Beyond tragic loss of life, the global disruption caused by COVID-19 has revealed very tangibly how vulnerable we are to changing circumstances. A noteworthy aspect of the pandemic though is that it was not what Donald Rumsfeld would have referred to as an “unknown unknown”. Pandemics have occurred before and the threat of another has been raised as a concern by infectious disease researchers for decades, even if the timing can’t be predicted with any certainty. In short, we could quite reasonably have been better prepared than we were, not just in hindsight but based on information available before the pandemic began. The failure of nations and the international community to find money, resources, and the political will to take serious steps to reduce the risk of emerging infectious diseases and their spread in advance of a pandemic event brings to mind the satirical film Don’t Look Up: a film which depicts the difficulties experienced by two fictional astronomers in getting their knowledge of an impending asteroid strike seen and taken seriously by government, the media, and the general public. Don’t Look Up was intended to shine a light on the very same apparent blindness to the risks exposed by climate change science. However, imperfect the asteroid analogy is for climate change, the film's message does seem to resonate with many experts who are used to having their knowledge largely ignored by the popular media and in the halls of power. Indeed, there are many issues facing the world which fall into the category of being very concerning, well evidenced, and yet largely ignored from a strategic perspective. For example a recent paper published in The Lancet estimated that 1·2 million people died in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. That's more deaths than from HIV/AIDS or malaria. These numbers reveal antimicrobial resistance to be a pressing problem today in many parts of the world and one that is likely to worsen without concerted efforts to prevent and control infections, provide access to essential antibiotics, and prevent overuse in other settings, as well as research and development of new vaccines and antibiotics.
Another recent paper investigates the production of novel entities, which might broadly be defined as forms of environmental pollution (this including new substances, new forms of existing substances, and modified life forms, as well as mobilisation of naturally occurring substances). The authors attempt to establish whether we are operating beyond a planetary boundary based on the evidence available. They conclude that “The increasing rate of production and releases of larger volumes and higher numbers of novel entities with diverse risk potentials exceed societies’ ability to conduct safety related assessments and monitoring.” In short there are serious risks which we are not managing.
What these seemingly disparate topics have in common is that, along with many others, they require deliberate, concerted international action if they are to be effectively addressed and their associated risks minimised. However, as we see with vaccine inequality, as an international community, we frequently fail to take a broad inclusive approach to addressing even pressing risks. This raises an interesting and important question. How do we affect meaningful change in the face of a seemingly unresponsive system? In general academics hope that providing more information is enough even though this information deficit approach is rarely sufficient. Perhaps there is something to learn from the recent case of Guillermo Fernandez who pressured—through hunger strike—the Swiss Federal Assembly into receiving training on climate change from IPCC scientists so that politicians would really understand the severity of the risks we all face. Reflecting on this case in a blog, Julia Steinberger, an ecological economist, and activist, found much of her previous understanding of system change challenged and outlined six insights for enacting change. One stand out point being that we do not fully understand the system we seek to influence and that “it takes activism and active confrontation with systems to really understand what they are made of, how they work, and how to change them”. This needs study, please submit your research, but more importantly as Julia puts it “get out there. Interfere. Talk to people. Try like all heck to change bits and bobs of the systems that surround you. As you’ll try, you’ll learn, and as you’ll learn, your chances of success will expand extraordinarily.”
© 2022 Fanatic Studio/Gary Waters/Science Photo Library