【Editor's Note】Under the epidemic situation, fudan university general education organization "scholars epidemic thinking" series, Fudan University general education center invited teachers from different disciplines in the university to write articles, starting from their respective professional fields and academic interests, to carry out different angles of discussion on the epidemic, interdisciplinary in-depth interpretation and analysis.
Headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Xinhua News Agency
In December 2019, the first case of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus (2019-ncov) was found in Wuhan, China. So far, the number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia nationwide has exceeded 81,000, and more than 3,240 deaths have occurred. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the 2019-NCOV global pandemic. The outbreak has been confirmed in more than 160 countries, and by March 17, 2020, the cumulative number of confirmed cases worldwide has exceeded 180,000, and more mild cases may not be confirmed, but the virus has caused more than 6,600 deaths, and may become one of the world's most serious environmental hazards in the 21st century.
Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, issues such as the origin and transmission route of 2019-NCOV have attracted much attention. Based on the similarity of the coronavirus's molecular marker gene ratg13, Shi Zhengli's team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences speculated that the 2019-ncov virus may have originated in a remote cave in Yunnan. However, this conclusion has been questioned by many. Zhang Yongzhen, shanghai public health clinical center of Fudan University, and others wrote in the journal Nature that the virus has a high nucleotide similarity with the SARS-like coronavirus found in bats, but the study is based on the cases of individual patients, and it is not possible to conclude that the coronavirus is the cause of the current outbreak. The World Health Organization recently made it clear that it is not yet possible to determine the source of the new crown virus. As for the transmission route of 2019-NCOV, or who the intermediate host is, it is also waiting for scientific answers from epidemiologists. At present, a few points can be clearly defined: first, the natural distribution of the 2019-ncov virus is in the biosphere that does not intersect with our daily life, and the human body lacks natural immunity to it; the second is to bring it to the human biosphere through unintentional human activities; third, 2019-ncov is a brand new virus, due to changes in the living environment, the virus has mutated, forming the ability to infect people and human-to-human transmission. From an environmental point of view, the impact of the epidemic is a typical environmental disaster event.
So, what are environmental disasters? How is it related and different from traditional natural disaster events? Natural disasters are conceived in the earth's environmental system composed of the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. Natural disasters are the harm caused to human society by the natural variation of the earth's surface environment. Environmental disasters are disasters caused by human activities to the natural environment. Environmental disasters may manifest themselves in the form of natural and social disasters, acting on nature and humans, but their causative factors are human activities. In other words, in the process of developing, utilizing and transforming nature, human beings have exceeded the carrying capacity of the natural environment, resulting in environmental pollution or destroying the regional ecological balance, seriously endangering the safety of human life and property. Common natural disasters include natural phenomena such as floods, droughts, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and mudslides, as well as plague epidemics caused by microorganisms such as smallpox, dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever. In primitive fishing and hunting times, humans relied on naturally available biological foods. In the face of natural disasters such as floods, fires, and earthquakes, human beings can only crawl under the feet of nature in fear, or beg for the blessing of the gods. With the emergence of industrial civilization, science and technology have become the main weapons for human beings to use nature and transform nature, and eventually human beings have turned from slaves of nature into "masters" of nature. Thanks to the development of science and technology, earthquakes can be predicted, floods can be prevented, smallpox has been eliminated, and the harm and impact of traditional natural disasters on human society have been minimized. However, natural disasters have not been eradicated, but have taken on new characteristics. The construction of large hydropower stations in geological fault zones has triggered a new ecosystem crisis, and soil erosion caused by human deforestation has led to mudslides in areas with stable geology and beautiful scenery. Natural disasters have marked man-made activities and transformed into new types of environmental disasters. Due to the uncertainty of human activities affecting the development and evolution of the environment, the spatio-temporal scope and intensity of environmental disasters are unpredictable. "Sars can't come, sars's 'brothers and sisters' can't come, we can't manage it, because new and sudden infectious diseases are worldwide challenges", academician Gao Fu of the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention on sars virus is this truth.
