Consequences of our War on Nature

Emily Witt  published in The New Yorker

As many commentators have pointed out, the emergence of the covid-19 virus and the global destruction of natural habitats are directly linked. The virus is thought to be zoonotic, which means it was first transferred from an animal to a human. Such diseases, according to epidemiologists, are often a consequence of the transformation of biodiverse lands into farms and the related global trade in wild animals. Our “war on nature,” as Thunberg has called it, has always been self-harm disguised as self-interest, and the emergence of the new virus is not a crisis separate from environmental destruction but a symptom of it.

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Read the full piece in How Greta Thunberg Transformed Existential Dread Into a Movement.