Pandemics: the limits to growth and environmental health research

Summary

The Limits to Growth (published 1972), warned that if dominant trends continue, then, probably by 2070, an ‘uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity’ will occur. Its warning is one of many, from nature and from scientists, that remain largely ignored by global decision makers. For example, almost all measures of progress are still unadjusted for decline in natural or social capital. Climate change is obvious and accelerating. COVID-19, whose origins also lie in human activities and hubris, is another signal of civilisation’s vulnerability and risk. The human species needs to respond urgently, collectively, and progressively to these warnings, to prevent downward spirals that risk civilization’s collapse.

 
Article: Butler CD: Pandemics: the limits to growth and environmental health research, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (2020), Vol 46, pages 3-5  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.10.005
This Commentary follows up on the previously published article (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.08.002) which appeared in Volume 25, April 2017, Pages 59–65

Colin D Butler
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian
National University, Australia
e-mail: colin.butler@anu.edu.au
 

***

The Limits to Growth (LTG), published in 1972, found that if present trends continue the limits to growth will be reached by 2070, and the ‘most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity’ [1]. Vast changes in society, human population size and technology have occurred since 1972, yet key drivers of humanity’s growing crisis remain unaltered. Almost all financial indicators, supposedly used to measure progress, remain unadjusted for changes in natural or social capital [2]. The Sustainable Development Goals rest on the contradiction of plundering the planet to save the planet [3]. A recent update of the key indicators used by the LTG found the real data for 1970–2010 closely matched those that were forecast for the same period (under the pessimistic scenario of inadequate policy change) [4]. It is encouraging, though unsettling to ponder how many groups and individuals have recently sounded clear warnings [5–8], including the Atomic Scientists, whose doomsday clock now reads 100 seconds to midnight [9].

Since 1991 I have written or co-written over 50 articles, letters and chapters directly or indirectly relevant to the LTG, including for the Encyclopaedia of Environmental Health [10]. The junior editor for that entry was incredulous when we argued that the LTG models, including its forecast looming downturns, should be taken seriously. But those comments were made before the COVID-19 pandemic, which, hopefully will help precipitate the profound changes in attitude that are clearly required, globally.

The LTG authors are not explicit in describing how population will decline under ‘business as usual’, but such population contraction is unlikely to occur, well before 2100, solely from family planning, even if recent, more favourable estimates prove accurate [11]. Three other broad mechanisms are plausible: large-scale war (probably nuclear), famine, and pestilence. While one of these mechanisms may dominate, they will interact, if the grim projections of LTG are realised. For example, even limited scale nuclear war will harm food security [12]. ‘Spanish’ influenza, which killed 50–100 million people (of a global population of about two billion) unfolded at the close and immediately following the Great War, and may have been ‘incubated’ by war-related factors such as intense human crowding of troops in barracks, hospitals and troopships [13,14]. The control of Ebola outbreaks in central and West Africa is reduced by conflict [15,16].

The ‘Hothouse Earth’ scenario, if it fully unfolds, is likely to cause large swathes of the tropics to become too hot and humid for people to inhabit, and thus to cultivate crops, even if crops can be found that will thrive in those conditions [17,18]. Resultant migration of hundreds of millions or even billions of people from the tropics to cultivate land at higher latitudes [19] will be problematic, even if this unprecedented scale of human movement is tolerated (or welcomed) by the receiving governments and populations involved. Earlier attempts to cultivate the Canadian shield were hindered by thin, acidic soils [20]. Shortages of phosphate, another limited resource, will also handicap soil enrichment [21]. Resulting nutritional deficiencies and the stress of forced migration will lower human immunity, rendering displaced populations more vulnerable to chronic diseases and pandemics.