In the era of industrial civilization, science and technology have given human beings the powerful power to use nature and transform nature. The bustling city, the chimneys, the majestic barrages, and the highways intertwined with the network have become monuments for human beings to transform nature. However, the deforestation, the indiscriminate exploitation of mines and the uncontrolled use of fossil fuels have caused serious damage to natural ecosystems and environmental disasters. As Engels said, "The inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor, and elsewhere cut down their forests in order to get arable land." But they could not have dreamed that these places would become barren places today. Because they have lost the forests in these places, and they have also lost the centers where water accumulates and stores water." The ten major environmental pollution events of the 20th century are the evil consequences of industrial civilization:
1. Maas Valley Incident: On December 1-5, 1930, in the industrial area of Maas Valley, Belgium, the temperature inversion caused a large amount of harmful gases discharged from 13 large chimneys to accumulate in the near ground layer, resulting in more than 60 deaths.
2. Donora Incident: From October 26 to 31, 1948, in the small town of Donora in the United States, the temperature inversion caused harmful gases such as sulfur dioxide discharged from the factory to accumulate in the near-Earth's surface layer, resulting in nearly 7,000 people becoming violently ill.
3. London Smog Event: On December 5-8, 1952, the inversion caused large amounts of soot emitted by the city to accumulate in the lower atmosphere. During this period, 370 tons of sulfur dioxide were converted into 800 tons of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere every day. More than 5,000 people died in five days, and more than 8,000 people died in the two months after the incident.
4. Los Angeles photochemical smog event: In 1943, the exhaust gas emitted by a large number of cars in Los Angeles, USA, caused a photochemical reaction under the ultraviolet light of the sun, forming a light blue smoke characterized by high concentration of ozone. Another photochemical element smoke incident in 1955 led to the death of more than 400 people due to facial poisoning and respiratory failure. Los Angeles photochemical smog and London smog incident are very typical atmospheric pollution events, but the characteristics of pollution are different, the former is mainly coal soot-type atmospheric pollution formed by the rough combustion of coal, and the latter is mainly caused by photochemical smog formed by atmospheric photochemical reactions caused by motor vehicle exhaust emissions.
5. Minamata Incident in Japan: A strange disease that appeared in Minamata Bay, Japan, from 1956 to 1961, mainly manifested as a nervous disorder. The reason is that in the silt of the seabed, microorganisms convert industrial waste mercury sulfate into methylmercury, which is easily enriched by organisms. It enters the human body through the transmission of the food chain and causes poisoning.
6. Asthma incident in Yokkaichi, Japan: In 1955, more than a dozen petrochemical plants were built in Yokkaichi, and the exhaust gases from the oil smelting filled the local sky with smoke all year round. In 1961, Four-Day City had a major asthma attack, of which chronic bronchitis and bronchial asthma accounted for 55%.
7. Rice bran oil incident in Japan: The rice bran oil incident occurred in 1968 in the area of Aichi Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan. Production of rice bran oil incident In the deodorization process, polychlorinated biphenyls were used as carriers, due to production errors, resulting in rice bran oil mixed with PCBs, and 1400 people were poisoned after eating.
8. Bone pain in The Kamikamigawa River in Japan: In 1931, a large number of residents of the Kamikamigawa River Basin in Toyama Prefecture, Japan suffered from bone pain, and the patients were in great pain all over their bodies and cried out in pain all day long. It was not until 1968 that it was found that the illness was due to the discharge of cadmium-containing wastewater by The Japanese Mitsui Metal Company, which polluted the water and soil, and residents became ill from long-term consumption of cadmium rice and drinking cadmium-containing water.
9. Bhopal Incident in India: On December 3, 1984, the pesticide plant of the United Carbonization Company in Bhopal, India, was affected by a 45-ton methyl isocyanate explosion due to chaotic management and improper operation, causing more than 200,000 victims and nearly 20,000 deaths.
10. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Incident: On April 26, 1986, the Fourth Reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the former Soviet Union exploded, releasing radiation lines 400 times more than the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, contaminating more than 10,000 square kilometers of land, killing more than 90,000 people and more than 270,000 people affected by radiation. These tragic environmental disasters have made people see that nature is paying tribute to the disorderly exploitation and barbaric plunder of human beings in various "tangible" or "intangible" ways.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Visual China Information
The highway connects remote mountain villages and bustling cities, and the aircraft shorten the time and space distance of five continents. The glory of industrial civilization is not only manifested in the highly developed material civilization, but also in the frequent flow of population and the ubiquity of human footprints. The human activity circle continues to extend, different biospheres overlap each other, and ecological and environmental safety issues are becoming increasingly prominent. The introduction of a species into a non-origin area through intentional or unintentional human activities and the establishment of a population may cause significant damage or impact to the local ecosystem or geographical structure, which is called "alien species invasion". The Australian rabbit is a classic example of intentional human activity. In 1859, an English farmer brought 24 rabbits from Europe. With no natural predators and grass everywhere, hares reproduce very quickly, exceeding 4 billion at their peak, overwhelming Australian grasslands and seriously threatening the survival and development of animal husbandry such as cows and sheep. The Taiwan milk termite in the United States can be described as a masterpiece of unintentional human activity. After the end of World War II, the US military returned to China triumphantly, but it did not think that Taiwanese milk termites were hidden in wooden suitcases. Years later, Taiwanese termites congregate in Places like New Orleans, destroying houses along the way and occupying city parks. In order to meet the challenge of invasive alien species, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the International Plant Protection Convention, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Code of Conduct on the Import and Release of Alien Biological Control Agents and the Guidelines for Preventing Biodiversity Loss Caused by Invasive Alien Species have been formulated internationally. China's environmental resources protection and animal and plant health quarantine related laws also have the expression of preventing the invasion of alien species, such as: "The People's Republic of China Import and Export Animal and Plant Quarantine Law", "The People's Republic of China Border Health and Quarantine Law", "The People's Republic of China Animal Epidemic Prevention Law", "The People's Republic of China Marine Environmental Protection Law", "The People's Republic of China Grassland Law", "The People's Republic of China Agricultural Law", "The People's Republic of China Seed Law Wildlife Protection Law". However, the situation remains grave. In 2013, China has identified 544 invasive alien species, and 13 major invasive species of agriculture and forestry, such as pine wood nematodes, have caused direct economic losses to China by more than 50 billion yuan per year. In 2018, a total of 4,583 species and 685,000 species of plant pests were intercepted at ports across the country, including 335 species and 71,000 quarantine pests.
In the 21st century, mankind is still facing the challenges of environmental problems such as global warming, biodiversity loss, sea level rise, land pollution, and marine pollution. These problems are bound to be accompanied by natural revenge and the destruction of the ecological balance. Plants, animals and microorganisms within the biosphere perform their respective responsibilities and cooperate to maintain the balance of the ecosystem. If any one of the knots in this established network is torn apart, biological changes or even the demise of the entire biosphere can occur. Looking back at the history of man and nature, human society is increasingly forming such a general consensus: man is born of nature, man and nature are a community of life, harming nature will inevitably hurt human beings themselves, and only the sustainable development of the environment can achieve the sustainable development of human beings themselves. At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, 193 Member States unanimously adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals. General Secretary Xi Jinping said: "Adhering to the harmonious coexistence of man and nature and building an ecological civilization is the millennium plan for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation." Only by protecting the ecological environment like protecting the eyes, treating the ecological environment like life, and working together to build a community with a shared future for mankind can we effectively cope with environmental pollution and environmental disasters and achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
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The content of this article is provided by the Center for General Education of Fudan University.