
before
stronger and smarter i hope if we
realize how our
everyday actions can and do impact human
health
animal health and even environmental
health
what will you do to create the future
days or weeks from now when you think
back on this subject i want you to ask
yourself what am i doing to change
things are you better educated on how
2020 became the year of a pandemic
undeniable climate change impacts and
the loss of biodiversity
better yet are you educating others on
the global prices and
on ways each of us can minimize our
global footprint
simple measures that we can each take
such as decreasing
animal protein consumption or simply
shopping local
or better yet shopping less have you
picked your top global crisis
and and there are many to choose from
and found ways to
minimize the impacts on things such as
climate change
and future zoonotic events
make no mistake we are experiencing a
planetary heart attack
we are in a global crisis the symptoms
are upon us
the prognosis is up to all of us you
and me will we get better or worse
will we in fact live or die
you