This is a dreadful disease and obviously needs to be contained. Nevertheless, I suspect that its long term impact will be as nothing compared to the impact of climate change resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. This will, of course, devastate poorer countries, like the W. African states being affected by Ebola now, first but it will get everyone on the planet eventually.

It's interesting (if that's the right word!) that the mass media and western political establishments are presently agonising over Ebola and ignoring climate change. In her recent book, 'This Changes Everything' the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein shows that the increasing release of CO2 emissions and the tardy responses to the growing danger of catastrophic climate change can be directly attributed to the prevailing economic dogma of the neo-liberal free market. The mass media and western political establishments are presently 'slaves' to this dogma and probably welcome the diversion provided by Ebola.