COVID-19 and Wildlife Trade

Epidemics/Pandemics, New Attitude to Nature

 

There is yet another problem with human activities. Besides our disruption of natural places like forests, we bring in animals, often strange animals, into our cities and towns and put them together when they have never been together before. and they have never been together with us. Sometimes species jump from one species to another and then to humans, with devastating effect. As I learned from listening to David Quammen on National Public Radio often the route to us is through an intermediary species. This is a particular problem in Asia with something I have seen—wet markets.

 These are informal markets that have sprung up in part because people in Asia often lack refrigerators or distrust them. I don’t want to demonize them. People in Asia need them. There animals are slaughtered, cut up and sold on the spot and then hung up. Or sometimes they are kept alive until the buyer arrives and wants one killed. In Asia people believe in fresh, not refrigeration. As they are hanging they often defecate on the other species below them. This is how a petri dish for pathogens is inadvertently created. Again as a result of humans who recklessly don’t care what they do to other species. Apparently there was a wet market in Wuhan where the coronavirus was first discovered to have infected humans. 

As Thomas Gillespie Professor of environmental sciences at Emory University said, “Wet markets make a perfect storm for cross-species transmission of pathogens. Whenever you have novel interactions with a range of species in one place, whether that is in a natural environment like a forest or a wet market, you can have a spillover event.”

The wet market in Wuhan sold numerous wild animals including wolf pups, salamanders, crocodiles, scorpions, rats, squirrels, foxes, civets and turtles and many others. To us those seem like very exotic creatures. To Asians not so much. In Africa they add monkeys, bats, rats, and dozens of bird species as well as other mammals, insects and rodents. It is all a matter of what you are accustomed to.

Scientist Kate Jones also said “The wet market in Lagos is notorious. It’s like a nuclear bomb waiting to happen. But it’s not fair to demonise places that do not have fridges. These traditional markets provide much of the food for Africa and Asia.” Others say that wild animal trade is a much bigger problem.

Pogo was right: I found the enemy and the enemy is us!

The bottom line, according to Brian Bird, a research virologist at the University of California is that we must be prepared. As he said, “We can’t predict where the next pandemic will come from, so we need mitigation plans to take into account the worst possible scenarios, the only certain thing is that the next one will certainly come.” We should not be cutting back on research and preparedness as the Americans did recently. We should be expanding our preparedness.

My point is simply that all of this points to careless human activities. Too many people just don’t care how we interact with other species. After all we are the lords of the earth. Aren’t we? That is the attitude that has got us into trouble. We need a new attitude to nature. One that is more respectful, more modest.

One more Reason we need a New Attitude to Nature

Epidemics/Pandemics, New Attitude to Nature

 

There are actually many reasons we need a new attitude to nature. I have just found another one.

 Professor Thomas Gillespie said,

“Wildlife everywhere is being put under more stress, he says. “Major landscape changes are causing animals to lose habitats, which means species become crowded together and also come into greater contact with humans. Species that survive change are now moving and mixing with different animals and with humans.”

According to Gillespie the spread of Lyme disease is another example of a disease that was facilitated, if not caused by our disturbance of forests. People who live close to forests are more likely to get bitten by a tick that carries the Lyme pathogen.

Gillespie sees this in the US, where suburbs fragment forests and raise the risk of humans contracting Lyme disease. “Altering the ecosystem affects the complex cycle of the Lyme pathogen. People living close by are more likely to get bitten by a tick carrying Lyme bacteria.” As John Vidal reported in the Guardian,

“Richard Ostfeld, distinguished senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York pointed out that “human health research seldom considers the surrounding natural ecosystems, there’s misapprehension among scientists and the public that natural ecosystems are the source of threats to ourselves. It’s a mistake. Nature poses threats, it is true, but it’s human activities that do the real damage. The health risks in a natural environment can be made much worse when we interfere with it”

Ostfeld also pointed out that rats and bats are often the problem because they are strongly linked to the spread of zoonotic disease because they are the most likely to promote the transmission of pathogens. That’s why he says, “The more we disturb the forests and habitats the more danger we are in.”

Felicia Keesing, professor of biology at Bard College, New York, added another dimension to the problem. She said, “When we erode biodiversity, we see a proliferation of the species most likely to transmit new diseases to us, but there’s also good evidence that those same species are the best hosts for existing diseases.” It reminds me of what Viktor Frankel said about the Nazi death camps: the worst of us survived.

