Biodiversity Loss Can Increase the Spread of Zoonotic Diseases

In this interview, produced in collaboration with Harvard Science in the News, I talked with University of Washington professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West about their book on misinformation, which was adapted from their long-running course of the same name.

In the last few years, we have witnessed a significant increase in weather-related disasters throughout the world. Droughts, wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, and floods have all become more extreme. These are largely driven by increases in global temperature, which is caused by the huge amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that humans have released into the atmosphere.

In a 2002 essay, Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen popularized the name “Anthropocene” for the current geologic time period. Though unofficial, it is widely accepted by scientists because of how drastically humans have altered the Earth. We have cleared forests, built cities, diverted waterways, replaced wild animals with domestic ones, created billions of tons of plastic waste, and perhaps most significantly, changed the climate.