Two articles hit my e-mail inbox at about the same time this morning. The first was from MEDSCAP that compiles news stories from around the world about important medical (clinical, administrative, and public health) issues. The article was about a New Jersey doctor and his wife who were defendants in a medical mal-practice case. The article was written by their attorney who had just lost the case in court. She complained that her defendant (the surgeon) and his wife showed up every day in court wearing diamond earrings and necklaces, gold “bling” jewelry—the husband wore an open shirt collar showing his chest hair and three gold necklaces, and they routinely arrived late to court. The trial was in a blue-collar manufacturing town and the jury of mostly women and a couple union workers was from a different world than the defendants. The doctor and his wife were completely oblivious to the sensibilities of the jurors—in fact, they felt disrespected when questioned after the trial.
The second article was from The Idaho Capital Sun and was written by Audrey Dutton: ‘WE CAN’T WAIT ANY LONGER —Idaho Health Care group wants action on climate” change”. Interviewed for the article was an ER doctor Ethan Sims and Stephanie Wick the head manager at St. Luke’s for sustainability and environmental compliance. I believe in “climate change up to a point. I could best be called a “Luke warmer”. I believe there are climate cycles that have occurred forever. I believe because we are stewards of scarce resources, we all have a responsibility to take care of our planet. That is a Providential truth that everyone can agree on. One of the issues Ms. Dutton mentions in the article is the impact that smoke from Western Forest and range fires have on the health of patients especially those with respiratory diseases. Also mentioned in the article was that outside activities like high school sports had to be canceled because of smokey conditions in our valley. Prudential solutions and differences of opinion need to be discussed. Here is what I believe.
The environmental movement in our country arguably had its beginnings with the publishing of SILENT RAIN by Rachel Carson. At the time Ms. Carson did her research at the University of Michigan she had an undergraduate journalism degree. She was not a scientist or an expert. The allegation that DDT was causing eggshells of birds to break before chicks could be hatched and was causing some bird populations across the world to be in jeopardy was one of the central themes of her book. DDT when used in tropical areas was helping to fight mosquito born infectious diseases like malaria. After banning DDT, it is believed that hundreds of millions died needlessly because of malaria and many times more that number died because of starvation because crops couldn’t be sprayed, and yields plummeted especially where subsistence farming in third world countries was being practiced. No science. Great harm and a movement were born. Another unintended consequence from the book was the science of “Ecology” that was just beginning to emerge combining the fields of biology, chemistry, agronomy, and geology which became politicized. Today much like the discipline of meteorology—notice I didn’t say science, policy of a political and even economic nature has taken over the science. So, the predicate that gives validity to arguments by environmentalists and climate change “experts” is suspect in my mind. Feelings about “mother earth” are placed in front of hard facts.
Just to mention policy not being informed by science, there is the issue of policy assuming that only government is the answer to questions that involve “the commons”. The Tragedy of the Fallacy of the commons goes back as far as the teaching of Aristotle, but Enlightenment fathers like Adam Smith, Hobbs and Burkes all wrote of the fact that when someone is given ownership of a piece of property it will be taken care of far better than if ownership by all the people is allowed to happen. The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony found that out when their first planting was done in “Commons” and the following winter, they all almost starved. When each family was given their own plot of land to tend to, there was great abundance.
The same is true about forest management. Privately owned timberlands have far fewer and less devastating fires than publicly owned lands. There is annual thinning of the timber, undergrowth is removed—sometimes twice a year, slash piles are harvested for money and thus removed quickly. If one wants to see the difference just travel along interstate 84 in Oregon and compare the privately owned lands to the publicly owned lands. The same thing can be observed when traveling down the Oregon coast.
Several years ago, an Idaho grad student in forestry wrote an article in a professional journal about the impact of forest fires in the west on CO2 fixation. Several letters to the editor that followed suggested that a comparative study be done showing the greater impact of western fires on the climate than all the internal combustion CO2 fixation in the State of California in a year! I have yet to see the study. When I was a senior in college, I took an “Ecology Course”. It was sponsored by both the biology and chemistry departments. My experiment was to measure CO2 fixation and crop yields in proximity to interstate highways and 10 miles away from highways. Guess what? More CO2 was captured, and crop yields were greater the closer the field was to the interstate highway. That’s ecology being used as science without any preconceived political narrative to be supported.
One other point about the article about Western fires. When trees and grasslands burn, the machine that fixates CO2 and makes more oxygen and water is destroyed— chloroplasts. Chloroplasts aren’t used up by engines or generators. One of the un-talked about chemicals that escapes from plants (incomplete combustion) in natural wildfires is water (H20) a greenhouse gas itself that has an impact on warming. See those big smoke clouds over the foothills during fire season? Much of that cloud is water vapor and it is in fact a “greenhouse” gas and causes warming.
6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O
(Carbon dioxide) (Water) (Glucose) (Oxygen) (Water)
At the very least a case could be made that the massive Western fires we have every year are the result of government lands being poorly managed and that maybe the management of these lands should be a higher priority and that taxing, regulating and disincentivizing internal combustion engines should be lessor a priority.
I am not an “expert” on this issue. When talking about things out of my wheelhouse I am careful to not use the imprimatur of my professional credential, (MD) any professional organization that I am part of— The American College of Surgeons, any hospital or organization where I may be on staff or employed. or professional or government regulating organizations like the IMA or State Board of Medicine. I believe this is prudent and honest. I think allowing a news reporter or news organization to try to use a professional person or organization, or even a hospital that tries to use a doctor’s credential to create credibility for an argument or policy is practicing professional and journalistic prostitution. Time should be spent trying to take better care of patients and reviewing how we could have done better in the “political pandemic” so that next time doctors and nurses will be able to better take care of our patients—which is what our job is all about. First and foremost. The rest is a hobby.
When we speak to issues where we are not experts we should speak as citizens not as “experts”. That lack of self-awareness is like walking into court with an unbuttoned collar and gold chains around your neck and telling people that you are a credible witness at your own trial. Everyday people can see right through us.
