Friday, November 3, 2017

Fewer People, Please

It must be something in his genes. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, has just declared that the world’s problem is: too many people. Apparently, all of those extra people are bad for the wildlife.

The Daily Caller has the story, via the Daily Telegraph, via Maggie’s Farm:

Prince William warned that population growth is putting “terrible” pressure on the natural world and driving animals to extinction.

“Africa’s rapidly growing human population is predicted to more than double by 2050 – a staggering increase of three and a half million people per month,” the Duke of Cambridge said at a gala hosted by the Tusk Trust, a charity dedicated to protecting African wildlife.

“There is no question that this increase puts wildlife and habitat under enormous pressure,” William said.

“Urbanisation, infrastructure development, cultivation – all good things in themselves, but they will have a terrible impact unless we begin to plan and to take measures now,” William said, according to The Telegraph.

Of course, Wills is following in the footsteps of his doddering father, Prince Charles:

Prince Charles, William’s father, is also a staunch environmentalist. In July 2009, he warned humanity had only 96 months to save the world from “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.” That deadline passed with no apocalypse.

I know, you find it impossible to believe that Prince Charles could have gotten it wrong.

Fortunately, nature is not taking it lying down. As we write, nature is fighting back in Madagascar… of all places. It has launched an unusually nasty version of the bubonic plague on that country. The nation often sees small outbreaks of plague. This year is different, the attack is more virulent and has killed more people.

Was it an answer to princely prayers? The BBC reports:

Madagascar is facing the worst outbreak of plague in 50 years.

There have been more than 1,800 cases and 127 deaths since the start of August, according to new figures.

The island off the south-east coast of Africa is used to seeing about 400 cases of mostly bubonic plague in the same rural areas every year.

But this year it has developed into the deadlier pneumonic version and spread to much more populated areas, including the capital.

As it happens, the plague is eminently treatable with antibiotics. These were not produced by nature, but by human beings working in laboratories. The cure was the product of Western science and ingenuity, the result of the Industrial Revolution.

For those multiculturalists out there, the Madagascar plague story has a multicultural angle. The Sun reports that the disease is being transmitted through an ancient practice called…  Famadihana. And we all respect the different rituals practiced by different cultures, don't we? You see, you learn something new every day.

What is Famadihana? Glad you asked. The Sun explains:

Madagascans have been told to stop the traditional practice of Famadihana - which sees locals dig up deceased relatives and dance with them before they are re-buried.

It is feared the ceremony has helped spread an outbreak of pneumonic plague that has left more than 120 dead on the African island.

The country's health chief Willy Randriamarotia said: "If a person dies of pneumonic plague and is then interred in a tomb that is subsequently opened for a Famadihana, the bacteria can still be transmitted and contaminate whoever handles the body."

The tradition has been banned since the outbreak began, but it is feared ceremonies have taken place regardless.

Some locals are openly dismissing the advice.

11 comments:

Ares Olympus said...

The population of Africa is 1.2 billion, and projected to 2 billion by 2050, IF fertility rates can drop.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg

It does look like walls are going to become even more popular in the coming decades, so when war, famine and pestilence makes life unbearable for the growing third world populations, we'll say "You shoulda used birth control" to explain our cold shoulder.

I don't expect the well known bubonic plague is going to newly spread mass-death, but AIDS is still troubling. A total 15 million dead is a holocaust by some measures, but its clearly not lowering the birthrate. Life expectancy of 34 is still old enough to birth a new generation of HIV babies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Africa
Although the continent is home to about 15.2 percent of the world's population, more than two-thirds of the total, some 35 million infected, were Africans, of whom 15 million have already died. ... Furthermore, the life expectancy in many parts of Africa is declining, largely as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic with life-expectancy in some countries reaching as low as thirty-four years.

If we want to imagine what ends our global economy, fear of infectious disease looks like a pretty good cause in the coming decades. AIDS is too slow, but something like a bird flu probably could slow our global population growth rates.

And for developed nations like ours, at least the republicans are not yet defunding the CDC, or we can hope? Yet, someone's gotta pay for our promised tax cuts sooner or later.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/341933-opinion-6-devastating-effects-of-cutting-cdc-funding

Ares Olympus said...

As to Prince Charles overachieving worries, there's plenty of evidence we're heading in a bad direction, like this recent article about insects.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/oh-no/543390/ Insects Are In Serious Trouble

Jack Fisher said...

Charles -- whose most important job in life was to breed future monarchs -- should set an example for everyone, borrow James Bond's Walther, and start the culling with his own vermin.

trigger warning said...

The Titanic is sinking! Women and children over the gunwales first, right?

On the other hand, too many people bumping against each other means the spread of plague and other infectious diseases. So we should thin the human herd and move everybody into high-density urban hives. Stop the sprawl!

Jack Fisher said...

Dense urban populations tend to be more disease resistant than rural or more isolated ones because exposure from childhood to chronic infections of most diseases leaves limited or in some cases complete immunity to survivors, e.g., measles, chicken pox, and other "childhood" diseases. This is true of even plague and smallpox. Evidence is from a variety of sources, including medical records of the Civil War, comparing disease rates suffered by troops raised from urban areas to those from rural areas.

Epidemics are most lethal when they emerge or re-emerge into "virgin" populations without natural immunities or without practical knowledge of dealing with infection. The disaster is, obviously, more notable in urban populations where the bodies start piling up. This was the case in the three global plague pandemics of the 6th, 14th and 19th centuries.

trigger warning said...

"Exponential urban growth is having a profound effect on global health. Because of international travel and migration, cities are becoming important hubs for the transmission of infectious diseases, as shown by recent pandemics."

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(10)70223-1/fulltext

Anonymous said...

The royals are a disgrace. This is exhibit 2,378,301. Can you imagine being a subject under nonsense like this?

From a potential head of state?

Ares’ contrariness aside, prince and princess are expecting their third white child. Horrors. Imagine if it’s male!

Sam L. said...

Yes, Ares, we ALL "know" that Republicans want everyone dead.

Jack Fisher said...

Sam, I'd save you for last.

Ares Olympus said...

Sam L. said... Yes, Ares, we ALL "know" that Republicans want everyone dead.

Or being penny-wise, pound-foolish, although when it comes to prevention, when things turn out well, you never know what else could have happened. A good scientist lets every experiments run forward to the conclusion, so he had "I told you so" rights at the end when everyone is dead. At least the black plague created lots of unwanted bodies for anatomy lessons.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-the-black-death-advanced-medical-science-with-help-1718448184

James said...

Jack,
"Dense urban populations tend to be more disease resistant than rural or more isolated ones because exposure from childhood to chronic infections of most diseases leaves limited or in some cases complete immunity to survivors, e.g., measles, chicken pox, and other "childhood" diseases. This is true of even plague and smallpox. Evidence is from a variety of sources, including medical records of the Civil War, comparing disease rates suffered by troops raised from urban areas to those from rural areas."

Old parish records of the "Black Death" in England seem to confirm this. Entire small hamlets, monasteries, and remote rural populations totally wiped out. The thing about urban populations is that they tend have a low level of sickness most of the time but tend to have low mortality rates (higher resistance built up from a lot of exposure)from exposure to the big nastys.
No one knows for sure why what we call now the "Black Death" had such a high rate of spread at that time, it was phenomenal.
Justinian's plague has little evidence beyond the anecdotal, but it had to be tremendous. There are stories of 10,000 death a day in Constantinople for a period of time, but nothing of rural impact.
We have a vastly improved health system today, but when it comes to these nasty critters we haven't progressed nearly as far in prevention and cure as we have in creation of them.