The Empiricist

Health authorities are worried about so-called “Mexican swine flu” which has killed around 20 people so far.
is this the real deal? Or is it a false alarm, like the “bird flu” panics that amounted to nothing.
Most likely it’s a false alarm, but there’s a reason why health officials watch these deadly diseases so closely. One day, one of them is going to get us…
Maybe this is it, viral armageddon. Or, maybe it will fizzle, leaving the job to some new disease in twenty years or forty years time.
You can’t predict these things. All you can do is hope it doesn’t happen soon.
The human species is still part of the ecosystem, and we’re still vulnerable to epidemics. When one hits, it will change the dialog of how humans interact with the environment. Population control, for instance, will slide off the agenda.
And the idea of preserving “nature” in general will seem kinda quaint.