La veille

Cracks and fissures stoke fears of breakup that could lead to half-metre rise in global sea levels – or more

If Cop26 were to be staged, it would be as a political drama in two long acts. Act one would see the leaders of wealthy countries such as Britain, the US and Australia smiling broadly as they strut the Glasgow stage with their friends, wring their hands and manage the world’s expectations. Act two would see them knifing each other offstage and kicking poor countries hard before running away.

At least eight types of bird flu, all of which can kill humans, are circulating around the world’s factory farms – and they could be worse than Covid-19

Tan­dis que la des­truc­tion de l’ha­bi­tat d’in­nom­brables espèces vivantes et de ces espèces elles-mêmes s’in­ten­si­fie au niveau mon­dial, la pré­sente pan­dé­mie de coro­na­vi­rus pour­rait n’être que le début d’une ère de pan­dé­mies inter­na­tio­nales.

Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harboring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue. But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019,