We have to be very careful when we mess with nature. That is not something we are accustomed to doing. We are accustomed to doing with nature as we please. As we are now learning, that can be very dangerous.

Are We to blame?

Epidemics/Pandemics, New Attitude to Nature

Now that we are in the midst of a global pandemic that has a large part of the world spooked, many are pointing the fingers at others. That’s what we do in dangerous times. We look for someone to blame. Everyone is looking for scapegoats, none more than Donald Trump the so-called leader of the free world. He keeps calling the coronavirus “the Chinese flu.” No doubt he does that to deflect attention from his early negligence in which he referred to the coronavirus as a “hoax.” Well the hoax has come home to roost. Like a magician he wants us to look where he is pointing rather than looking at what he is doing.

Searching for scapegoats is seldom useful. Except in one circumstance. Remember Pogo, the ancient comic strip. He said he had gone looking for the enemy and found it. Much to his surprise he found it was “us.” We are the enemy. And we might be the enemy again in the case of coronavirus.

As John Vidal senior environmental writer at the Guardian that I have been reading for many years said,

“Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harbouring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans such as Ebola, HIV and dengue.

But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as COVID-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019, to arise – with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections between the wellbeing of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems.”

Many years ago I had a summer job at Manitoba Hydro and my supervisor was a very smart man. HIs name was Al Boily  I was his assistant on a digger, a large vehicle that was used to dig holes for utility poles. I had to tamp the mud and dirt into the hole around the pole with a heavy iron bar after it was inserted. First of all, he taught me how to work. That was a big job, for, if truth be known, I was as lazy as grass. I needed to know how to work and to forget all ideas of money falling into my lap. This was a very valuable life lesson. One of the most important of my life. He taught me one more valuable lesson. I remember him objecting to Vapona No Pest Strips. Remember those? These were produced to hang in buildings such as open garages where they would attract bugs especially flying insects. Then they got stuck to the sticky strip that contained some chemical to hasten their demise. I thought they were a great invention. After all I hated flies and mosquitos. But Al told me, “John, what’s bad for bugs is probably bad for people too.” That made a lot of sense to me. Scientists now employ a similar principle.

So many things we do are harmful to other creatures and we are entirely careless about that fact. This might be very unwise!

In the last few years we seem to have been plagued (literally plagued) with various pestilential outbreaks. In 1996 it was Ebola a deadly virus until then barely known to humans, until it spilled over out of the forest in Africa in a wave of small epidemics. It was far away in Africa so who cared? Right? Wrong! All of us should care.

In a village of 37 people in Africa 21 people were killed by Ebola. Many of them had participated in a project of killing, carrying, skinning, chopping, and then eating a chimpanzee from the surrounding forest.

John Vidal tells how in 2004 he travelled to Mayibout to investigate why deadly diseases were emerging in apparent hotspots in the rainforest. He found people that were traumatized by the deadly virus that killed up to 90% of the people it infected. Those are pretty tough odds. Many of the children who loved the tropical rainforest before that were terrorized by it after the deluge.

Not that long ago people believed the tropical forests would be a source of viruses and pathogens. Now scientists are getting more sophisticated about it. We are the source.

 

As Vidal said, “But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019, to arise – with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike.”

 

Now scientists are adding an entirely new discipline that studies the visible connections between the well being of humans and other living things including entire ecosystems. It seem Al Boily is right. What is bad for nature is bad for us too.

As a result of this new discipline a number of scientists are now inquiring whether or not “human activity, such as road building, mining, hunting and logging, that triggered the Ebola epidemics in Mayibout 2 and elsewhere in the 1990s and that is unleashing new terrors today?”

 

Kate Jones and her team of researchers says that her team is investigating exactly that. “We are researching how species in degraded habitats are likely to carry more viruses which can infect humans,” she says. “Simpler systems get an amplification effect. Destroy landscapes, and the species you are left with are the ones humans get the diseases from.”

 

Thomas Gillespie, an associate professor in Emory University’s department of environmental sciences, who studies how shrinking natural habitats and changing behaviour add to the risk of diseases spilling over from animals to humans made the point, “Pathogens do not respect species boundaries”

 

He also said, without any sugar coating,

 

“I am not at all surprised about the coronavirus outbreak,” he says. “The majority of pathogens are still to be discovered. We are at the very tip of the iceberg. I am not at all surprised about the coronavirus outbreak,” he says. “The majority of pathogens are still to be discovered. We are at the very tip of the iceberg.”

