Ollie Ockrim Nature’s Remedy: an opportunity missed? Biology

from The Keith Dawson Project 2022

Why the Sahel Crisis Matters Geography

Oliver Ockrim

Introduction

In 2019, the world faced huge challenges. Increasing concern was being expressed about climate change and biodiversity. Population growth was out of control and the ageing demographics was putting enormous strain on the economic resources of societies. No one knew the best ways to manage these geopolitics and the crises seemed insurmountable. Despite popular support for change, coordinated solutions from governments around the world seemed to be beyond reach. Then coronavirus came…

This essay discusses the balance between the nature’s forces of natural selection, and the advances of human technology to overcome disease. This has led to a moral dilemma which has deep implications for the future of mankind and the planet.

SECTION 1: The Human Factors

1. Overpopulation and Population Density

Overpopulation is, ‘The existence of more people than the available resources can support’ (1). Since the 19th century improvements in hygiene and medicine, and particularly the understanding of bacteriology and virology vectors that cause disease, has allowed a proliferation of the population across the world. The exponential surge of the world’s population is shown on Graph 1.

The industrial revolution also resulted in mass migration of populations from rural settings to cities. In 2010 it was announced that over half the world’s population lived in urban areas (2). As a result, population density has rapidly increased as shown in Graph

2. The theory of population imbalance, was discussed in Thomas Malthus’ book the

‘Malthusian Law of Population’ (3). A rising supply of labour inevitably results in lower wages. Growth in population and increased population density leads to poverty and ill health if associated with governmental under development and insufficient funds.

Whilst small independent communities scattered in the rural settings limit the spread of infectious disease, the ghetto living of modern cities offers a perfect medium for uncontrolled disease spread. The ability of vectors to spread disease rapidly from community to community is facilitated by modern commuting, and internationally by modern travel.

Without intervention, COVID would have likely struck down a much larger proportion of the global population. The death rate of unrestricted COVID transmission was estimated between 9-10 times that of the vaccinated population (4).

3. The Ageing Society

In the developed world, industrialisation has generally been matched by wealth distribution and protections from biological poverty. Life expectancy has improved significantly as shown in Graph 3. However, population ageing comes with negative implications. The older a population, the less employed people there are in a country, leaving a much higher percentage of the population in need of financial support (pensions). As the ageing populations is predicted to grow more and more this century, governments will have to find ways to deal with the massive financial impact that this has on healthcare services, pensions and future labour supply. This is a huge issue for the world’s economies, most of the elderly population have little to no income meaning a very small amount of tax is paid by this increasing percentage of the population.

COVID mortality is primarily correlated with age and co-morbidity. Allowing COVID to run its natural course would have primarily affected the elderly or those who have underlying medical problems, correcting this age discrepancy.

4. Energy Consumption

Energy consumption since the beginning of the industrial revolution has increased dramatically. Population expansion and energy consumption have increased in parallel, compare Graphs 4 and 5. Exponential energy requirements require massive burning of fossil fuels and rising costs with depleting resources. Fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, now drive international economies and geopolitics. The recent fuel crises and war in Ukraine has shown how unstable these markets are and the very real risks of increasing risks of energy politics and energy poverty expanding. Many families in the United Kingdom already have to be make choices between heating and eating on a daily basis.

With population reduction, there would be less energy consumption and this issue would at least temporarily regress.

5. Climate Change

Most of the energy consumed in the world in 2022 is generated by fossil fuels. In developing countries such as India and China, fossil fuel usage continues to increase to support increasing demands of industry, transport, and personal usage (houses heating and lighting, etc). Less developed countries argue that is unjust for them to have to lower their dependency on fossil fuel when they are dependent on this for development. Their argument alludes to the fact that countries which have already passed through their industrial revolutions, did not receive any consequences for their use of fossil fuels during that time.

The impact of fossil fuel use has now reached a critical tipping point with air and sea temperatures now increasing as shown in Graph 6.

The simplest solution to slow climate change is population control. A smaller population will cause less greenhouse gas production, and allow better use of greener energy alternatives.

SECTION 2: Nature’s Remedy

1. The Cycle of Population Balance

The process of evolution by natural selection was first described by Charles Darwin in 1858 (5). He described how nature selects individuals with survival advantages to breed the next generation. The population of this species then expands.

