I have had several interesting discussions around here about global warming. Of course we get the foolish denial lobby drones who yammer “it’s a myth†despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, and I merely deal with them with a slap down, fools that they are. But there also is the legitimate discussions of what can we do—as a society, as individuals. We have a 10 year window according to top scientific and economic experts coming at the question from different angles. We have a 10 year window.
I have expressed how one of my main motivators for personal action is my son. I would say my step-daughter as well, and that is also true. By my son is 2…and completely dependent on my for everything, so the need for me to care and act based on that care is so striking with my baby. So I look at my son and feel a huge responsibility. I consider the 10 year window to MITIGATE global warming’s effect on my son’s world. It is already too late to stop the effects. We would have to have acted when scientists first were telling us we should act. But we didn’t. So we now have a 10 year window to mitigate.
The analogy I use is I consider my great-grandparents and grand parents who worked hard so their children would have a better life. I feel I must work hard to give my children a life that isn’t significantly worse than mine. That is where we are, starkly and realistically. There are huge hurdles, but also huge opportunities.
My son is my number one emotional focus. And it affects me a great deal when I look at him and consider his future.
Recently a member of Daily Kos lost a child to illness [1]. Hard story to read. Long story short a child just shy of 4 years old endured 5 days of high fever and vomiting and several trips to the emergency room but was never diagnosed properly until it was too late. Cardiac failure hit at about the time the doctors started doing the right kinds of things to deal with the situation. The child’s temperature had peaked at 105 degrees and yet doctors still did not treat the situation with the seriousness it turned out it warranted.
Few can read such a story and not be moved. And angered. Did the doctors fail the child? Did our healthcare system fail the child? Did our society fail the child?
I know something about medicine. And I know that if a patient is ill with something that is even a little bit uncommon, it can be hard for our medical system to diagnose and treat. Our system is geared to rapidly identify and treat the about 90% of patients that have the most common ailments. And, by and large, it does a good job of it. It is that remaining 10% where the ailment might look like other things or be unusual or take on an unusual symptom or otherwise be different where our system has a harder time diagnosing and treating. I have seen med school education. The med schools try very hard to instill a sense of curiosity, compassion and investigative sense into their students. But our society places the highest value on keeping costs low and lawsuits manageable. Hospitals and doctors run optimally from the point of view of keeping overall costs down and lawsuits avoided, not optimally from the point of view of patient care. This is not any one person’s fault. It is how our society functions on all levels, so let’s not reserve special outrage for our hospitals. We do it on all levels of society. And there are sound economic reasons why we do it on all levels of society.
The result sometimes is a child who could have been saved, dies.
I hear such stories and I can’t help looking at my son and shuddering. I have been hit by a car in my life and at the moment I was hit (as an adult, mind you) I had a 50% chance of making it based on ONE of the injuries I had. I know how rapidly shit can happen and I know no matter how careful I am I could lose my son…and it scares me. I read a story like the one written on Daily Kos and I can’t help but imagine losing my son or my step-daughter. It hits home pretty hard.
And, as I read that diary on Daily Kos, I realized my feeling when I read about someone losing a child and my feeling when I look at my son and consider global warming are the same. And I also realize that the circumstances are the same.
Our society has been dicking around with the diagnosis for some time. Even now, when an almost 100% scientific consensus has been reached about the diagnosis of global warming, we still, as a society, dick around about the diagnosis. We have a pretty good sense of the treatment too. Planting trees, changing consumption patterns, changing energy policy, to name three major parts of the treatment. We have the diagnosis and a pretty good sense of the treatment…and we bicker mainly about costs. And even when we grudgingly listen to the doctor and accept the diagnosis, all the discussion shifts to costs. How much will it cost us to change our habits, both as individuals and as a society? How much will facing up to the diagnosis and follow a treatment plan cost us? These are sound economic questions, but OUR answers will determine the lives of our children who currently have no more say over these decisions than a child will have over medical decisions.
The diagnosis and the treatment of global warming affect mainly our children. The costs affect mainly us…or at least the DECISIONS about the costs are in the 10 year window of our responsibility even though we will not be the ones whose lives are most affected. There is a strong parallel with the choices we face as individuals and as a society about what to do when a child gets sick. There is a diagnosis phase, there are treatment options and there are concerns about costs. And the health and life of the child is at stake. We make the decisions for the child but those decisions primarily affect the life of the child. The child is helpless throughout.
Our major choices for the next 10 years, as individuals and as a society, are of EXACTLY this nature. We make the decisions about actions and costs, but the life that is most affected is that of a child.
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