On April 21, 2020 John Kerry wrote about “the parallels between the coronavirus and the climate crisis.” He said, “You could just as easily replace the words ‘climate change’ with ‘COVID-19’; it is truly the tale of two pandemics deferred, denied, and distorted.

The climate crisis is already expected to rob us of a quarter-million lives a year from everything from malnutrition to malaria. Direct annual costs of health impacts alone could easily approach $4 billion a year by the next decade. The financial devastation of climate-change-related disasters has increased 150 percent, costing the world $2.25 trillion. It’s projected to grow exponentially if the world stays on today’s unsustainable trajectory.

Yes, climate change is a threat multiplier for pandemic diseases, and zoonotic diseases — 70 percent of all human infections — are impacted by climate change and its effect on animal migration and habitats.”

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