It is understood that all populations rise and fall over time, termed the population cycle. Species that have access large resources and well balanced habitats, allows population growth. Competitors evolve in parallel to predate on this abundant prey, then limit numbers and keep the ecosystem in balance. This is called the carrying capacity of an environment. If a survival advantage suddenly incurs then an individual species sometimes expands out of control until the ecosystem ‘catches up’. When resources are running low, malnutrition and diseases are spread killing large numbers of a species population. This then allows that population to rebuild with its strongest members and this cycle repeats. The organism will evolve to be better adapted to its habitat.

An example of this in practise is myxomatosis and rabbits. Myxomatosis is a highly infectious and usually fatal virus. It was efficient at reducing the European rabbit population. This eventually slowed down, and the rabbit population has increased as

they became myxomatosis resistant. The myxomatosis also evolved into attenuated (less virulent) variants (6). This process is now used as a classic example of hostpathogen co-evolution when species and pathogen evolve in parallel.

The organisms that control overpopulation, most rapidly, are bacteria and viruses. Bacteria and viruses are constantly present in the environment, and evolve incrementally alongside their environmental hosts. However, if a genetic mutation gives them an evolutionary advantage, they have the ability to multiply and spread at great speed to take advantage of the selection bias. A plentiful host allows this to occur. If the new variant also has a virulence factor, causing illness or death of its hosts then a percentage of the hosts end up dying, bringing the overpopulated species back into line. The only way hosts can defend from viruses and bacteria is the gradual development of immunity. Once immunity develops the surviving individuals will then breed to confer this advantage to the species as a whole, and the balance is reset. An epidemic where the disease spreads rapidly through (new) populations then settles back to its endemic levels within the population.

2. Pandemics of the past

The Black Death

The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic which killed 75-200 million people. It took four years for the Black Death to spread from Central Asia to the Middle East and eventually the most Western points of Europe (Britain). The first pandemic wave of plague hit Europe in 1348. Small epidemics continued until a second wave in the late 1500s. A more potent form of the disease was seen in a third wave in the 17th century until the last major outbreak of the plague died out in 1666, just before the Great Fire of London.

Mortality from the Black Death occurred in the peasant classes as the majority of the population, in overcrowded communities with poor nutrition. After the Black Death, the decrease in peasant population caused by the plague, meant that labour and artisan skills were in short supply. Landlords had a lack of workers, and the peasants could demand an increase in wages and improved working conditions. Peasants were liberated from serfdom, and the standard of living for peasants across Europe increased and the economy of these nations improved, See Graph 7.

The Spanish Flu

The Spanish Flu was the deadliest pandemic in history, infecting an estimate of 500 million people worldwide, about a third of the current population in 1918 (7). At the time, there were not any effective vaccines or drugs to treat this deadly strain of flu. The flu was spread rapidly by the transport of young soldiers across continents with the first world war, Nature showed how powerful it can be as the infectious virus easily surpassed the death count of World War One. The war killed nine to fifteen million soldiers, whilst the Spanish flu struck down estimates of twenty to one hundred million victims worldwide.

In contrast to COVID, the majority of victims of the Spanish Flu were aged 15-40. This caused a significant shortage of workforce (‘labour supply shock’) (8). As a result the world’s economy suffered rather than bounced back after 1918.

The Advancements of Science

For most of its time and earth’s history, no single organism has been able to control natural biology and evolutionary processes. However, now in the modern era, humans have been able to halt and eradicate disease via vaccines, improved healthcare and medicines.

The understanding of how bacteria are spread by contact and how vaccines may be created to limit viral transmission was recognised by Edward Jenner in 1796, leading to huge leaps in medical science and survival.

Vaccines against deadly epidemics including smallpox and subsequently polio and measles changed the natural history of such diseases and their impact on human populations in the 19th and 20th century. Most people would consider the eradication of these diseases a huge scientific success, and would little criticise either the motivation behind their development or the impact they have on the carrying capacity of the human environment.

1. Breaking of Biological Control

In the last decades, development of molecular and genetic modification has led to concerns of humans controlling and altering natural selection processes particular related to childbirth (choosing designer babies), and food sources (genetically modified crops).

However, these developments have now allowed scientists to rapidly develop vaccines to counter epidemic spread and evolution. In 2020, as a response to the COVID pandemic, the first genetically engineered vaccine (Pfizer Biontec) has allowed humans to rapidly create an ‘artificial’ vaccine from scratch to halt a pandemic and evade natural systems of population control and balance.

Humans can thus evade the natural world’s mechanisms to control over population of a single (dominant) species. Is preventing this natural process morally correct?

2. The Rights of Individuals versus the Needs of Society

The global pandemic has aroused strong feelings around the world.

