How climate change is raising the risks of another pandemic

As humans degrade earth's environment, we have created a world in which diseases may be increasingly apt to fester and multiply.

Infection-spreading creatures such as mosquitoes and ticks are thriving on a planet warmed by a blanket of fossil fuel emissions. When pollution, hunting or development push rare organisms to extinction, parasites proliferate because they have evolved to target the most abundant species.

And then there are the harms caused when humans introduce nonnative plants and animals or chemicals such as herbicides and fungicides to fragile ecosystems. That exacerbates losses in biodiversity that leave surviving populations more vulnerable to illness, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/05/08/climate-change-disease-pandemics/