The human population is causing an unprecedented collapse of the natural environment and biodiversity. It is the collapse that causes worldwide epidemics. It turns out that the origin of the corona epidemic is the eating of wild animals that are kept in horrific conditions despite the laws and contrary to all logic
We must admit that we treat most animals in the worst way and justify it as an existential necessity. In addition to barns, chicken coops, feeding farm animals and pets - we penetrate deeper and deeper into natural areas, cut down forests, drain swamps, change the flow paths of rivers and lakes, dig, mine and invade wild areas. All "blessed" activity releases diseases and epidemics such as Covid-1 into the human environment.
It turns out that most of the known severe epidemics originate from animals (zoonotic), to which are added many diseases that may be lurking from eating animals such as gerbils, zebras, pangolins, snakes, bats and more. On top of that are added all kinds of strange and strange uses of animal parts such as lion and tiger bones, elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns. In most cases the eating and the uses do not stem from hunger but from superstitions and stupid traditions.
It is appropriate that we examine and face how we behave towards those who share the environment with us, towards the wild animals that are supposed to exist by our side.
The treatment of wild animals is divided into animals that are a commercial resource or that need compassion. Two different approaches, both out of a sense of mastery and both wrong. The position and attitude towards wild animals is related to the way we understand the manner and form in which we are involved in the global environmental system. It is clear that whoever sees himself as superior to the creatures around him will treat them accordingly, as a lord and ruler who owns everything.
The approach that sees wild animals only as a resource measured by its usefulness to humanity relies on a system of conservative and offensive regulations and laws. This approach rejects the right to exist and the value of animals as independent entities. An approach according to which animal welfare is measured only by the little necessary to allow their utilization for human needs. The needs and well-being of the animals are secondary and are measured only by the minimal need that will allow economic exploitation for the benefit of man. It's an approach and a way that comes from "I and nothing more".
All of the above describes the logic of a parasitic virus. You can destroy and mercilessly damage the host, but in order to exist you must not kill. There is logic in this from the point of view of the virus, but it is clear that for the host this is a bundle of trouble and in the case of the snake there is a danger that the destruction and harm will be so humane that the host, i.e. the environment, will completely lose its vitality and its ability to provide essential services, and when this happens the parasite will not be around (mankind) possibility of existence.
There are those who will try to contradict the Prime Minister by claiming that humanity can continue to exist even without what we know today as a natural environment, but will there be a moral justification for such an existence? And what kind of existence would it be? Poor, shallow, pale, sad and off...
The assumption that "the land is here for us" which stems from ancient beliefs and traditions, is deeply embedded in human society. But when the population approaches the eighth billion and the density in the space increases and harms other species, a "rethinking" is necessary. The corona epidemic is a warning sign regarding our relationship with the natural world and what happens when we invade virgin areas and harm nature, what happens when the attitude is not one of respect and appreciation for the environment.
When the human race took over the world the wild animals became subjects. Their well-being has become more and more dependent on compassion, and in its absence - they suffer. There is "sustainable use" which is the opposite of compassion, when it is using "things" without considering the suffering of individuals in the group of "things". When this approach is applied to animals, the cruelty breaks boundaries. The understanding that animals suffer is the focus of the compassionate approach and the need to do for their well-being, but to avoid harm in the first place, a respectful approach to every individual in the variety of species in the natural environment is necessary, not compassion. Perhaps there is room for compassion in the relationship between man and his fellow man, not between man and the natural environment and wildlife.
There is a need for an approach that naturally combines the animals with the environment and people. The integration with wild animals is not an abstract idea as it is reflected in international treaties, agreements, laws and the activities of many bodies.
In 2015, a resolution called "Changing our world". Many goals were defined, one of the goals being: "Protection, promotion and restoration of the uses of terrestrial environmental systems." Hidden in the definition of the goal is the accepted assumption that the wild animals here are meant for our use. Unfortunately, the history of people's "use" of wildlife and nature is closer to looting and destruction than to sustainable use.
The idea of sustainability will be reinforced in the "UN Convention on Biological Diversity" which was published this year (February 2020) and in which there is a call to increase the "sustainable use of wild animal and plant species to ensure nutritional security for... humans." Not because animals and plants have the natural right to exist, but to ensure food security for humans.
A definition that will be based on the distorted point of view of "you chose us". The result of this incorrect definition is that there are those who rely on the definition of sustainable use and advanced management to justify offensive activities such as hunting wild animals, raising wild animals for the "sport" of the hunter, raising bears to produce bile juice, raising tigers and lions to use their bones, and many more occupations Some of them do donate money to nature conservation projects, but their contribution to the preservation of wildlife and sustainability is negative.
Because of the terrible damage and destruction that humanity has caused to the natural environment, proper management of damaged areas is necessary to allow restoration. Such management must take place with the understanding that we are another species in the environmental system. A species with unique skills that made it a super predator, but still, another species and not a "superior species". Management of damaged areas must refer to everything that needs restoration not out of compassion but out of understanding the importance of the natural environment.
