A commentary by Professor Benjamin Horton (Earth Observatory of Singapore) and Emeritus Professor Perter Horton (University of Sheffield), published online on 7 July 2020 in One Earth, looks at how the current COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis are signs of the unsustainability of human society and the decreasing resilience of our ailing planet.

Titled “COVID-19 and the Climate Emergency: Do Common Origins and Solutions Reside in the Global Agrifood System?”, the authors discuss whether both events have the same underlying causes and common solutions, and whether they might be rooted in a failing global agrifood system.

Citing declining biodiversity as one of the key factors in the increased outbreaks of zoonotic disease, the authors explained that as man encroach upon the natural habitats of animals, contact between the two will escalate, locking us into a continual race to find treatments and vaccines to keep up with the increasing emergence of zoonotic human diseases. At the same time, the climate emergency of increasing temperatures, extreme weather, and rising sea levels risk further biodiversity collapse.

Click here for more on why the authors believe that humankind has created a trap of wide-spread devastation for itself, where escape will not be simple or easy.