Surviving Climate Change: Producing Less and Enjoying it More

Panel 2: Quality Health Care for All
Saturday, June 28, 10:30 am — noon

David Henry, Executive Director of Walkable St. Louis, has been active for more than 30 years in environmental work ranging from community gardening to co-housing. In 2004, he ran for Missouri State Representative on the Green Party ticket.

Health care now ranks as the second most energy-intensive industry in the United States. The largest energy use related to health care is at hospital complexes where excessive energy use comes not only from building heating, cooling, and electrical use; but also transportation, waste, and provision of food. Some hospitals are considering ways of reducing energy use at the hospital complexes themselves. This is encouraging to hear, but those strategies assume that our demand for health care will remain the same or continue to climb. We should also be working to reduce the demand for health care in the future.

Happily, many strategies for reducing GHG in other areas are likely to reduce the demand for health care. Strategies to reduce our dependence on the automobile for transportation and rely more on human powered transportation (walking and biking) will also reduce the incidence of obesity (arguably our most serious public health issue). Reliance on locally grown food should not only reduce the GHG associated with long distance transportation, but also lead to diets with a greater proportion of fresh fruits and vegetables thereby reducing the incidence of heart disease and cancer. Reducing the air pollution caused by fossil fuel based transportation and coal-fired energy production will lead to a lower incidence of cancer, heart disease and asthma.

The health care panel should have a lively discussion about meeting demands for health care with less impact on the climate as well as a serious discussion about strategies for reducing the demand for health care in the near future.

Dr. Rosa Kincaid, a board certified family physician in St. Louis, owns and manages Kincaid Medical Associates, a multi-faceted family practice that seeks to restore balance to the body, mind and spirit.

Holistic medicine involves balancing the body, mind and sprit to created harmony, health and oneness with the universe. I have seen chronic and terminal disease reverse its devastating path by providing the body with what it needs and encouraging self-healing. This involves getting back to basics. Unprocessed fruits, nuts, seeds and grains are best prepared without cooking. No boxes, wrappers pots, pans or stoves, are necessary. Pesticides, preservatives, colors or flavors are excluded. This is a diet that realizes that “food is your best medicine.” The less you do to your food, the better you will be.

Erin O’Reilly, a member of the Gateway Green Alliance for many years, is an IBCLC-certified Lactation Consultant working at an inner-city hospital in St. Louis, where she promotes breastfeeding and supports breastfeeding mothers.

Breastfeeding is a golden key to solving many of our health, wealth, social and environmental problems. It opens many doors. Breastfeeding is as potent as clean air, water and food, which, as we all know, are much more potent social well-being tools than any medicine, technology or expensive health care product. That’s because breastfeeding is clean water and clean food. It benefits not just baby and mom but families and societies! Its benefits are far-reaching and they last a lifetime. Its cost is minimal, and it gives pleasure to both mother and baby! Breastfeeding’s carbon footprint is nil because it is completely natural. Let’s look at some of the specifics of how breastfeeding improves individual, social and environmental well-being.

Dr. Jifunza Wright, a Chicago family physician board certified in Holistic Integrative Medicine, is founder of the Holistic Family Medicine Healthy Lifestyle and Prevention Center as well as co-founder of the Black Oaks Center for Sustainable Renewable Living.

In addressing healthcare solutions for an energy descent, I will give a broad picture from institutional considerations to what people will personally have to do to be well and more efficiently use the medical system resources that we do have. I’ll present graphs and charts to help outline the shifts that have to happen.

Dr. Abbe Sudvarg, a St. Louis family physician and associate medical director of a federally qualified health center, chairs the Peace Economy Project, which educates and organizes around the human and economic costs of militarism and weapons production.

I plan to talk about the ecological cost of a health care system that focuses more on taking care of disease than in keeping people well.