The vaccinated population in the UK is 93.4% less likely to die of COVID-19 (9). This leads us to make an educated prediction that the overall COVID deaths would be significantly larger without the restrictions and preventions which were placed across the globe (See Graph 8).

Is the right of a society to continue to function politically, as well as economically and socially, more important than the rights of individuals to be protected against the risk of becoming significantly unwell from a disease. Was it correct to close all of society down in (repeated) lockdowns to protect a small minority from the chance of becoming fatally sick with the virus?

Two nations that decided upon different philosophical and political decisions were the United Kingdom and Sweden. Sweden, unlike most European countries, did not impose stringent lockdowns, and allowed society to continue to function with only limited (voluntary) restrictions. Many people believed that Sweden chose an immoral path, because it allowed deaths which could have been prevented, to occur.

However, when you analyse the data of the opposing models closely, you will realise, that not having a lockdown, did not cause the excess deaths that many people believed. Although, Sweden had a higher prevalence rate (number of cases per

million), compared to the UK, it had less deaths than the United Kingdom (Graph 9); and Sweden’s idea of protecting the economy by not enforcing a lockdown was very successful. Sweden only had 2-3% drop in GDP compared to the other European countries which neared 10% (10) (See Graph 10).

3. Pragmatism versus Idealism

It may be considered a philosophical ideal to keep an individual alive for as long as it is medically possible, but the costs of prolonging life with advanced medical therapies, and the social costs of long term care are very high. The reality for most societies is that finances are finite and resources have to be distributed according to affordability, and that which best serves the society as a whole. If substantial resources are consumed by a minority, this can lead to the detriment of other sections of society both at present, and in the future.

Ideally we could protect everyone whilst the whole of society continues to function. However, in order to isolate the elderly and medically unfit society was closed for everyone during the lockdown periods. This was an impractical solution for the majority of society and could be argued lead to financial, political, social and psychological damage of many more.

4. The Changing Perceptions of Life

In the new millennium it is increasingly clear that quality of life should have equal status to the quantity (length) of life. Many people with chronic, progressive medical conditions and elderly suffer with disability, depression and dementia - existing rather than enjoying life. There is now open discussion about the choice of individuals - and society- to allow legal termination of life in such circumstances. In Switzerland, severely unwell patients have the option of euthanasia, to actively end life, to relieve suffering. For the first time in the United Kingdom the British Medical Association recently changed its opinion from opposition to a neutral stance (11).

However, most individuals in society fear death and personal (family) loss. Whilst many may support the principles of choosing quality over quantity of life, and the principles of advantage for the many in doing so, they would not allow their loved ones to suffer or pass away when they know there are ways to prevent this occurring.

Conclusion

If COVID was allowed to spread as natural selection and epidemiology would have allowed, then the (elderly) human population would have reduced. The problems of population control, population density, ageing society, economic distress, climate control and energy consumption may have been significantly addressed.

It is perhaps counter intuitive to allow a disease to run unchecked when science can offer protection. The moral adjustments for society and the political fallout were not possible to ignore in this age, and the majority of the developed world took steps to alter biology and prevent the virus run its course, rampaging across the globe.

However, taking a scientific or economic approach, you may agree with the statement, ‘an opportunity missed’.

1. https://www.reference.com/world-view/negative-effects-population-growthdef69cd31022be9a

2. https://populationeducation.org/population-cities-impacts-increased-urbanization/

3. Reisman, D. (2018). The Law of Population. In: Thomas Robert Malthus . Great Thinkers in Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01956-3_3

4.https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/ bulletins/deathsinvolvingCOVID19byvaccinationstatusengland/deathsoccurringbetween1janu aryand31december2021

5. Darwin, C. (2011). The origin of species. William Collins.

6. MacLachlan, J (2017). Fenner's Veterinary Virology, 5th Edition. Elsevier. p. 168

7. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

8. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happened-economy-after-spanish-flu-pandemicswarnika-ahuja

9.https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/ bulletins/deathsinvolvingCOVID19byvaccinationstatusengland/deathsoccurringbetween1janu aryand31december2021

10. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-COVID-and-lockdown-a-look-at-the-data

11. https://thestreetjournal.org/uk-medical-association-adopts-neutral-stance-oneuthanasia/#:~:text=UK%20medical%20association%20adopts%20neutral%20stance%20on %20euthanasia,its%20annual%20representative%20meeting%20held%20on%20September %2C%2014.

Graph 1: The exponential surge in the world’s population since 1800

Graph 2: Number of Cities with a population over one million (population density)