COVID-19, the limits to growth and environmental change

The proximal roots of the current pandemic appear to primarily lie in the preference for high status ‘novelty’ meats, originally from wildlife [22], though some of these species (e.g. civet cats) can now be bred in captivity, and may have lower viral burdens [23]. Although there has been great concern in recent decades about the intensive farming of poultry and pigs, the risk to human health from these sources may have been overstated [24
]. But even if intensive farming of traditional meat sources does lead to future pandemics (e.g. of influenza) such diseases are better understood than from novel zoonoses (zoonoses are infections that cross from animals to humans).

Many of these novel food sources are captured and traded illegally, a task made easier by deforestation,  new roads, and weak law enforcement [25]. It is possible, though speculative, that habitat loss, habitat disturbance [26] and other stresses, including climate change-induced heat stress, may be lowering  immunity in bats, the reservoir species for Ebola, Nipah, Coronaviruses, among others, thus increasing the risk of viral ‘spillover’. In any case the deeper causes of COVID-19 are closely related to the trends and manifestations that drive approaching LTG. This is true, even if COVID-19 has a laboratory source, a possibility that several papers now contend is plausible [27].

Following Spanish influenza, other recent epidemics, including HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola and Nipah virus also sounded alarms [28], to which humanity has paid too little attention, similar to the suppressed, misrepresented and forgotten LTG warnings. COVID-19 is unusual among zoonoses, by sharing, with HIV/AIDS and influenza, highly developed ‘stealth’ characteristics; the capacity to spread from people who are not obviously sick [24,29]. This is a characteristic which even SARS lacked. Unlike HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 is transmissible by aerosols. Unlike almost all bacterial infections, but like most viruses, COVID-19 has no well-established pharmaceutical cure. These factors are both frightening and highly unusual, though vaccine developments are promising.

The mortality rate of COVID-19, in well-resourced settings, is less than 1%. It disproportionately affects the elderly and those with damaged immune systems, unlike Spanish influenza which quickly killed fit young men [13]. Even though the chronic effects for many COVID-19 survivors appear disabling and profound, its burden of disease appears insufficient to trigger the decline in global population size forecast by the LTG. This is so, even considering the health effects from the economic disruption, wrought by social distancing, and the disruption to other health services. However, COVID-19 has already led to shrinking economic activity, which is also consistent with LTG warnings.

Conclusion

The prospects for humanity in this and the next century are ominous. Many past civilizations have vanished [30,31]. Environmental health needs to vigorously engage with these issues. Our only chance for survival as a civilization, and perhaps even as a species, is to act on these warnings urgently, collectively and seriously, while we have time.

Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
References and recommended reading
 

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as of *special interest **
of outstanding interest

1. Meadows D et al.: The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books; 1972. https://clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/

2. Dasgupta P, Ehrlich PR: Pervasive externalities at the population, consumption, and environment nexus. Science 2013, 340:324-328. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1224664

3.
Hickel J: The contradiction of the sustainable development goals: growth versus ecology on a finite planet. Sustain Dev 2019:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1947

*Points out that SDG eight calls for continued global economic growth equivalent to 3% per year as a method for achieving human development objectives. But this ‘growth’ is unadjusted for negative (or positive) externalities.

4. Turner GM: Is Global Collapse Imminent? An Updated Comparison of the Limits to Growth With Historical Data. Melbourne: Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of Melbourne; 2014. http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf

5. Butler CD: Sounding the alarm: health in the Anthropocene. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2016, 13:665. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13070665

6. Ripple WJ et al.: World scientists’ warning to humanity: a second notice. BioScience 2017, 57:1026-1028. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix125

7. Molina M, Ramanathan V, Zaelke DJ: Climate report understates threat. Bull Atomic Sci 2018 https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-threat/

8. Spring U´ O: Earth at Risk in the 21st Century: Rethinking Peace, Environment, Gender, and Human, Water, Health, Food, Energy Security, and Migration. Switzerland: Springer Nature; 2020. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-38569-9

9. Atomic Scientists: The Doomsday Clock Announcement. Annual Report. 2019:12-16. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

**‘Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers —nuclear war and climate change — that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode’.