 

Humans, are creating the conditions for the spread of diseases by reducing the natural barriers between host animals – in which the virus is naturally circulating – and themselves. We fully expect the arrival of pandemic influenza; we can expect large-scale human mortalities; we can expect other pathogens with other impacts. A disease like Ebola is not easily spread. But something with a mortality rate of Ebola spread by something like measles would be catastrophic.”

 

All of this is a direct result of our casual and careless attitude to the natural world. Doing as we please without regard to other people or other species has a price. Are we willing to pay it or should we rather change our attitude. Arrogance is seldom pretty or helpful.

One crazy last day

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Epidemics/Pandemics

 

It was bound to happen—one last crazy day in a crazy holiday. We had been fleeing Arizona because our Canadian government urged all Canadians to come home, “while we can.” That sounded ominous. Our last week in Arizona was spent mainly talking about the pandemic and what to do about it.

From Sioux Falls South Dakota, the land of the free in the west we headed for home. Much to our surprise after travelling all the way from Arizona and finding it very difficult to find a restaurant other than take-out restaurants or drive-through restaurants, both of which are a bit inconvenient for travellers, we found out that anything goes in South Dakota. Last night we ate in a restaurant where there were no rules. No social distancing and the attitude was do what you want. After all we were in the land of the free? But were we in the land of the dumb? Were we dumb? We were dying (I hope not literally) to eat in a restaurant so we did it.

We cleaned our table, menu, and did not touch anyone or anything we did not know was “clean.” We had been told no standard items would be brought to the table that had not been cleaned specifically for us at our table. That sounded good. Was it? We ate a great meal.

In the morning we paid particular attention to the weather forecast as we had heard about a storm coming in from the west. We had just come from Colorado where they were expecting a blizzard. Don’t they always travel west? Like to where we were and where we were headed? Friends phoned us while we were traveling and they were in Colorado caught in that blizzard and it did not seem like fun.

Well we soldiered on. First I-29, normally a busy highway was eerily empty. Only a few lonely (crazy?) souls were on the road. Were we stupid? That made driving easier. But we had a variety of weird driving conditions on this last day. We drove through fog, snow, rain, freezing rain, blowing snow, and snow packed roads. It changed between those conditions about every mile or so. Fro about 6 hours we drove with constant stress. It never stopped being tricky, but never got dangerous so we thought. There were a few vehicles that had slid into the ditch or meridian. We drove carefully but steadily.

We also kept worrying about what would happen at the border. Canada just announced today that the border was closed to all except Canadian and American citizens and only for essential travel. We considered ourselves “essential” of course. Would the border authorities agree? We had also been advised that if we showed signs of the coronavirus we would not be admitted to Canada. On the entire trip from Arizona we worried that we might develop symptoms. Of course we did not want to get sick. After all we were in the high-risk category of old people with underlying conditions. What would they do if they detected symptoms? We would actually already be in Canada when we reported to the customs authorities at the border. If Canada turned us back would we be able to drive back into the United States?  Likely they would not be keen to have us back. Would we have to camp at the border? Thankfully none of that happened. The Customs official hardly looked at us and believed us when we said we had no symptoms.

We were instructed at the border we would have to “self-isolate” for 14 days. When we got home we were lucky to have some angels of mercy. My wonderful sister Barb and brother-in-law Harv had purchased some essential supplies for us and delivered delicious home made soup. She even added Street Smart candies because she knows how much I like them. Wow! Good friend Garry Giesbrecht delivered tasty stew and offered to pick up essentials. And not just liquor either. Another good friend Cyndi Friesen also offered to get stuff. We were very lucky.

There was one inconvenience. Our television service could not be reconnected for some bizarre reason, even though we had phoned ahead a couple of days and been told it would be all ready when we arrived. Now we found out they could not send a techie guy to fix it either. Technical people were not allowed in our home. This was a serious annoyance as we began a 14-day quarantine. And there was nothing we could do about it. But we soon realized it was not elegant to schlem about it. After all we were safe and sound and at home. Around the world people have been suffering seriously from the coronavirus and its consequences. We just had to buck up and stop complaining.

Friends and relatives phoned or emailed or texted us to see how we were doing. Life was good. Very good. Yet we think about those who don’t have it so good and wish them all the best in these difficult circumstances.