It is worth knowing and understanding that: wild animals are not here to serve us. They are here in a branched system to which we belong at the same level of importance.
It should be understood and internalized that when the approach of "sustainable use" stems from a position of superiority - it is wrong and unjustified. These days it is becoming clear to everyone that if there is superiority, it is that of nature and not of the human race. Therefore it is appropriate that the current epidemic bends the human race, humiliates it and brings it to a humble and humble place so that it stops destroying its environment.
As has already been said: it is appropriate that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there should be control of the human population for the sake of the environment.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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This is an ideological article, not a scientific one. In general, there is evidence of the development and engineering of the RNA of the virus so that it can also harm a person. This virus is old, since the 70's when my father was doing a post doctorate at Harvard. He didn't affect people, because he couldn't until he was engineered. Why was it engineered? Do not know. But to make it up because someone ate a bat is inaccurate and misinformation as part of all the misinformation the Chinese and media like to spread. There is evidence of a deadly virus refrigerator with a leak that caused the virus to spread. is it true? I don't know and that's why I don't publish a NIS XNUMX article on why the virus broke out in the world. Easier if I had a doctor's degree. In one article you turned the site into an unreliable site and a Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper at best
Dr. Rosenthal's insistence on escaping the kind of compassion seems very puzzling.
And what is wrong with the feeling of compassion? How does it contradict the environmental-existential idea?
Moreover, the compassionate people have a great privilege in saving the animals and the environment, because they come to the animals, out of true affection and a sense of mental closeness.
Thanks to that built-in compassion, the desire to protect and enable (also for us humans) adequate existence - also becomes a rational-scientific desire - there is no contradiction in this, but on the contrary, strength.
It is true - compassion for animals - is something that cannot be "learned", it is an emotion... but to justify the numbness towards animals, with scientific abstractions, is unnecessary!
Dr. Rosenthal, thank you for the important article
My opinion:
Man's conduct towards the animal world is indeed the one that led to the outbreak of a significant number of plagues in recent centuries, in which the terrible plague humanity is now facing.
I would like to clarify, however, that these "wild animals" are not animals that were hunted and captured in the wild, although they were raised on farms like any normal farm animal and I see no reason to differentiate them from other farm animals that have resulted in outbreaks of other epidemics such as swine flu, bird flu, mad cow, etc.
The term "wildlife" is misleading and diverts attention from the real problem.
Therefore, it seems that the obvious conclusion is that the problem lies in the livestock industry.
Viruses change and develop as a result of mutations, for that the game is a statistical game: the more animals, the more density: the more carriers that spread the virus and the more mutations that can bring the virus to a contagious and deadly version for humans.
If my memory serves me right, Dr. Rosenthal, vegans and vegetarians do not have a warm place in your heart. I see it as irony, that a person whose concern for the earth is so great, closes his eyes and seals his ears to you being one of the most significant factors in the destruction of the globe.
Global warming denial is an ideology. The warming itself is a scientific fact
It is disappointing that a scientific website enters the realms of opinions and ideology.
The writer here preaches what is right and what is wrong, he is no different from any priest, rabbi or religious and conservative person. The fact that he has a doctorate does not make him a person who can dictate worldviews or say which world is moral or not.
It seems that in the article there is a connection between the current corona epidemic and a host of different issues such as the suffering of animals, the destruction of the environment, all of these are worthy, moral and important issues to address, but an excessive connection can be a mistake and, like a boomerang, only harms those issues, the connection must be genuine
If it is a connection that does not exist it will not last, and the main reason for the spread of the current epidemic is the human trade routes,
This may be why it will be necessary to make changes in human conduct to prevent the beginnings of the epidemic due to our vulnerability today,
People have always used and eaten anything that gave them a chance to survive. They went into the depths of the forests to snowy areas to all the beaches crossed dry rivers and used whatever they found
But once upon a time, the systems of connections between human groups were much smaller and local than today, so that once the ancestors of the Chinese some 15000 years ago ate a bat infected with the corona virus for their first course, it would have ended in the local tribe, most likely because meetings with the other tribe were rare and even dangerous not because
These flu because of javelin arrow and sprout,
But as ways of trading services and ships developed those epidemics hitched a ride with the human host and today it already travels at jet speed,
More topics can be raised, for example for the animal lovers among us
We have to remember that our relationship with cats and dogs is much closer than farm animals for licks and hugs. Should we also cut off all contact with them because of the possibility of passing diseases?
and there are diseases like malaria that can migrate north with global warming on the other hand drying up a swamp means less mosquitoes and less malaria
But it is a terrible destruction of the environment and of a huge variety of animals,
My opinion is that the transition to food that does not come from animals will happen when meat substitutes that come from tissue culture are created or there will be an imitation at a level and price maybe even cheaper. There are signs that it will come and it will happen soon
that it will not be possible to differentiate between them as long as it does not exist there will be a few who will be vegans and vegetarians and the absolute majority will be carnivores just as we have been for the past millions of years
But the destruction of the environment is not only eating meat, it is the entire human impact of billions of people