Climate Change
C/o Mother Nature
Planet Earth
Subject: Pandemic Paranoia on Planet Earth
Dear Climate Change,
I am greedy, I am weak and I am extremely myopic. Yet, even I can see your power and
influence growing unwaveringly every passing day and manifesting itself in the form of
melting ice caps, rising sea levels, displacement and even endangerment of species.
For thousands of years, we humans believed that we were supreme and made the earth
tremble beneath our feet. But now, do we succumb in front of your ruthless power? Is there
anything not under your supremacy? Is there anything you are willing to spare?
Wait! I know… diseases! You can’t influence their spread… can you? Oh no… you can?
Turns out you are even more powerful than I thought. Till a few years ago, the worst
catastrophe that plagued my mind was the remote possibility of a nuclear war leading to
annihilation of my race. Today, in the times of Covid-19, you have even beaten that. It seems
that you, Mr. Climate Change can even cause epidemics and proliferate diseases.
Firstly, we have ice. More specifically, permafrost. Well, what about it? Permafrost is ground
that remains frozen for two or more consecutive years. It stores the carbon-based remains of
plants and animals that froze before they had the chance to decompose. But, what if an
animal that contained pathogenous bacteria or viruses was buried in the permafrost without
having decomposed? What would happen then?
Well, due to your rapidly hastening impact, permafrost loses its tenacity and begins to thaw.
Due to the melting of the permafrost, all those animal and plant carcasses can be released
from within it. Now, if, hypothetically, these carcasses do contain bacteria or viruses, they
would stir from their dormant state, get warm and would still have the ability to cause
diseases in organisms.
Come to think of it, this is exactly what happened in Siberia! An outbreak of anthrax that killed
more than 2,000 reindeer and sickened 13 people in 2016, was linked to 75-year-old anthrax
spores in reindeer carcasses, that had been released by melting permafrost.
Did we get off relatively easily there? Is there a greater threat looming under rapidly melting
ice somewhere?
Ok, that was one rather disconcerting way in which you are taking over the world, in your
rather ill-tempered way. Is there another?
Well, for seconds, your pals, the bloodsucking little demons…the mosquitos come to assist
you it seems.
The World Health Organization reports that more than seven hundred thousand people
around the world die from vector-borne diseases each year and that there were over four
hundred thousand global malaria deaths in 2018 alone. Not all mosquitoes carry the makings
of Chikungunya, West Nile virus, Zika virus, and Yellow Fever that contribute to that yearly
bounty, but many do.
Mosquitos thrive in the environmental conditions present due to climate change. Give your
friends warmer temperatures, excess C02 and more stagnant water, and they will have a
blast. They will breed excessively, and their population will skyrocket. As vectors, there
pathogen bearing capacity will increase and therefore, they will be able to transmit more
pathogens from the source of the infection to the healthy person.
Oh, Climate Change! How unyieldingly you dominate our world, how easily you claim lives of
organisms big and small. I know that it is ultimately all our fault for tainting Mother Nature
and now we are having to pay the price for it. Can we undo this? Will you ever forgive us?
Yours truly,
Tarini Malhotra
9-D
The Shri Ram School, Moulsari
