If you believe climate change is a problem, is modern medicine also a problem? I learned the hard way that they come as paired products of our culture. You can’t have one without the other.
In October 2022 I was tightly grouped for 30 minutes with 18 other passengers in a delayed flight. We had no ventilation or lights, as ground crews sprayed the plane with de-icing compound, a precaution against “unseasonable weather” — a scary consequence of climate change.
Two days later, I felt rotten and checked into a hospital’s emergency department. They diagnosed “a serious unknown virus”. Eight weeks later, I was still weak and coughing. Fortunately, I’m over that now.
Air travel contributes about 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions. My personal carbon dioxide dump for that flight was about 1,000 pounds, half the weight of a car. My virus infection came from my enjoying one of the pleasures of industrial culture — visiting my far-away family.
The wonderful benefits of modern society have costs. There’s no free lunch, and our culture comes as whole cloth. You can’t pick and choose threads, keeping only what you like and tossing the rest.
I know our people-created world has some terrible realities, though I don’t personally experience them. We are not a particularly caring species. We tolerate mass starvation and migration, inequity and inequality, tribalism and brutality. But most of our human activity is not disastrous, it’s you and me enjoying our day, getting on with the amazing experience of being alive.
Like most of us, I do what I can, making a difference locally while trying to accept the hard truths about our culture and about human nature, without “catastrophizing” them. We are all in this together, enjoying our culture’s marvels — that create the very things we often complain about.
The media would have me panting with anxiety over their next selected disaster, but I don’t bite. They don’t love me, so I won’t give them my time and attention, though their shrill cries beckon like Scylla, and most life travelers seem to yield.
Peace.
Thank you for reading.
Barry
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