The accelerated infectious disease risk in the Anthropocene: more outbreaks and wider global spread

Serge Morand; Bruno Andreas Walther

Naturally, decreasing mobility is a moral and political choice which can be informed by science, but not answered by science. However, given all the current negative impacts of high mobility (greenhouse gas emissions, land-use and land-cover change and the resulting habitat loss and fragmentation due to transportation infrastructure and energy production, transport of alien species, etc.), maybe it is time to ask whether it is morally justified, for example, to move the equivalent of all the inhabitants of a small town across a continent so that a football team can be supported by its fans during an away game? Is it necessary to fly halfway around the world for a weekend shopping trip? Is it really most cost-efficient for supply chains to cover the entire globe when all the externalities are included? Is long-term sustainability achievable with ever higher rates of mobility?