This is one of the (many) things that's been an "are we the baddies?" kind of moral dilemma that plagues me about healthcare work. Health industries produce a mind-boggling amount of rapidly...
This is one of the (many) things that's been an "are we the baddies?" kind of moral dilemma that plagues me about healthcare work.
Health industries produce a mind-boggling amount of rapidly obsolescing equipment, single-use tools, hazardous chemicals (including carcinogens, scary-level neurotoxins, and potent greenhouse gases for refrigeration and anesthesia), radioisotopes, biohazard-contaminated disposables...
And the buildings themselves are designed to be oversized, to allow free movement of beds and easy cleaning. They're also serving as bloated self-promoting showplaces - modern cathedrals of life extension. The temperature control and air handling systems befitting this behemoth scale are likewise oversized. Many hospitals have their own oil, gas, or diesel electric generating plants, since they're practically small cities with thousands of inhabitants.
Every time I step over the red line into sterile space, I'm wearing close to a kilo of disposable mixed, non-recyclable paper and plastic. Every IV kit, syringe and needle, sterile drapery, even endoscopes, are designed to be single-use. [It is, to be fair, safer than relying on autoclaving, now that we know some infectious agents survive that process.]
As the article notes, there's substantial minimization of waste that can be done through reducing unnecessary treatment (this is mainly an artifact of the market deformities in U.S. heathcare), but the entire ecosystem of hospitals needs careful reconsideration.
Technically speaking, I think the costliest thing in terms of carbon footprint (at the personal level, not corporate) is literally a walking, living, consuming human being. Isn't it a truism that...
Technically speaking, I think the costliest thing in terms of carbon footprint (at the personal level, not corporate) is literally a walking, living, consuming human being.
Isn't it a truism that bringing another human into the world (and over that person's "career" on Earth) is a largely multiplicative input into the overall carbon equation, at least on the individual level?
That depends on where you have the child, and consequently what kind of lifestyle the child chooses to live. I think that conclusion is predicated on the child becoming an average first worlder....
That depends on where you have the child, and consequently what kind of lifestyle the child chooses to live. I think that conclusion is predicated on the child becoming an average first worlder.
But environmentally conscious people will likely raise environmentally conscious children and thereby have a multiplicative positive impact through them.
Anyway, most children born these days are born in developing countries, where childbirth rates are sky high. The cruel irony is that the most effective way to reduce childbirth rates is through development—which is inevitable—so that people have the education and the means to choose to have fewer children. But then their average carbon footprint will explode, as they will also inevitably want to access once-inaccessible luxuries: always-on air conditioning or heating, latest fashions, electronics, meats and other animal products, cars, international travel, etc.
Recently, a clinical psychologist friend commented, "people who come in worrying about having a personality disorder really are the last people to need to worry about having one. It's the people who think there's nothing wrong with them at all."
This is one of the (many) things that's been an "are we the baddies?" kind of moral dilemma that plagues me about healthcare work.
Health industries produce a mind-boggling amount of rapidly obsolescing equipment, single-use tools, hazardous chemicals (including carcinogens, scary-level neurotoxins, and potent greenhouse gases for refrigeration and anesthesia), radioisotopes, biohazard-contaminated disposables...
And the buildings themselves are designed to be oversized, to allow free movement of beds and easy cleaning. They're also serving as bloated self-promoting showplaces - modern cathedrals of life extension. The temperature control and air handling systems befitting this behemoth scale are likewise oversized. Many hospitals have their own oil, gas, or diesel electric generating plants, since they're practically small cities with thousands of inhabitants.
Every time I step over the red line into sterile space, I'm wearing close to a kilo of disposable mixed, non-recyclable paper and plastic. Every IV kit, syringe and needle, sterile drapery, even endoscopes, are designed to be single-use. [It is, to be fair, safer than relying on autoclaving, now that we know some infectious agents survive that process.]
As the article notes, there's substantial minimization of waste that can be done through reducing unnecessary treatment (this is mainly an artifact of the market deformities in U.S. heathcare), but the entire ecosystem of hospitals needs careful reconsideration.
Technically speaking, I think the costliest thing in terms of carbon footprint (at the personal level, not corporate) is literally a walking, living, consuming human being.
Isn't it a truism that bringing another human into the world (and over that person's "career" on Earth) is a largely multiplicative input into the overall carbon equation, at least on the individual level?
That depends on where you have the child, and consequently what kind of lifestyle the child chooses to live. I think that conclusion is predicated on the child becoming an average first worlder.
But environmentally conscious people will likely raise environmentally conscious children and thereby have a multiplicative positive impact through them.
Anyway, most children born these days are born in developing countries, where childbirth rates are sky high. The cruel irony is that the most effective way to reduce childbirth rates is through development—which is inevitable—so that people have the education and the means to choose to have fewer children. But then their average carbon footprint will explode, as they will also inevitably want to access once-inaccessible luxuries: always-on air conditioning or heating, latest fashions, electronics, meats and other animal products, cars, international travel, etc.
Recently, a clinical psychologist friend commented, "people who come in worrying about having a personality disorder really are the last people to need to worry about having one. It's the people who think there's nothing wrong with them at all."
Right? I hate to say it, but I don't think there's any way for any child to become carbon-neutral or carbon-negative.