We live in an increasingly ‘green’ world.  If a man woke from a coma after thirty years, he’d honestly believe the Irish had taken over the world!  Turn on the television, open the newspaper, log onto your favorite news site or walk down the aisles of any store and the word ‘green’ will all but assault you.  Green homes, green cars, green industry, green hobbies, the concept is everywhere.  So I thought, ‘as an emergency physician, how can I make the world greener?’
    Let’s face it, hospitals are huge users of resources and power.  We throw away papers and dressings, organs and needles.  We burn waste, we use landfills, we aren’t very ‘environmentally friendly,’ shall we say.  Mind you, we take care of humans, but the idea that humans are part of the environment is now a bit ‘old school.’  Apparently, from what I read, humans are not part of the problem…humans are the problem!   Old planet earth is fairly infected with bipedal parasites of the Homo sapiens variety.  Since we in the ED see so many of those critters, and use so much of the planet’s coveted resources to look after the pesky varmints (thereby keeping them alive), how can we make things better for planet earth?
    Well, I can tell you, first and foremost we could just stop doing such a darn good job.  If we let a bunch more humans slip through our fingers (after appropriate tort reform), the earth would be a lot less populous.  Let’s face it, dying has a profound way of reducing one’s carbon footprint.  We save lots of lives every day, and if we just didn’t, they wouldn’t be exhaling nasty carbon dioxide like they have for their entire selfish lives.  There would be fewer cars driven, less fuel used, decreased need for that pesky, nature-destroying agriculture, less need to imprison, kill and eat animals, reduced industrial production and far fewer pharmaceutical chemicals poured into our ecosystems.  So, maybe as a group on the forefront of the ‘human problem,’ we ought to just let some more deaths occur.  Don’t we owe it to the earth?  (For an example of the power of this technique, just go read about the reduction in humans accomplished by the DDT ban!  Of course, most of them weren’t of Western European descent, so it’s really our turn now.)
    Similarly, if we had less doctors and nurses coming to work, there would be fewer miles driven and less greenhouse gas production.  (If fuel costs keep rising, that will be pretty easy to accomplish).  Patients would wait longer and, obviously, bad outcomes would occur.  But eventually people would settle down into a reasonable expectation that we just couldn’t save everyone, and they’d stop bothering hospitals for care.  A little resignation, a little acceptance of the harsh realities of mortality, and you’re back to suggestion one, above.  Less people!  I’m confident that before modern health-care was available, people just lived with dying and were grateful for the few years they had.  My grandmother lost a cherished baby brother to diphtheria, since there wasn’t much care back then in rural West Virginia.  But hey, that’s just how it went, right?  Less human animals due to death by natural causes; diseases are, after all, natural; despite the efforts we put into eradicating them.  And the earth wasn’t ‘in the balance,’ back then, was it?  Diphtheria did it’s work, I suppose, and made us all a little safer.
    You might have detected a little sarcasm there.  I read and enjoyed Jonathon Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal,’ in high school.  The parallels are not insignificant.  What can I say?  I’m impressionable.  I believe that ultimately we ought to be very careful about the way we both impact, and manipulate, the environment.  Because the environment is necessary for a species close to my heart; my family, friends and me!  I’m a huge fan of survival.
    But beyond sarcasm, there are some things we could do to make the world better Let’s bring it home to hospitals.  How about reducing the amount of paper we use, and ultimately waste, by cutting back on unnecessary forms, documentation and oversight?  How many gazillions of reams of paper go into every imaginable, and quite a few unimaginable, bits of paper that waft through hospitals every day?  How many oversight and safety programs fill file-rooms with documentation of all sorts every day?  When I just look at the smothering weight of paper used in filing and fighting with insurers, or the charting nurses have to do, I’m aghast.  Forms for permission to treat, forms for promise to pay, forms for medical necessity of a procedure or drug, forms for restraints, sedation, commitments, blood, screening exams regarding nutrition, immunizations, abuse, language skills, drug and alcohol abuse.  The list is exhaustive and exhausting.  Hospitals, government and industry simply have too many people devising and overseeing too many forms on too many bits of paper.  What if they’re all computerized, you ask?  The computer doesn’t run on solar, does it?  
    So, let’s cut out great swaths of middle management in medicine and government.  I submit that federal programs and Joint Commission contribute mightily to excessive fuel used by forcing people to fly to Washington to defend themselves or lobby for changes; by causing doctors and nurses to drive to constant meetings, and by decimating the world’s trees with a surfeit of forms.  Don’t take my SUV!  Stop the madness of rules, regulations and forms.  (Oh, and make our representatives in Washington live in their homes states and work via the Internet.  It would result in reduced travel costs, reduced fuel and accessibility for the occasional tar and feathering.)
    Of course, if we radically change malpractice in America so that we don’t practice defensive medicine, we won’t have to fire up those X-ray machines, CT scanners or MRI’s all the time.  And we’ll have fewer forms to fill out.  We’ll be able to accomplish more and do less for the patient, and at the same time ‘green-up’ our hospitals and clinics to make the earth a happier place.
    It gets harder.  We could occasionally just tell people they aren’t sick, don’t have any of the many imaginary diseases modern man has concocted, and send them on their way without any extra chemicals or procedures needed.  They’ll be unhappy, but if we don’t have all of those ‘patient satisfaction’ forms to fill out, then no one will have to worry about it.  
    And we could honestly tell them to stop doing some of the ridiculous things they do that bring them to hospitals in ambulances in the first place; like drinking to excess, using drugs, fighting, ‘cruising’ in cars all night, having inappropriate sex or lying around playing X-Box instead of holding jobs.  I tried to figure out how reducing the ‘disability’ roles would help, but honestly, some of those people use and produce so little energy that it’s hard to see how they could damage the environment at all.  I guess we could make them into artificial reefs!)
    I know it’s a complex problem.  But I think that there may be some room for improvement here.  We in medicine, especially in emergency medicine, can give so much to improving the world if we just try.  I mean, so far all we have done is use up resources while desperately trying to keep people alive and well.  Who knew we were wrecking the world all along?  
    So get on board, my brothers and sisters!  Let’s save the planet!  And let’s turn those white lab-coats to green.  And in the process, let’s streamline what we do.  Maybe a little global warming is just the thing we needed to motivate us all along.
         

