Then, this morning I chanced upon another article in the current
issue of Time about a virus (FIlovirus) that, it is alleged, might be an
attempt by the Earth's ecosystem to fight back at the assault of humankind.
Both articles, taken together, clicked in a way that singularly encountered
they might have not... so have decided to pass them along.
I am a superstitious man, believe in magic, and, as was graphically
evidenced when the first men went into space -thereby able to look down
upon our planet- believe that the Earth is an entity, living, breathing,
and perhaps, calculating.
The First Nations/First Peoples are firmly bound to the Earth and
accordingly are well aware of the ecological state of affairs. And so, I
wonder...AIDS, Hantavirus, Filovirus...could these be some sort of sign, a
tremor, a ripple from deep within Mother Earth?
As per the Spiritual Elders, Hotevilla, Hopi Nation:
We are now living in the fourth and final world of the Hopi. We are at a
most critical time in human history. It is a crossroads at which the
outcome of our actions will decide the fate of life on earth.
Fish Gotta Swim And Birds Gotta Fly, Utne Reader: "Calling
something a canary in a coal mine is one of journalism's most hackneyed
comparisons, yet it is a remarkably apt description of the distressing
plight of the world's birds and fish. Sensitive indicators of the integrity
of the Earth's ecosystems, both piscine and avian neighbors are at a
terrible crossroads. We ignore what their reduced and sickened numbers are
trying to tell us at our own peril.
"Birds may be more obviously in trouble, in part because their
habitat is more vulnerable to human encroachment. Some 70 percent of the
world's 9,600 bird species are declining, according to Howard Youth,
writing in World Watch (Jan./Feb. 1994), and 1,000 of those species are
threatened with extinction in the near future.
"The direct losses are alarming enough in themselves-and doubly so
when you consider that birds keep animal pests such as insects and rodents
in check and also are essential to the vitality of many plants.
"And to those who don't care about animals other than themselves,
Youth has this to say: 'Birds are particularly good indicators of the
health of other species-and of whole ecosystems.' In other words, birds may
be showing us that human lives could ultimately be at stake.
"Birds are dying off for a number of reasons, reports Youth. The
most obvious is loss of habitat-rain, temperature, and boreal forests,
grasslands, plains, wetlands-to development and farmland. (North America's
10 most common duck species alone have experienced a precipitous 30 percent
decline in 40 years.)
"To habitat loss add ingestion of pesticides; poisoning by mercury,
selenium, and lead; oil spills; acid rain; and the introduction of alien
species like snakes and cats to ecologically fragile places.
"Nature reserves help somewhat, says Youth, but bird and wildlife
sanctuaries make up less than 5 percent of the world's land and some of
them, especially in the Third World, are protected habitats in name alone.
Because so many birds are migrants or live year-round in the tropics, say
Youth, 'global efforts to organize bird-saving projects will only
succeed...if there is a strong local interest in the vulnerable tropics.'
"The world's fish populations, on the other hand, are endangered
both by overfishing and by habitat loss. Overfishing has caused declines in
stocks of fish throughout the world, says E Magazine (May/June 1994). The
catch of four commonly eaten fish-Atlantic cod, cape hake, haddock, and
silver hake-fell from 5 million tons in 1970 to 2.6 million tons in 1989,
the magazine reports. In 1989, according to World Watch (Nov./Dec. 1992),
hauls began to exceed the rate at which fish could reproduce. Quotas have
been instituted from Alaska to Iceland to stave off disaster, but
depletions are still readily apparent.
"With more than half the world's people living within 100
kilometers of a coast, coastal habitat loss has become a huge problem for
fish, E Magazine reports. Many cities have degraded their coastal habitats
through development; San Francisco Bay, for example, has shrunk 60 percent
in 140 years because of land reclamation; it is now overrun by alien
species and can no longer support commercial fishing. Chesapeake Bay, once
one of the most productive fishing grounds, saw its annual oyster catch
fall from 20,000 tons in the late '50s to 3,000 tons in the late '80s,
largely because of pollution. Meanwhile, 5 to 10 percent of the world's
coral reefs have been reduced by pollution and destruction; 60 percent of
what's left is threatened in the next 20 to 40 years.
"Perhaps more troubling than overfishing, which can be controlled,
is sickness and contamination among the fish that remain. Since 1964,
reports Lisa Lefferts in E Magazine (Jan./Feb. 1993), liver cancer has been
found in 15 species from 50 polluted sites in the United States, and many
other fish, especially those in the Great Lakes, are contaminated with PCBs
and methyl mercury.
"Indeed, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report released
in 1992 found that 'PCBs, mercury, and biphenyl were detected at more than
90 percent' of the 388 inland sites they evaluated, according to Michael
Castleman in Sierra (March/April 1994).
"Although the EPA doesn't believe the cancer risk for fish
injesters to be very great, the Environmental Defense Fund disagrees,
saying the EPA's consumption estimates were based on surveys done before
fish became as popular a food as today.
"Pollutants that cause reproductive and developmental failure are
also responsible for some of the dwindling of the fish population. In
addition, animals that eat tainted fish can themselves be affected,
accelerating the the loss of wildlife such as birds and mink. Indeed,
according to the World Wildlife Fund's Theo Colborn, quoted in E Magazine,
'all top predator species dependent on fish from the Great Lakes are
suffering reproductive problems.'
