Let's get things in proportion. Yes, man is apparently interfering in nature in sophisticated ways (gene therapy, GM plants, etc) which could be dangerous. As a ex-chemist (and I like to consider myself an environmentalist), I'm probably more wary than most about what could go wrong, so I'm not in any way complacent about these matters.
But it's a fact that the natural order of things can produce far worse scenarios than anything man can produce if we interfere in what we consider to be ordinary ways. What can spark these off is, quite simply, the way we choose to live. When we exceed what is reasonable, then nature will hit back -- and very hard. The overcrowding of cities in the early days of the industrial revolution in England produced typhoid and TB on a vast scale which killed millions; overcrowding of homosexuals in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco produced HIV, which will kill tens of millions, overcrowding of people in parts of Africa and Asia produces malaria which kills and weakens hundreds of millions, the overcrowding of people and animals in Asia produces strains of virulent 'flu which can kill tens of millions periodically. Also, the simplification of the world of viruses and bacteria that we carry out with large scale sterilisations and treatment in hospital, homes and public places produces vacuous niches in which vicious diseases rapidly evolve, such as multi antibiotic resistant disease which now attacks 10% of all hospital patients in England and kills some of them. Too frequent washing and showering simplifies our immune systems and this is causing a vast growth in asthma in western countries. The stamping out of smallpox around the world leaves a vacuum that an equally savage virus will inevitably habit one day. Like HIV, it is the retroviruses which are to be feared the most because they are individually ineradicable at present, and we are encouraging those just the same as the 'normal' viruses. We are 'clearing the decks' so efficiently that epidemiologists tell us with great certainty that a disease on the scale, and with the mortality, of the Medieval Black Death is inevitable. One of these days one of the megametrapolises of the modern world will be hit with a disease that's so virulent that the rest of the world will impose a quarantine upon it and watch while millions die in the hope that it won't spread to the other great cities of the world. We need to start paying more attention to the social structures in which we lived for the most part of our evolutionary past and get back to something similar to those. Otherwise there's no future for us. Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