Today I was watching television and saw a 'celebrity fact' list; the kind used as filler on so much of the vacuous television that airs today.  It had to do with actor Will Smith.  It went something like this:  'Green Facts about Will Smith.'  It listed a few good things the actor had done, including donating to the Martin Luther King, Jr. museum.  None of the things listed had to do with the environment. Hmmm.

So I realized that I was witnessing the evolution of language; but unlike the theory of evolution, it was not an unguided, random process.  The word 'green' is being used to denote virtue.  Of course, it might just as well be the word 'purple' or 'bookshelf.'  But I see a trend; it isn't that you're green or purple, it's that you aren't.  If one is not green, one is not virtuous.  We know that to refuse to bear the banner of environmentalism leaves us branded earth fascists and nature-haters.  But who knows what will follow?  'He's not very green,' will stop meaning I don't recycle or drive a hybrid.  It will mean that my definitions of virtue are no longer valid.  It will mean that I have failed the modern tests of virtue by failing to adopt ideology and world-views that are considered good and wholesome by an entire generation (or series of generations) to whom virtue has nothing to do with Divine authority, the worth of mankind or any hint of objective truth.  I will be, initially, 'un-green' for failing in my duties to theearth and the non-human creatures and plants that inhabit it, as well as to the 'spirit' of earth that underlies the views of those atheists and agnostics who treat earth as a deity. 
 
But soon enough, I will be less than green for intolerance of gay marriage, support of absolute truth claims; for denying the right to abortion and unfettered sexuality of youth, and for ultimately denying the neo-socialist rhetoric that has young America, and much of old America, in it's red-gloved fist.

I'm not very green.  But I'm good.  And I refuse to accept that transformation of my language.  Green may be a political viewpoint.  And it's certainly a color I love.  But I'm not green.  Because when Kermit said 'it ain't easy being green,' he was more prophet than frog.

