"There is a lot of data showing that antibiotics are in the water now and this is weakening antibiotics ability to fight disease, as commented before we now have figured out so many was that mankind can be annihilated that it is very obvious that mans ability to survive is actually hanging by a thread. According to the History channel, Nostradamus and the Aztec calender the end is in Dec 2012 so what does this mean? Press on, look for solutions and have faith that we one day all countries will work together to solve these problems, as this is the only way there is any real chance to succeed. That starts with us mending the relationships we destroyed over the past 8 years. Hopefully we will not wait for an earth / mankind ending event to make this happen."

Grant, Your question is so provocative, important, and rarely discussed. Whether a pandemic would kill 50% or 5% the disruptive effect on the world would make our current global financial problems look like a fender bender. Have you seen Google’s flu tracking web page? http://www.google.org/flutrends/ . My family’s oral history includes a story about two of my great aunts who were in their twenties when the last pandemic hit Iowa. They were healthy in the morning and dead by evening. You are a brave man to post this question – most people would much rather; whistle as they pass the graveyard. Lastly, my wife and I were in a Hong Kong market in 2006 taking tourist pictures. All of the shop keepers in the live (and recently live) animal market were indifferent to us taking pictures – that is except one – she angrily shoed me away. That aroused my curiosity so when she wasn’t watching I snapped a picture. When I got home I figured out that she was selling dried Civit Cat. Whether it is SARS or flu, or something fresh off Mother Nature's drawing board -- you are asking BIG questions.

To add a little perspective, my next door neighbor is a medical ethics person working for a regional trauma hospital connected to a major university. He is on the regional pandemic taskforce, and talks about the scope, impact and ability to respond to a pandemic. Woefully unprepared is as kind as he gets. He tells of doctors on the taskforce simply not understanding the scope of the problem.

Problem #1: who to give preventative treatment to
So you have to treat the doctors and nurses so they can provide care. Then you need to treat the rest of the hospital staff to keep the doors open. And you need to treat their families so they can come to work. You have to treat the police and fire people that will deal with all the direct fallout, Then three are the government officials that need to make decisions about how to proceed. What about the military? and on and on.

Problem #2: speed of spread
There are all the good indicators that air travel will transmit the disease around the world in days. If you don't stop this, the economy grinds to a halt. But if you do stop it, the economy also grinds to a halt. Who should be allowed to travel and with what requirements? Symptoms is a bad selector, as carriers are as/more dangerous.

Problem #3: speed of mutation
With SARS, tamiflu was the great savior. There has been a quiet effort to stockpile tamiflu to address problem #1. It has been about 4 years since SARS, and most influenza A and B strains seen this year are resistant to tamiflu. It used to take 30+ years to develop the resistance that took less than 5. Now we have lots of useless tamiflu and how long will it take for the next drug to be developed? The dynamics off this aspect of the problem is now far in favor of the diseases. A brief study of HIV medicines will give you a better understanding of the problems faced.

Now comes the truth that "the end of the world" is not coming. There have been pandemics before, and there will be ones after the next one. There will be predation and disease and we can only fool ourselves into thinking otherwise. Whether humans are part of the long term evolution is something to be wondered about, not assumed. We show many signs of being a flash in the pan. :)

Here is my problem with the original post. What was it's goal? Does it produce thoughtful response, does it produce denial? Of course. The one that scares me is the fatalist response. I see it there, I can't do anything about it and so I will live my life with excess and lack of constructive action. What steps are being proposed, what actions are people being galvanized to? These are the questions that are the most important to me.

Everything here is the same as for climate change. People hate in when I talk of extinction events and percentages of all species that will be lost. In these terms, I have a bit of a hard time getting excited about a pandemic. We are in a far worse way from my perspective. But I always come back to: what actions I want to see occur, what behavior I see needing change, what aspect of human will am I trying to strengthen? We all need to discuss this above all else.

For some reason when I read your blog on Pandemic Death I mentally linked it to "whopper virgins"..mmm. A wholistic view shows the emerging patterns.

Rarely do those of us interested in sustainability talk about the sustainability (or lack thereof) of the world's population.

The planet is finite. Our propensity to underestimate the impact of out-of-control population growth and it's corresponding impact upon the planet seems not to be.

Please continue to provide us with these thought-provoking blogs. We have entered an era of such specialization that we need to be reminded of the macro view, of the systemic issues - of the patterns of things because once we determine the pattern, the result becomes obvious.

We are most arrogant - the species of man. We like to think we can control the world. The world would be better off if we could just control ourselves.

thank you,

C

Grant-

I am an assistant director at Arizona State University’s Decision Theater, and administer many of the programs related to urban development. Your article on the Pandemic Flu caught my eye due to our own work in this space. Our organization is very interested in the resiliency and long-term sustainability of our cities. In fact, we are a part of the Global Institute of Sustainability. I thought you might be interested in the table-top public participation efforts we’ve conducted with regards to pandemic flu spread and the trade-offs between shutting down our schools to curtail contagion between students and remaining open so educational funding is not forfeited.

If interested, please check out: Pandemic Flu at Decision Theater.

Regards,
Lisa Faiss
Assistant Director of Integrated Urban Solutions
ASU Decision Theater

"Thought provoking, but where is the evidence that this bacteria has survived and is making its way to our drinking supply or civilization?"

"consilience... worth the read"

"Someone once said that "writing so that all will understand and so that readers will find the subject worthy of interest is the hardest thing to do." After reading the article, I find that many who write about "Green." are in love with how many large words they can use to explain their point. Living "Green" will never take hold if the intellectual elite keep talking in the clouds. Please, Keep it Simple Simon."

Congratulations on a well-written pandemic article. I am a recent MBA graduate with managerial, manager training and financial analyst experience interested in green businesses. Any advice on finding a position for career searchers like myself?

I find it interesting how I read this now when just a couple days ago, I watched a 2-hour show about the Black Plague on the History Channel. Both has now perpetuated my somber thoughts on the frailty of human life for a week now. In the end, I think the issue though is greater than our understanding. Perhaps the immensity of the responsibility felt resulted in the fatalistic overtones in the previous article as noted by commentator Jerry S.

This article has been thought-provoking in the sense that it has shifted perspectives on the grander whole. Are cities sustainable enough in the biological sense? I believe the next steps now would be to consult experts such as the medical community. Get them involved in this discussion.

Perhaps it's also not best to simply rely on the professionals and create outreach programs to involve the rest of population. This could potentially create scenarios where the general populace could aid the professionals in better containing diseases. In theory, an educated populace could mitigate mass panic and identify diseases much quicker.

There isn't a lot of discussion that I read about the carrying capacity of the earth with respect to human population. It depends on the human use of the resources of the earth itself of course, but, a mother nature inspired health problem, or assortment of them, which would lead to some sort of reduction in population growth doesn't seem too far fetched. There are likely a dozen academics looking at it right now. A great question: Is the earth as WE know it sustainable? Or put another way, what if the ice age started tomorrow? That's a course I'd be taking if I were in school.

Can we proclaim "Global Warming" by examining a tiny sampling of the entire globe and projecting that via computer models?
There is plenty of evidence of climate change for centuries. Why should we be alarmed about it now?

Grant,
I just took a moment to re-read this - considering it's current relevance - thank you for bringing it to my attention before, and again - by default.