Fevered Planet: How Diseases Emerge When We Harm Nature

A timely and urgent investigation from John Vidal, Environment Editor of the Guardian for nearly thirty years, into how the destruction of nature is releasing disease into our societies


Covid-19, mpox, bird flu, SARS, HIV, AIDS, Ebola; we are living in the Age of Pandemics - one that we have created. As the climate crisis reaches a fever pitch and ecological destruction continues unabated, we are just beginning to reckon with the effects of environmental collapse on our global health.

Fevered Planet exposes how the way we farm, what we eat, the places we travel to and the scientific experiments we conduct create the perfect conditions for deadly new diseases to emerge and spread faster and further than ever. Drawing on the latest scientific research and decades of reporting from more than 100 countries, former Guardian environment editor John Vidal takes us into deep, disappearing forests in Gabon and the Congo, valleys scorched by wildfire near Lake Tahoe and our densest, polluted cities to show how closely human, animal and plant diseases are now intertwined with planetary destruction. He calls for an urgent transformation in our relationship with the natural world, and expertly outlines how to make that change possible.

Review

This beautifully researched book, including Vidal's own travels around the world, takes us through the rising number of pandemics, up to Covid-19 and beyond, to a disturbing account of our political inability to grasp what is happening and manage a safe future for our civilisation . . . Global, national and local policy makers should all read and absorb this very important contribution to the current state of the world. We must learn to understand that we are a part of Nature, not apart from Nature -- Professor Sir David King, Former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Founder of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group and Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge

Urgent, fascinating and essential, Fevered Planet tells a crucial story that most of us have missed -- George Monbiot

In his impressive yet scary book Fevered Planet: How Diseases Emerge When We Harm Nature (Bloomsbury), environmental journalist John Vidal makes a compelling case for humanity to transform its relationship with the natural world ― Independent

A combination of forensic detail and human testimony drawn from the author's long career as an environmental journalist . . . Makes the plausible and compelling case that we are now "approaching a storm of spiralling disease risk" . . . Fevered Planet exhorts us to tackle the threat, and seize the opportunity, before it is too late ― TLS

Vidal shows the systemic failures that lie behind today's "age of pandemics" . By minimising our disturbance of the natural world, Vidal contends, we will reduce the chance of unpleasant pathogens crossing our path ― Literary Review

John Vidal's credentials are impeccable - a former long-term environment editor at the Guardian and a pioneering, determined documenter of our rapacious exploitation of the planet ― Geographical

About the Author

John Vidal was born and brought up in West Africa. One of the world's most experienced environment journalists, he has worked for over 30 years on the frontlines of the global war against nature. As environment editor of the Guardian he has reported on the climate crisis, disease and ecological change from more than 100 countries, during which time he has been attacked by loggers and farmers, imprisoned by whalers and sued by oil and chemical companies. Vidal has won many national and international awards for his writing and film-making. He is the author of one previous book and has contributed chapters to books on war, famine and conservation.