Edwin

I'm an emergency physician.  I have spent a huge portion of my life taking care of sick and injured people, and trying to help them through life crises like suicide attempts, psychotic breaks, homelessness, alcoholism and drug addiction.  As such, I'm always intrigued when politicians tell the country how interested they are in fixing health-care, caring for the sick and meeting the needs of the most down-trodden.  Because my partners and colleagues and I have been at it for a very long time, and remarkably, we never have any 'after-hours' numbers with which to contact caring politicians or policy-makers.  Heck, we never have any numbers to call during regular business hours.  I suspect that the heady business of fixing America's health-care crisis, and managing America's inefficient, unsafe, uncaring, rapacious physicians must require oodles and oodles of meetings, working lunches and happy hours, so that the bulk of caring for the sick is left to the aforementioned uncaring doctors like myself.  Oh well, it's a burden we'll just keep bearing until politicians and policy wonks swoop down and fix us good and proper.

But there is some striking evidence that it isn't only politicians, but the entire progressive movement, could really care less about the health and well-being of human beings.  And that lies in the reality of their typical platforms.  For instance, their insistence on fixing 'the system,' rather than the individuals.  Their willingness to sacrifice individual freedoms and choice for 'the good of the country.' And more particularly, their uncaring attitude about specific issues.  When DDT was banned, and untold millions of Third World persons died fo Malaria, the typical response was like the one I got from an ardent liberal:  'But if we hadn't done it, we'd have had less beautiful African animals!' 

Of course, a common mantra of the progressive left is that assisted suicide is a great thing!  Let's allow some old folks to go ahead and die!  It's good for the economy and good for the environment, right!  Wait and see how assisted becomes suggested becomes mandated if we develop a single payer system of health-care.  Then it will be our duty to die, right?  After all, it will be good for the country and good for the earth.

How about abortion, in which one million children are killed in the womb, or in the birth canal, every year?  The culture of life is really a culture of death.  Let's look at drugs.  For as long as I can remember, the left considered free, open drug use a societal good, while nasty fundamentalist, moralist nasties wanted to make the world a black and white drag.  I've seen drug abuse.  I've seen the pain and hopelessness in the eyes of men and women who wanted to die to escape their addiction, and the sorrow in their parents' faces.  It isn't cute or fun.  It's horrible.  What about HIV and other STD's?  As one liberal put it, when I said that 50% of African American teenage girls have an STD, 'well, isn't most of it just HPV?'  Yeah, the one that causes cancer deaths.  Liberals would rather cut off their own body parts than suggest that gay men have shortened lives due to diseases like HIV, or that promiscuous behavior results in HIV,  HPV, Herpes and other diseases leading to pain, infertility and death.  Death is OK, if your worldview is intact, it would seem.

The left has always been opposed to censorship, preferring the fantasy that pornography is a healthy choice of career that free-minded people engage in, unencumbered by the moral fabrications of religious oppression.  But it appears, more and more, that those who are engaged in the sex industry often are victims of what amounts to a lifetime of abuse and assault, often begun in childhood.  Do diseases and depression, drug abuse and suicide, infertility and dysfunction arise from that life?  You bet.  But does the progressive left care about that misery?  Not if it conflicts with 'freedom,' free love and their view of the world, they don't.

And what about energy?  If people can't drive to work to pay their bills, or engage in healthy lifestyle activity like health-care visits, so what?  At least the environment is safe.  And let's face it, in the end, the death of humanity is what most good liberals really want.  Well, except for them.  The death of annoying conservatives, brown people, drives of SUV's, religious nuts and anyone who opposes free love, free drugs, abortion and the gay agenda.  The death of those people would be good for earth, right? 

The left, far from caring about the health and safety of America or the world, could care less.  Their opposition to war is a joke; an enormous irony.  Their posturing about health reform, or even the environment, is nothing but that; posturing  Their worldview is a culture of acceptable death; of everyone else

Excuse me while I go back and try to save some more lives.  It's nasty, and it involves touching humans and learning to love them and even mourn them, but hey, somebody has to do it.  Maybe I'll catch a disease or be stabbed, and clean up the environment by dying in the process!