10. Butler CD, Higgs K, McFarlane RA: Environmental health, planetary boundaries and Limits to Growth. In Encyclopedia of Environmental Health; Reference Module in Earth Systems and
Environmental Sciences. Edited by Nriagu JO. The Netherlands: Elsevier; 2019:533-543. https//doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.10651-7

11. Vollset SE et al.: Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet 2020, 396:1285-1306. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30677-2

12. Robock A et al.: How an India-Pakistan nuclear war could start—and have global consequences. Bull Atomic Sci 2019, 75:273-279. https//doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1680049

13. Barry JM: The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. New York: Viking; 2004. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29036.The_Great_Influenza

14. Oxford JS et al.: World War I may have allowed the emergence of “Spanish” influenza. Lancet Infect Dis 2002, 2:111-114. https://doi.org/doi: 10.1016/s1473-3099(02)00185-8

15. McPake B et al.: Ebola in the context of conflict affected states and health systems: case studies of Northern Uganda and Sierra Leone. Confl Health 2015, 9:23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13031-015-0052-7

16. Maxmen A: Violence propels Ebola outbreak towards 1,000 cases. Nature 2019, 567:153-154. https//doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00805-7

17. Xu C et al.: Future of the human climate niche. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020, 117:11350-11355. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910114117

18. Steffen W et al.: Trajectories of the earth system in the Anthropocene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018, 115:8252-8259. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

19. Hannah L et al.: The environmental consequences of climate-driven agricultural frontiers. PLoS One 2020, 15:e0228305. https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.3783

20. Watson A: Pioneering a rural identity on the Canadian shield: tourism, household economies, and poor soils in Muskoka, Ontario, 1870–1900. Can Hist Rev 2017, 98:261-293. https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.3783

21. Cordell D, White S: Tracking phosphorus security: indicators of phosphorus vulnerability in the global food system. Food Secur 2015, 7:337-350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-015-0442-0

22. Field HE: Bats and emerging zoonoses: henipaviruses and SARS. Zoonoses Public Health 2009, 56:278-284. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1863-2378.2008.01218.x

23. Kan B et al.: Molecular evolution analysis and geographic investigation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-like virus in palm civets at an animal market and on farms. J Virol 2005, 79:11892-11900. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.79.18.11892-11900.2005

 

24. Butler CD: Infectious disease emergence and global change: thinking systemically in a shrinking world. Infect Dis Poverty 2012, 1:5. https://doi.org/10.1186/2049-9957-1-5
 

*Argues that ‘groupthink’ has created misplaced focus on the the pandemic threat of avian influenza at the cost of bioweapons and more fundamental determinants of pandemic vulnerability. Introduces the term ‘stealth’ as concept to explain why some epidemics pose an increased threat.

25. Bell D, Roberton S, Hunter PR: Animal origins of SARS coronavirus: possible links with the international trade in small carnivores. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 2004, 359:1107-1114. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2004.1492

26. Banerjee A et al.: Novel insights into immune systems of bats. Front Immunol 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2020.00026

27. Segreto R, Deigin Y: The genetic structure of SARS-Co-V2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. BioEssays 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000240

28. Weiss RA, McLean AR: What have we learnt from SARS? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 2004, 359:1137-1140. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2004.1492

"The human population was lucky that only a small proportion of infected persons proved to be highly infectious to others, and that they did not become so before they felt ill. These were the features that helped to make the outbreak containable. The next outbreak of another kind of transmissible disease may well be quite different."

29. Woolhouse MEJ et al.: Assessing the epidemic potential of RNA and DNA viruses. Emerg Infect Dis 2016, 22:2037-2044. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2212.160123

30. Cline EH: 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2014. 264 pages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4LRHJlijVU

31. Harper K: The Fate of Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2017. 440 pages. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691166834/the-fate-of-rome