Melting glaciers might lead to new pandemics

Unfortunately, humans have been leading to the ruin of planet earth. They are opting for secure homes by disregarding the homes of other species. Disproportionate use of natural resources is causing loss of biological diversity and environmental degradation. Global warming is amplifying weather and climate extremes at a surprising rate. Human-caused climate breakdown continues to wreak havoc across the world. People are losing lives and livelihoods due to fatal and recurrent floods, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires triggered by the climate crisis.

With an upsurge in global economic development, leaders and bureaucrats are continuing to focus on remodeling urban villages and militias. To gain a foothold in this rat race for dominance, they forget the plundered forests, polluted seas, and mountains that were bombed to achieve these aims. And with environmental plundering on the increase, the climate has changed drastically. About 3% of the Earth’s biodiversity remains unblemished by human activities, a new study has found, suggesting that growing urbanization and deforestation have played a role in depleting the wilderness and natural ecosystems.

Studies from around the world suggest novel viruses emerging from melting glaciers

Recent studies have shown that viruses dormant in ice sheets, permafrost, and glaciers are beginning to emerge as a result of global heating. These may or may not be dangerous, but we did take a gamble when, despite being aware of the repercussions, we took an anti-environmental attitude, didn’t we? 

Lake Hazen is the largest high Arctic freshwater lake in the world. Genetic analysis of its soil and lake sediments has suggested the risk of viral spillover. It is a phenomenon where a virus infects a new host for the first time. The study found that this spillover may be higher close to melting glaciers. Viruses and bacteria that were once locked up in glaciers and permafrost could reawaken, infecting local wildlife, more particularly as their range shifts closer to the poles.

Dr. Stéphane Aris-Brosou and his colleagues at the University of Ottawa in Canada were responsible for this study. Their research was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The team sequenced RNA and DNA in the collected samples to identify signatures closely matching those of known viruses and potential plant, animal, or fungal hosts. 

They also ran an algorithm that evaluated the chance of these viruses infecting unrelated groups of organisms. The analysis suggested that the risk of viral spillover to new hosts was higher at locations close to where large amounts of glacial meltwater flowed in – a situation that will become more likely as our climate warms. 

The team, however, did not quantify whether or not these viruses were capable of triggering an infection.

Researchers at the Ohio State University, in 2021, announced that they had found genetic material from 33 viruses, out of which 28 were novel, in ice samples collected from the Tibetan plateau in China. The viruses were estimated to be approximately 15,000 years old, based on their location, proving that unknown viruses can, and do, lurk in glacier ice.

A little earlier in 2014, at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research in Aix-Marseille, scientists had managed to revive a giant virus isolated from Siberian permafrost. And for the first time in 30,000 years, the virus was made infectious again. The study’s author, Jean-Michel Claverie, stated that exposing such ice layers could be a recipe for disaster.

Aris-Brosou’s team cautioned that as long as viruses and their bridge vectors are not present in the environment simultaneously, the likelihood of dramatic events probably remains low. On the other hand, climate change is predicted to modify the range of existing species, potentially bringing new hosts into contact with ancient bacteria or viruses.

Will this lead to pandemics? 

The team specified that no one could be absolutely sure. Also doubtful is whether or not the potential for host switching identified in Lake Hazen is unique within lake sediments as opinioned by Arwyn Edwards, the director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Microbiology at Aberystwyth University.

Troubles arise only when humans interfere with a previously balanced ecosystem. Nature has the capability to restore originality. It is alive like us, and it fights infections like us. The ability of a naturally existing environment to restore imbalanced dynamics is called negative feedback. For example, to counter a virus, antivirals are developed. Likewise, to counter the abnormal exploitation of resources, the planetary environment retaliates through a standard of troops. Sometimes, these defenders may affect climate while others lead to pandemics to restore the ecosystem.

We need to urgently explore the microbial worlds all around the globe to understand risks in context. We are aware that the Arctic is warming rapidly and the major risks to the human race are from its influence on our climate. While diseases from elsewhere are slowly finding their way into the vulnerable communities and ecosystems of the Arctic. 

But not just the Arctic, every glacier around the world is vulnerable to hazards if proper measures are not taken. Kashmir, too, is not far from everything that has been happening. However, research to prove the existence of new viruses in the melting glaciers of our valley is still lacking. Then again, that does not liberate this highly sensitive Himalayan region from any revolutionary microbial life that may have the potential to cause new pandemics.

Issues to consider 

Advocacy, education, or a health system isn’t static. This is true for the global environment too. All systems, including the climate, are continuously evolving. We have known this since the beginning yet such changes may not be positive or meaningful every time, i.e. for the benefit of our disadvantaged, vulnerable, or excluded groups. Melting glaciers could bring in new waves of pandemics or they might not at all. Yet human civilization has to carefully consider the repercussions if the former speculation comes alive. That is what needs preparation.

Privileged people will talk. They will express concern only when they want to or, more appropriately, when the world is watching. Yet nobody goes out of their way to help, support, and work for the voiceless, deprived, and forgotten. Here, the ones affected would be us, all of us, so necessary steps should be taken to avoid such scenarios. We’ve written pages upon pages of amendments to the climate policy but to no avail. World leaders need to think these over once again and with COP27 in progress, strict regulations should be laid for every nation to be lawfully abided by as well.

The coronavirus pandemic made people question life, survival, and the future that will be after the dust settles. We realized the penalty of exploiting nature, so the requirement is to hold on to that understanding and try and modify our lives. It doesn’t take a laboratory to manufacture a super-virus. The ones responsible are us, humans, who have the audacity to exploit nature beyond its threshold.

References:

1. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/oct/19/next-pandemic-may-come-from-melting-glaciers-new-data-shows
2. https://thekashmirimages.com/2020/11/15/systemic-change-for-environmental-conservation/
3. https://thekashmirimages.com/2020/06/05/the-future-is-a-desolate-place/
4. https://thekashmirimages.com/2020/03/21/when-you-mess-with-nature-it-messes-back/
5. https://theswaddle.com/only-3-of-worlds-ecosystems-remain-untouched-by-human-activities-study/