To panic or not to panic

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Epidemics/Pandemics, reason

A couple of days ago I suggested to our photo club that we cancel our monthly meeting in the home of one of our members. We usually meet in a small living room and look at slides and discuss them and photography in general.

One of our members suggested we were all overreacting and panicking. My fellow photographer said we should look at both sides.  He suggested we watch a video with Judge Jeanine.  So I watched it and listened to her rant in her typical fashion about those stupid liberals criticizing President Trump and panicking over a flu! It’s just a flu she said.

I agree that most questions have two sides.He said he intended to carry on his life as usual. We need to look at both sides carefully. Important public questions should be based on the best available evidence. Not comments by pundits. And there are many of them on both sides of many questions like this one.

I would suggest that for complex public health questions we consult with experts in the health field, instead of retired judges (or lawyers for that matter.) Trump has some good ones in his camp and we should respect what they say.

And the experts suggest we should be very careful because coronavirus is a very serious health concern. They do not urge panic and they are not overreacting. They have warned that the rate of infection will likely jump sharply in the very near future and they have said “all Americans” (and we should include Canadian in that) should take serious measures to contain the spread and if we do that we have a chance of minimizing the harm. Doing nothing and carrying on as we have always done is not the right approach. If we do that we run a serious risk of making things worse. Much worse.

Trump’s experts have recommend that we keep safe social distances from each other.  Our groups should be small. I think if our entire photo club came to our leader’s home that would not qualify as a safe social distance. It would be dangerous–for someone. If the virus was passed on to someone young and healthy, like our youngest member, for example, he might be safe, but he could pass it on to someone who is not. Like his grandparents or even a stranger he encounters.

Some points made by Judge Jeanine are correct. Most importantly panic is not helpful. I did not advocate panicking. I do advocate that all of us take reasonable steps to protect vulnerable people, including old people with underlying health conditions. I know a  few people like that. The coronavirus can be very serious for them. Young healthy have much less chance of getting seriously sick from it, but they should not take unnecessary chances that risk harm to others. If they just harm themselves I wouldn’t care what they do.

Another expert is Dr. Theresa Tam who has been strongly recommended to me. She is Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer and is a pediatrics specialist in infectious diseases. This is what the World Health organization says about her:

“Dr. Theresa Tam was named Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer on June 26, 2017. She is a physician with expertise in immunization, infectious disease, emergency preparedness and global health security. Dr. Tam obtained her medical degree from the University of Nottingham in the U.K. She completed her paediatric residency at the University of Alberta and her fellowship in paediatric infectious diseases at the University of British Columbia. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and has over 55 peer-reviewed journal publications in public health. She is also a graduate of the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program.

Dr. Tam has held several senior leadership positions at the Public Health Agency of Canada, including as the Deputy Chief Public Health Officer and the Assistant Deputy Minister for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control. During her 20 years in public health, she provided technical expertise and leadership on new initiatives to improve communicable disease surveillance, enhance immunization programs, strengthen health emergency management and laboratory biosafety and biosecurity. She has played a leadership role in Canada’s response to public health emergencies including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), pandemic influenza H1N1 and Ebola.

Dr. Tam has served as an international expert on a number of World Health Organization committees and has participated in multiple international missions related to SARS, pandemic influenza and polio eradication.”

This sounds like the sort of person we should listen to on such important health issues. Not television commentators.

This is what Dr. Tam said 3 days ago: “Let me be very clear. Today I am asking everyone to take strong action to help us delay the spread of COVID-19 and protect as many people as possible.” She also said the following: “With cases rapidly increasing in Canada … our window to flatten the curve of the epidemic is narrow.”

Those measures include cancelling non-essential travel outside the country; avoiding large public gatherings, increasing your public space and talking with your employer about working from home, she said. She also said, “This is our chance, right here, right now. We need to act now and we need to act together… You do not want this disease transmitted rapidly. Whatever you can do to decelerate that transmissions and break those chains of transmission is really important. We can do something about this now.”

We don’t want to panic or over react but we should all take the problem seriously not just for own sake, but for the sake of others around us.

While Trudeau said that Ottawa had not ruled out making self-isolation mandatory, Tam said that such a move would be difficult to police. “This is a voluntary self-isolation. It is impossible to be essentially keeping tabs on every single traveller that comes in,” she said.

“This is a social phenomenon, this is a societal response and everyone must take that responsibility,” she said.

I think this is what each of us should do to the best of our ability. For the sake of us all.

The end of civilization as we know it?

