The Patriot Post® · The Next (Climate-Caused) Pandemic?

A report published recently by Nature, a British weekly science journal, claims that the chance for cross-species viral transmission risk will rise dramatically in the coming years due to climate change.

The report states that global climate and land use changes will produce opportunities for an explosion of viruses that could leap from wild animals to humans, much like West Nile, Ebola, or bird flu — but not as much like COVID, which might have originated with bats but almost certainly came from a lab. “At least 10,000 virus species have the capacity to infect humans,” Nature says, but we are currently protected from most of them because the animals that carry them inhabit areas far from human population centers. “However, climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife.”

Computer simulations of potential virus hot spots, geographic population shifts, and climate prediction models out to 2070 found that cross-species viral transmission could increase 4,000 times. Areas of concern include high elevations and heavily populated areas in Asia and Africa. Furthermore, the report claims that this trend may already be underway and that holding global warming below the two-degree Celsius threshold may not have any impact.

The Left has predictably latched onto this report and broadcast it far and wide. With America potentially emerging from the clutches of the COVID pandemic, leftists are in desperate need to come up with a new scary narrative that gives the government an excuse to tighten its grip on power. What better story than one that combines our fresh fears of viral outbreaks with their all-time favorite bogeyman, climate change?

Despite the worst intentions of the environmental Left, the verdict on anthropomorphic climate change and the extent of its impact is still out. “Settled science” is most often a myth of the Left regarding stuff like this. Science is all about asking questions, which the Left hates (unless it’s questioning someone’s birth sex). Questions about climate generally make their theories fall apart. They prefer to browbeat people into going along with a certain agenda or threaten their livelihoods if necessary.

Nature is a peer-reviewed journal that is widely trusted in the scientific community, but it is not immune to the kind of bullying for which the Left is known. In 2017, the magazine was attacked for an editorial warning against whitewashing history and erasing names in the wake of unrest fomented by leftist agitators in Charlottesville, Virginia. The editorial was later retracted and rewritten.

It should also be noted in the spirit of transparency that one of the contributing agencies to the Nature report is the EcoHealth Alliance. This organization, dedicated to the study of preventing pandemics, was mired in controversy due to its ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Yes, that Wuhan.

Prior to the 2020 pandemic, EcoHealth worked very closely with the Wuhan lab and was the only U.S.-based group studying coronavirus transmission in China. EcoHealth, which received major funding from the federal government, passed along some of that taxpayer money to the Chinese in the form of subgrants. When the Trump administration demanded that EcoHealth provide information needed to determine the cause of the pandemic outbreak, the organization stalled. Its funding was pulled, but later reinstated. However, the questions as to what its players knew and when they knew it are still open.

We mention these facts not to throw cold water on the Nature report but to remind people that science is susceptible to being corrupted by political agendas. It’s difficult enough to predict what will happen to the climate when we approach the data objectively. When agenda-driven groups get involved, then it’s hard to know what reports can be trusted.

The Nature report should be treated as what it is, a theory about possible outcomes driven by climate change. In these instances, we follow the science and act accordingly. If leftists want to pretend this will lead to “Planet of the Apes,” let them. We don’t have to go along.