Edwin

I'm an emergency physician.  I have spent a huge portion of my life taking care of sick and injured people, and trying to help them through life crises like suicide attempts, psychotic breaks, homelessness, alcoholism and drug addiction.  As such, I'm always intrigued when politicians tell the country how interested they are in fixing health-care, caring for the sick and meeting the needs of the most down-trodden.  Because my partners and colleagues and I have been at it for a very long time, and remarkably, we never have any 'after-hours' numbers with which to contact caring politicians or policy-makers.  Heck, we never have any numbers to call during regular business hours.  I suspect that the heady business of fixing America's health-care crisis, and managing America's inefficient, unsafe, uncaring, rapacious physicians must require oodles and oodles of meetings, working lunches and happy hours, so that the bulk of caring for the sick is left to the aforementioned uncaring doctors like myself.  Oh well, it's a burden we'll just keep bearing until politicians and policy wonks swoop down and fix us good and proper.

But there is some striking evidence that it isn't only politicians, but the entire progressive movement, could really care less about the health and well-being of human beings.  And that lies in the reality of their typical platforms.  For instance, their insistence on fixing 'the system,' rather than the individuals.  Their willingness to sacrifice individual freedoms and choice for 'the good of the country.' And more particularly, their uncaring attitude about specific issues.  When DDT was banned, and untold millions of Third World persons died fo Malaria, the typical response was like the one I got from an ardent liberal:  'But if we hadn't done it, we'd have had less beautiful African animals!' 

Of course, a common mantra of the progressive left is that assisted suicide is a great thing!  Let's allow some old folks to go ahead and die!  It's good for the economy and good for the environment, right!  Wait and see how assisted becomes suggested becomes mandated if we develop a single payer system of health-care.  Then it will be our duty to die, right?  After all, it will be good for the country and good for the earth.

How about abortion, in which one million children are killed in the womb, or in the birth canal, every year?  The culture of life is really a culture of death.  Let's look at drugs.  For as long as I can remember, the left considered free, open drug use a societal good, while nasty fundamentalist, moralist nasties wanted to make the world a black and white drag.  I've seen drug abuse.  I've seen the pain and hopelessness in the eyes of men and women who wanted to die to escape their addiction, and the sorrow in their parents' faces.  It isn't cute or fun.  It's horrible.  What about HIV and other STD's?  As one liberal put it, when I said that 50% of African American teenage girls have an STD, 'well, isn't most of it just HPV?'  Yeah, the one that causes cancer deaths.  Liberals would rather cut off their own body parts than suggest that gay men have shortened lives due to diseases like HIV, or that promiscuous behavior results in HIV,  HPV, Herpes and other diseases leading to pain, infertility and death.  Death is OK, if your worldview is intact, it would seem.

The left has always been opposed to censorship, preferring the fantasy that pornography is a healthy choice of career that free-minded people engage in, unencumbered by the moral fabrications of religious oppression.  But it appears, more and more, that those who are engaged in the sex industry often are victims of what amounts to a lifetime of abuse and assault, often begun in childhood.  Do diseases and depression, drug abuse and suicide, infertility and dysfunction arise from that life?  You bet.  But does the progressive left care about that misery?  Not if it conflicts with 'freedom,' free love and their view of the world, they don't.

And what about energy?  If people can't drive to work to pay their bills, or engage in healthy lifestyle activity like health-care visits, so what?  At least the environment is safe.  And let's face it, in the end, the death of humanity is what most good liberals really want.  Well, except for them.  The death of annoying conservatives, brown people, drives of SUV's, religious nuts and anyone who opposes free love, free drugs, abortion and the gay agenda.  The death of those people would be good for earth, right? 

The left, far from caring about the health and safety of America or the world, could care less.  Their opposition to war is a joke; an enormous irony.  Their posturing about health reform, or even the environment, is nothing but that; posturing  Their worldview is a culture of acceptable death; of everyone else

Excuse me while I go back and try to save some more lives.  It's nasty, and it involves touching humans and learning to love them and even mourn them, but hey, somebody has to do it.  Maybe I'll catch a disease or be stabbed, and clean up the environment by dying in the process!