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Epidemics/Pandemics

 

Is this the end of civilization, as we know it? Today after a few days of wringing our hands and contemplating what to, we made the big decision. We decided to pack up our kit bag and head out to Tiperarry.  Home in other words. Today we heard the Canadian government say that Canadians who were out of the country should return home “while we could do that.”  What did that mean? Was it possible they would not allow us back into the country? Impossible. Right?

Yesterday, my neighbour Gary, told us that a local Ammo store here in San Tan Valley had a 2 hour waiting line to get in. Why were people stocking up on ammunition? Here in Arizona, everyone has a gun or rifle. Why were these people worried about running out? Were they worried that the revolution was about to begin?

I also thought about the fact that grocery stores were out of food. As of yesterday, the Fry’s store nearby  had many empty shelves. We had tried for about 5 days in a row to get toilet paper. Why were people hoarding toilet paper. Food that I could understand. But I was mystified that toilet paper was sold out for 5 days in a row. I heard it was just as bad in Canada. This is not an America phenomenon.

I also know that when people are out of food things start getting serious. If your family was out of food what would you do? There is no telling what we would do. I suspect societal norms would be insignificant in such circumstances.

I had earlier gone to buy paper napkins when we could not get toilet paper. Chris called this hoarding. But we were just buying enough to cover our journey home if we could not find any. Is that hoarding?

This made me think. Are we approaching the end of civilization as we know it? Surely not. But who ever thought that grocery stores in the U.S. or Canada  would be empty of most supplies. This was inconceivable. But, inconceivable or not, the grocery shelves were empty.

That was why Chris emailed some friends that  were going home because I was worried that people with guns would invade our home to get our paper napkins Crazy. Right? But aren’t empty shelves in grocery stores crazy too? What would you do if your family was hungry and you desperately needed food? Or toilet paper?  Invade my house?

O’odham Nation contact with Europeans

Indigenous Issues

As I write this blog, I am living in southern Arizona o the traditional territory of the O’odhan Nation. Often I visit San Tan Regional Park minutes from here to hike or attend talks or look for wild flowers. There is no general agreement about the origins of the O’odham nation. Some claim that they originally moved north from Mexico about 300 years ago.

The O’odham did not get along well with the Apache from the 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The O’odham were a settled agricultural people who raised crops for survival unlike the nomadic Apache. According to O’odham history (oral traditional knowledge) the Apaches frequently raided their settlements when they ran out of food because food was running short and hunting success was lacking.

When European settlers arrived things got worse. Though both now had a common enemy who seemed intent on grabbing all of their land it was difficult for their foes to cooperate. The O’odham word for Apache is ob, which means enemy.  Things were complicated because each from time to time worked with opposing European groups. Alliances just like those between Indigenous Nations in the North East, including Canada, made relations with European settlers (invaders)  complicated.

For example, in 1871, 92 O’odham joined the Mexicans and Anglo-Americans to fight the Apache. 144 Apache were killed in the Camp Grant Massacre. The dead consisted mainly of women and children. In fact 136 of the victims were women and children killed by the brave O’odham, Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans. 29 children were also captured and sold into slavery. To put this into perspective remember 1871 was 4 years after the Confederation of Canada. This is not ancient history. This is recent history. And it is not pretty.

Some historians claim that because there was a reduction of Indian hostilities in the region at that time, local merchants feared a looming economic crisis because they depended so heavily on Federal Government spending on supplies for their soldiers sent to pacify the nasty Indians, particularly Apache. In order to encourage support for more federal government support it was alleged, though not to my knowledge proven, that some local merchants initiated hostilities with the Apache leading to the attack on the Apache settlement at Camp Grant.

There is significant evidence that the O’odham and the Apache were friendly and engaged in trade. There is even evidence that they intermarried. Yet, at the same time O’odham oral history suggests that intermarriages actually resulted from raids between the two Native American groups. Those raids provided the successful party with women, children, and sometimes men, as slaves. Women would often marry into the tribe in which they were held captive and assimilated under duress. Sort of like the young girls captured by Boko Haram in the 21st century in Africa. Some things never seem to change. In any event, according to this oral history of the O’odham both Native American groups incorporated “enemies” and their children into their culture and this was done by force.

Historically, the Hohokam occupied a very large area of the southwest extending into the province of Sonora in Mexico, to north of Phoenix west to the Gulf of California and east to the San Pedro River. This land has been the home of the O’odham for thousands of years.

