Is human destruction of nature responsible for COVID-19?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Is human destruction of nature responsible for COVID-19?
Position‹2 of 2: No, destruction of the environment did not cause the coronavirus pandemic
Argument‹2 of 2: The wildlife trade caused the pandemic

The trading of illegal wildlife is worth over a billion dollars. It was this that caused the pandemic, not the destruction of the environment.

The argument

The destruction of the environment is not responsible for the coronavirus pandemic. Rather, the commercial trade of wildlife caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemiologists and public health experts have come to the consensus that the virus responsible for the pandemic most likely originated from a wildlife trade market in Wuhan, China. At this market, vendors illegally sold live animals from stalls in close quarters with hundreds of others. It should not be surprising that wildlife trade has been the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic because wildlife trade has been the cause of other public health crises. The SARS epidemic, also caused by a coronavirus, began with the commercial sale of a catlike animal called palm civet. The MERS epidemic was transmitted to humans from camels in the Middle East. Because wildlife trade has been identified as the cause of the virus and subsequent pandemic, there is now a revitalized call for stronger regulations and a ban on the commercial wildlife trade. There are significant problems with wildlife markets and trade and it has caused the coronavirus pandemic. But that does not equate to the outbreak being caused by environmental destruction or climate change.

Premises

[P1]Environmental destruction is not responsible for the pandemic; the commercial trade of wildlife caused it. [P2] Epidemiologists and public-health experts broadly agree the virus most likely originated at a wildlife trade market in Wuhan, where vendors illegally sold live animals in cramped conditions. [P3] Wildlife trade has caused other public-health crises before, so its role here is unsurprising. [C] Therefore, the wildlife trade, not the destruction of the environment, caused the coronavirus pandemic.

Counter-arguments

Destruction of the environment is the overarching cause of the coronavirus pandemic. Wild trade is the most probable trigger of the pandemic, but the destruction of the environment and wildlife trade is directly related to one another. Wildlife trade refers to the commerce of products that are derived from non-domesticated animals that are extracted from their natural environment. Extracting animals and other living organisms from their natural environment prompts disruptions in their ecosystems and brings about disturbances to environments that are not natural. Human beings are responsible for the removal of these animals from nature. Human beings are responsible for the wildlife trade. Consequently, the destruction of the environment through wildlife trade has caused the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The first premise states the conclusion, and it presents the two candidate causes as mutually exclusive. Nothing rules out the wildlife trade being the proximate route while habitat pressure is part of what brought people and these species into contact. [Rejecting P2] The market's role is the argument's strongest point, but it is stated more firmly than the evidence supported and the origin question was not settled. A place where transmission was amplified is also not the same as the origin of a pathogen, and the premise does not distinguish the two. [Rejecting P3] The SARS and MERS precedents serve the sibling position as readily as this one. Both involved contact between people and animals whose ranges and habitats had been altered by human activity, which is the mechanism the opposing position describes — and the counter-argument makes the point directly, that extracting animals from their ecosystems is itself a form of environmental disruption rather than an alternative to it.