The Uncomfortable Relationship Between Climate Change and Viruses

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We need to preserve bat habitats so we can stop the spread of the virus.

   We live in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution but at the same time in the age of Guns, Germs, and Steels preached by Jared Diamonds. The spread and spread of a virus called Corona19 asks us. What era do we live in now?

   Human history has a repetitive and familiar flow. It may be because we are human beings with 23 pairs of chromosomes. In addition to this, chasing the spread of viral diseases such as Nipah, SARS, Ebola, and MERS in the past will make the only bats among mammals capable of flying.

   Bats have been with viruses for a long time. Fast-speed flapping for flight increases metabolism and body temperature. Bats consume three to five times more energy than land mammals of the same size because of their wings. This process produces harmful oxygen and cell damage, which generally causes inflammation in mammals. Excessive inflammatory reactions can cause disease and threaten life.

   Scientists have found that bats' immune systems are poorly designed for inflammatory reactions. This is because if there is a strong inflammatory response to pathogens that have been invaded from outside, changes in the body caused by a flying can be burdensome.
So bats naturally became natural viral warehouses for survival. The virus entered the body of a bat and was stored without disappearing thanks to a weak immune response.

   Scientists have found that there are more than 137 species of viruses in the body. The fact that bats have become a natural repository for viruses and that viruses spread to humans through intermediate hosts may not seem to have much to do with climate change. However, climate change is more than just a relationship because it accompanies ecological changes.

   If life forms that were not living in any place were newly discovered, it would mean a big change in the world of invisible viruses. With the development of human civilization and the conquest of nature, including forests, to man, the living areas of humans and bats began to each other. Thanks to this, 61 species of the virus that bats have can transmit to humans can spread to humans more easily than in the past.

   Researchers from Spain, Britain, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, and Norway conducted joint research as the Ebola virus spread in Africa. And we found that the spread of the bat virus was closely linked to human forest destruction. The researchers announced that preserving the forests inhabited by bats could prevent the spread of the virus.

   Living creatures that carry viruses to humans have arthropods such as insects as well as bats. Insects are the most sensitive creatures to climate change. Mosquitoes are no exception.

   The Aedes agypti and the Aedes albopictus are known as the carriers of the Zika virus. A research team from the University of Florida in the U.S. announced that the spread of mosquito habitats due to climate change will expose approximately 500 million people by 2050 and an additional 1 billion people by 2080. Climate change is expected to spread mosquito habitats that spread diseases. Current habitat (blue) of  Aedes agypti (above) and Aedes albopictus (below) and expected future habitat (yellow)

   It is impossible for humans to remove viruses from Earth. In the meantime, we have been fighting a war without a truce with the virus, from a small cold to a large Corona 19.

   Viruses are more powerful than any other nature that humans have conquered with science and technology. If humans move toward conquering nature, the encounter between viruses and humans will continue to grow.

   It may seem like a faraway country story, but scientists are also concerned about viruses that will be trapped in the Antarctic or Arctic glaciers. This is because glaciers can melt and something in them can come out of the world, and they can be disconnected from each other and open boundaries where viruses have not spread.

   As the environment changes, natural contact between living things will also increase. The discovery in Alaska in 2004 of the "PDV," which killed seals en masse in the North Atlantic in 1988 and 2002, is also evidence of the spread of the virus as Arctic glaciers declined.

   Viruses spread quickly when placed in an environment where they can spread. It is said to be the era of the fourth industrial revolution, but it is hard to predict when, where and in what way life will deliver the virus to humans. Unfortunately, humans can only recognize the virus after it is transmitted. And climate change will make the process even more unpredictable. Therefore, humans need to look at climate change more uncomfortable.
Preserve or destroy?

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