However, the arrival of Europeans starting in the 17th century became an increasing challenge to the O’odham. From early in the 18th century, foreigners occupied their land. First were the Spanish and later the Americans.

When Mexico became independent from Spain they colonized the O’odham. In 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase their land was divided nearly in half between the Mexicans and the Americans. That purchase was conducted, of course, between Mexico and the United States, but the real owners were the O’odham. It had been their land for many centuries, but that did not bother European colonizers or their offspring. The local people were mere inconveniences.

The Gadsden Purchase, or Treaty, was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, that was completed in 1854. Pursuant to that agreement the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. The Americans wanted that land to complete a southern continental railroad and also to resolve lingering conflicts between the U.S. and Mexico following the Mexican-American War.

That agreement provided that the US would honor all land rights of Mexican citizens, which theoretically included the O’odham, and agreed that the O’odham would have the same constitutional rights as any other United States citizen. Of course, when the railroad was built and more and more settlers poured into the American Southwest and mining expanded more and more O’odham land was usurped by the Americans just as happened in many other places of the American west.

At first the O’odham were not even told about the sale of their land to the Americans. At  the time the border was not even strictly enforced. That border straddled O’odham territory as it does to this day.

In fact now Trump’s wall separates the O’odham who live in Mexico from those who live in the United States. Until then they had easy access between the two countries. The O’odham were not asked about that wall either. The Americans just built it. Some things never change.

Is it time to panic?

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Epidemics/Pandemics, politics, racism

WalMart with empty shelves

This country is on full-fledged panic mode. Stores have run out of toilet paper! None of the shelves. Now this is getting serious. A financial crisis and a health crisis. What does this mean?

I have no idea what this means. The stock market is plunging (or is it recovering?)  Either way, there is very little less rational than the stock market. Reason has nothing to do with it. I don’t know how serious either crisis is. The financial crisis seems to have been brought on by the coronavirus crisis. I don’t know how serious it is.

But there is one reason I think that panic is a serious option.  Now I know some of my faithful readers will criticize me for bringing Trump into the discussion. Some people seem to think I blame him for everything. I don’t think that is true, but I acknowledge their concern. That won’t stop me from commenting on him. And I know he may not be to blame, but I doubt that he has helped either.

The real problem is two-fold.  Like it or not, Donald Trump is the leader of the free world (though I don’t acknowledge him as my leader and I think I am part of the free world.) The real problem is that he is a person who does not think evidence and data are relevant to his job as President. I started to worry when I heard Trump say, “I have a hunch the problem is not as serious as the Disease Control Center says it is.”  Earlier he said, echoing the right wing pundits from whom he does take advice, I think it is a hoax.”

I am not really concerned about Trump. His Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said “he’s a fucking moron.”  Sorry for my bad language, but the quote is not real without the bad word. I think Tillerson was right. I know some friends of mine think he is smart. After all he got elected as President of the United States. I think Trump is cunning. He knows what is good for Donald Trump. He has a keen sense of that.  He is able to disregard the interests of everyone else other than himself. This allows him to avoid distractions and concentrate on his goal–i.e. what is good for himself.

But ultimately I think Tillerson is absolutely right. What really scares me is that about 55 million voted for him and most of them still like what they see. They like him. Now, from my perspective, the United States is led by a man who is obviously unfit for the job.

Even more important however is that Trump is uninterested in data or facts. And he won’t listen to experts. This is what Trump said on CBS 60 minutes the week the latest IPCC report was issued, when asked if he still thinks that climate change is a hoax? “Look I think something is happening, something is changing and it will change back again. I am not denying climate change but it could very well go back.” He added that his uncle  was a professor of science. Trump never talked about climate change with his uncle, but Trump assured us, “I have an instinct for science.” Trump wants us to base vitally important decisions not on science but an instinct for science. It doesn’t matter that Trump knows nothing about science he expects us to trust him. And guess what? Millions of Americans do exactly that. They are not accustomed to basing important decisions on facts and reasoning on those facts. They base decisions on things like hunches, faith, trust, and instinct instead. And they vote for leaders who do exactly the same thing. Would you want a cancer surgeon who based his decisions on science, data, evidence, and careful reasoning on that data or a surgeon who based his decisions on instinct or faith? During a serious health or financial crisis would you want the country to be led by a President who respects science or one who has a instinct for science? Take your pick. But his scares me.

I am about ready to panic.