Another Environmentalist Fails.

So, today in my honors class we have Ted Steinberg, the author of "Down to Earth: Nature's Role on American History" which I briefly covered in my last blog. I have a fluctuating opinion on environmentalism. I'm uniquely disturbed at how quickly we consume (purchase, use, and throw away) and I think many people are not aware that resources run out. But, I also think that environmentalist too quickly fail to give credit to the ingenuity of men. Isn't the quote, "Necessity is the mother of invention." When we begin to reach our resource limits, we are able to adapt. However, to continue my flip-flopping, it's very dangerous to say, "Oh, someone down the line will figure out how to fix all these problems." As I put in my latest essay, environmentalism is a strange creature.

Inevitably, our conversations with Steinberg lead to questions of how to solve environmental problems. And he was fantastically political about it: "Well, I don't really know much about it. Maybe this, maybe that, or maybe not at all." But, Honors students are persistent and his views came out, "Well, I'm all about regulation. I think Capitalism is horrible." Is it possible to feel a whole group of people cringe? I think young people are sick of hearing anti-Capitalistic drivel. Without a doubt, these honor students were not impressed with his criticism. We started asking him what he meant and he specifically pointed out the Health Care system. He complained that there is too big of a group of people without health care and said that there are too many people without it. He said that capitalistic societies have the worst health care systems, to which I asked him why the greatest health epidemics, such as AIDS in Africa, occur in countries that are not capitalistic. He said, "I don't really know about that." Exactly. Anyhow, another criticized me by saying that I should have compared the U.S. to the UK or Canada. But, I'm sorry, I think that the UK and Canada are extraordinarily Capitalistic. The number 1 import in Canada is the U.S. I'm sure the UK is very similar. People that dependant on our market cannot be that ant-Capitalistic.

I think Mr. Steinberg simply had a confusion of terms, but regardless I think that it is terribly ironic that he used Health Care as an example. One of the most wasteful industries in the world is the health industry. The correct operation of a health care facility is dependent on throwing this away: new latex gloves for every patient, a new cap for the thermometer, a new and wooden stick to hold down the tongue. When you are through with medication that is to be used "as needed," you are supposed to throw it away. Every prescription comes in an individual bottle with an individual label. And that’s just on a normal visit. Think of all the stuff they have to use and throw away in surgery! And Ted Steinberg supports providing this free of charge to every single human on Earth? When I didn't have health insurances, if I was sick, I went to bed. Now, I go to the Doctor and go through the whole use and waste routine before they say, "Oh, looks like you need to just go home and lay down." They have to do this, because more people would die if they did not. There needs to be a balance between making products available to save lives, but not make it so easily accessible that it feeds into this wasteful tradition. Let's keep a cost attached to health care, but not so high as to make it debilitating.

Though it discourages me greatly to discover that, though this man has extraordinary understanding of the history of ecology, not even he can predict consequences of human systems.