Ebola and Other Diseases: The role of Climate Change and Deforestation

Source

This week the World Health Organisation described the current Ebola outbreak as ‘the most severe acute health emergency in modern times’, with the epidemic now killing more people than all previous Ebola outbreaks combined.

Whilst epidemics on this scale are thankfully rare, there are increasing fears that our burgeoning population, warming climate and rapid urbanisation of previously forested land has already increased the pace in which deadly diseases can infect and spread amongst humans. As deforestation and climate change look set to get worse before they get better, are we facing a future of greater risk from global disease?

A Timelapse of Deforestation

The world's first satellite, Sputnik 1, marked the beginning of the space age when it was successfully launched in October 1957. More than 56 years later, there are now over 1000 functioning satellites, collecting and providing a myriad of information and data.

The Landsat Program represents just a few of those satellites but has collected millions of images of Earth in its 40 years of operations. Launched in 1972 by the US, the program has been a continuous eye-in-the-sky ever since, recording and photographing almost every corner of Earth at resolutions of at least 30 metres every 16 days. If you've ever used Google Earth, you've accessed Landsat's vast dataset.