"As Clyde Dawe, the Harvard scientist who discovered the first fish
tumors back in 1964, put it, if fish (and, we might add here, birds) are
adversely affected by pollutants 'human health is in jeopardy as well.'
"Doesn't it follow, then, that we owe it to ourselves an to our
planet to rescue the denizens of ocean and air as soon as possible?"
Rhetorical question?
But, what if the ecosystem recognizes it's enemy and starts to
assert itself in ways from which humankind can neither retreat nor cope?
Huichol Proverb:
When the world ends, it will be like when the names of things are changed
during the peyote hunt. All will be different, the opposite of what it is
now. Now there are two eyes in the heavens, Dios Sol and Dios Fuego. Then,
the moon will open his eye and become brighter. The sun will become dimmer.
There will be no more differences. No more men and women. No child and no
adult. All will change places...
Now, according to the current issue of Time (Sept. 5 '94) we read
of a laboratory accident involving the Sabia virus at Yale, just last week,
in which the scientist was infected. He failed to report the accident, as
he ought to have.
Time magazine, Sept. 5 1994, pp. 63:
"The accident must have come as a horrifying shock, even to an experienced
scientist. One minute, a sample was spinning in a high-speed centrifuge.
Then, suddenly, the container cracked, and the sample-tissue contaminated
by a rare, potentially lethal virus-splattered the inside of the
centrifuge. Fortunately, the Yale researcher working with the deadly germs
was wearing a lab gown, latex gloves and a mask, as required under federal
guidelines...he didn't bother to report the accident [after following all
other safety procedures]...and a few days later he left town to visit an
old friend in Boston.
"Bad move. Although he would not realize it for about a week, the
scientist...had been infected with the mysterious Brazilian Sabia virus....
"...Sabia is almost certainly carried by rodents and is not contagious by
casual contact (the afflicted scientist evidently got it from tiny bits of
tissue that flew into his unprotected eyes or nose or both).
"Sabia and several other related viruses-Junin, Machupo and
Guanarito in South America and Lassa in Africa, all members of arenavirus
family-are particularly frightening because they can kill in such a grisly
way. Characteristic symptoms are high fever, uncontrolled bleeding in
virtually every organ and finally shock. The liver turns yellow and
decomposes. Blood can leak from literally every bodily orifice, including
the eyes and pores of the skin.
"Sabia was never seen before 1990.
Time magazine, Sept. 5 1994, pp. 66:
"Several days after a victim contracts the virus, his eyes turn red and his
head begins to ache. Red spots appear on his skin and, spreading quickly,
become a rash of tiny blisters, and then the skin rips. Blood begins to
flow from every one of the body's orifices. The victim coughs up black
vomit, sloughing off parts of his tongue, throat and windpipe. His organs
fill with blood and fail. He suffers seizures, splattering virus-saturated
blood that can infect anyone nearby. Within a few days the victim dies, and
as the virus destroys his remaining cells, much of his tissue actually
liquefies.
"...no movie will match the real-life terror described in Richard
Preston's -The Hot Zone (Random House, $23)...soon in stores later this
month...
"Writing with great flair, Preston introduces his readers to the
terrors of the FILOVIRUS, a family of threadlike viruses found in the
rain-forest regions of Central Africa. He describes a 1976 outbreak that
spread through villages near the Ebola River in Zaire, killing as many as
90% of those infected. This so-called Ebola Zaire virus is the deadliest of
the filoviruses, but its Ebola Sudan and Marburg kin, while not as deadly,
cause equally horrible symptoms.
"Such dangerous viruses may seem a distant menace, but as [the]
Yale researcher learned last week, accidents can happen. The Hot Zone
details a 1989 Ebola crisis that occurred not in the forests of Africa but
in Reston, Virginia, only 15 miles from Washington. It all started at the
Reston Primate Quarantine Unit, run by a company that imports and sells
monkeys for use in research laboratories. When an unusual number of deaths
were recorded among a shipment of monkeys that had recently arrived from
the Philippines, tissue samples were sent to a U.S. Army research center.
"There a technician identified the strands as either Ebola Zaire or
something very close to it. Even more alarming, an incident at the Reston
building seemed to confirm that this virus, unlike the African one, could
be transmitted through the air. Frantic phone calls were made to Virginia
health authorities and to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The
Reston building was, in Army parlance, a 'hot zone,' an area that contained
lethal, infectious organisms. An Army team, wearing space suits, killed the
450 surviving monkeys by lethal injection, and the cadavers were placed in
plastic bags for safe disposal. Before the building was boarded up, the
Army sterilized every square inch of the interior...Eventually it became
apparent that the Ebola Zaire strain at Reston was harmless to humans. Yet
the virus is considered to be a continuing menace. 'A tiny change in its
genetic code,' Preston writes, 'and it might zoom through the human race.'
"In his [Preston's] view the worst is yet to come. As the world's
population continues to grow, he writes, and human settlements and activies
intrude farther into the rain forests, previously unknown viruses like HIV,L
assa, the filovirus and others are emerging to wreak their toll. In a
rather mystical but ominous conclusion, Preston warns that 'the rain forest
has its own defenses...The earths's immune system, so to speak, is starting
to kick in...The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the
human parasite. Perhaps AIDS is the first step in a natural process of
clearance.'"
Wouldn't it be ironic if, 500 years after Columbus et al had
delivered biological chaos to this end of the world, that the rain forest
took the same tact...?
Peace...Jordan