As temperatures shift, animals move to different regions and pathogens have more opportunities to jump between hosts. Could the next pandemic be fuelled by an unstable climate?

When temperatures rise, everything changes and disease arrives. As the thick ice melts and the seas and the air warm, so new life arrives in Arctic waters. Minke, bottlenose, fin and sperm whales are heading north, even as grizzly bears, white-tailed deer, coyotes and other animals and birds expand their range into boreal forests to the south.

But the geography of disease is also changing as novel pathogens affecting plants, animals and humans increase their range. New beetles are heading north and devastating Siberian forests, Alaskan mammals are struggling as new ticks arrive and human habitations in northern Norway are infested by new insects.

This article is an extract from Fevered Planet: How Diseases Emerge When We Harm Nature, by the late John Vidal, who was former environment editor for The Guardian newspaper. […]