Edwin

Today I was teaching sunday school, where the topic was 'how can a good God send people to hell?'  As I was preparing for the lesson, I realized that one of the great objections modern men and women have to the Christian faith is that Christianity is about punishment and guilt, and as such, isn't any fun and is obviously droll and untrue.  Real people don't need to be punished, because they know they haven't done anything wrong.  Or so the logic goes.

As I considered all this, I realized that hell is entirely reasonable because everyone wants to be punished.  It's true!  In fact, punishment is a basic tenet of modern liberal thought.  We must be punished, the rationalization goes, because we have to much, use to much, own too much, judge too much, hate too much, eat too much, use resources too much, are too free, talk too much about taboo topics, etc.  The list goes on and on of the things for which we should be punished.  How are we punished?  Taxes, laws, programs, political correctness, intellectual and social banishment for speaking truths that violate proper thought, in some cases physical assault, and of course the over-arching punishment that can never be taken away, constant guilt. 

Modern man is overwhelmingly guilty...or rather, feels that he is.  Modern man is guilty about all of the things I listed above.  Modern man feels guilty for his very existence.  And so, punishment is in order.  Populations have to be limited.  Food has to be distributed fairly.  Incomes have to be confiscated. Children have to be aborted.  Children have to be given over to dark gods of sexuality and drugs because 'they'll do it anyway, everyone does!'  Modern man offers sacrifices of his joy, his money, his family, his ethics, his freedom and his very humanity on the altar of unrelenting guilt, which can never be atoned except by more work, more giving, more guilt, more surrender of every freedom of heart, soul, mind and body.

Hell?  Well it is punishment, though a punishment for which God provided a pardon in Christ.  But if modern mankind thinks that hell, or punishment itself, is a uniquely Christian invention, then modern mankind is dead wrong. 

Mankind has always wanted to be punished.  They just refuse to accept the deliverance from guilt that is available from our Father.

Dr. Deacon

A liberal friend sent me a link to a new idea from MoveOn.org.  George Soros suggests that Scott McClellan donate his book royalties to the care of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.  He was, they say, part of the decision to lie to America and enter us into an unnecessary and costly war.

Surprised that she would forward this piece of claptrap to me, I contemplated my response.  One doesn't want to sound harsh or sarcastic to friends, so I held back out of respect for the fine person my friend is.  So, on the sage advice of apologist and physician John Patrick, given in a lecture I heard him deliver, I decided to frame my response in a question.

If Scott McClellan gives his money to the care of veterans, then will Al Gore give his money, from all his diatribes about climate change, to the victims of starvation due to diminished food production?  Will he give his royalties to families in America and Europe out of jobs due to environmental over-regulation that threatens to crush Western industrial capacity?  Will he offer funerals to the children in poor nations, who die when no food is available, but carbon credits are finally ensconced as the salvation of mankind?

And when socialized health-care impoverishes us, and leads to interminable waits for necessary procedures, leaves us to far fewer physicians, and burdens us with further taxes (added to the weight of our carbon credits), will Michael Moore donate his royalties to improving American medicine?  Or at least to expediting American funerals and flights to Cuba for what he apparently considers the world's best medical attention?

Will Planned Parenthood be giving money back to the families of blacks, who were unwitting victims of the genocidal abortion campaign first set in motion by Margaret Sanger all those years ago?   Will  Marxist professors give back tuition money to parents of children led astray into economic ruin by ideology that runs in stark contrast to all reality?

Will atheist professors be refunding tuition to families broken by their children's loss of faith and drift into drugs and promiscuity, when their time-honored beliefs were set to the torch in the classrooms of America?

Will Hillary Clinton be offering campaign money back to families who donated to her ego-nmaniacal campaign during a time of financial duress?

I could go on.  But if we're giving back royalties or other money based on problems associated with our ideology, then the American Left has some pretty big checks to write. 

Edwin

www.edwinleap.com