i-eclectica.org

Art: Edward Hopper

Whether oil scarcity is a result of peaking or plateauing, one affected sector not on many people’s minds is health care. Orion magazine published an article on the issue in its July/August edition under the title “Medicine After Oil” in which Daniel Bednarz not only highlights the important role oil plays in our Western health care system but also proposes a new system for a world after oil dependence.

“Petrochemicals are used to manufacture analgesics, antihistamines, antibiotics, antibacterials, rectal suppositories, cough syrups, lubricants, creams, ointments, salves, and many gels. Processed plastics made with oil are used in heart valves and other esoteric medical equipment. Petrochemicals are used in radiological dyes and films, intravenous tubing, syringes, and oxygen masks. In all but rare instances, fossil fuels heat and cool buildings and supply electricity. Ambulances and helicopter “life flights” depend on petroleum, as do personnel who travel to and from medical workplaces in motor vehicles. Supplies and equipment are shipped—often from overseas—in petroleum-powered carriers. In addition there are the subtle consequences of fossil fuel reliance. A recently retired doctor [informed Bednarz], “In orthopedics we used to set fractures mostly by feel and knowing the mechanics of how the fractures were created. I doubt that many of the present orthopedists could do a good job if you took away their [energy-powered] fluoroscope or X-ray.”

America has a shocking health system, with premium (”Ferrari”) care provided to those who can afford it, and a “jalopy model” serving the over 50 million un- and underinsured who very often receive no treatment, defer treatment until their condition cannot be ignored, or face economic ruin when they seek adequate care. With rising prices for oil, this number will swell, moving health care more and more out of reach for ordinary citizens - and not just in the US. Worldwide people in the so-called developed world could join ranks with those in the majority world and experience ill health in epidemic proportions.

The solution Bednarz promotes is an obvious one: moving away from treatment medicine to giving priority to public health strategies, in particular prevention of disease and promotion of health within the population as a whole. “Typically accomplished through the diffusion of information, low-cost therapies, and the promotion of healthful nutrition and lifestyle, preventive medicine allows people to avoid or postpone disease, and to stay clear of the costliest and most energy-intensive sectors of the medical system—doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and the hospital.”

Unlike the much more elitist treatment based model, public health care is “inherently egalitarian - if the entire community is not protected, then no one’s health is assured”. In addition: even though public health is overburdened and underfunded (receiving in the US about 5 percent of health-care dollars, with the balance going to treatment medicine and to biomedical research), it nevertheless exists and does not have to be reinvented. “Public health workers, for example, educate about and test for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases; they interdict infectious diseases like avian flu; they create emergency plans to deal with a variety of disaster scenarios; they monitor waste management and air and water quality”. All that is needed to meet the health-care challenges of the coming energy transition, or, for that matter, those of climate change, is to re-prioritise health policy strategies.

The question that Bednarz doesn’t address though in this context is how the medical establishment will react to such transformation. He mentions some ‘public health’ officials are beginning to address possible oil scarcity’s effect on health care, but there is no hint on how such changes would be greeted by the traditional medical establishment that monopolises the health system, with a lot of its privileges, status and defensive ideologies at stake. Such concerns though are based on our current environment; the ‘after-oil world’ will be a totally new one, with very different dynamics, worldviews and also chaos that could lead to all kinds right now unpredictable outcomes. One of those could indeed be a more just and democratic society, one which, amongst other things, successfully promotes health and wellbeing for all people. The latter certainly is Bednarz’s hope - and mine.

Every day, more and more people are shopping smarter, eating healthier, and enjoying an abundance of fresh, locally-grown products. The website Sustainable Table was created to celebrate this fast-growing, dynamic movement, to educate consumers on food-related issues, and to help build community through food.

Today’s dominant form of agriculture relies on synthetic fertilisers and chemical pesticides, large amounts of water, major transportation systems and factory-style practices for raising livestock and crops.  Artificial hormones in milk, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, mad cow disease, and large-scale outbreaks of potentially deadly e.coli are all associated with this industrial form of food production.

Sustainable agriculture on the other hand involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities.  Sustainable Table promotes the positive shift toward local, small-scale sustainable farming by providing lots of interesting information ranging from why it is important to eat well to taking 3 steps to eat sustainably to shopping smarter. The site also looks closer at what sustainable agriculture means, includes a sustainability directory, covering a long list of terms  from agribusiness, GMO, pesticides and vegetarian diet to defining ‘watershed’, offers educational resources and much more.

Despite being US centred, Sustainable Table gives lots of inspiration to discover new ways to eating healthy, shopping smart, and enjoying sustainably-raised food!

An interesting little clip on the simple question of whether or not to take ameliorating action independent of whether global warming is real - i think it’s quite a strong logical argument presented here.

Keagan McCurdy just clued us in on ReMade, a sustainable entrepreneurial project by junior-year Industrial Design students at Western Washington University. ReMade’s objective is to transform industrial refuse into product designs that are marketed and sold through a retail venue.

This year, 12 students individually thought up an innovative and sustainable product and produced 20 of each for sale. The collection includes light switch covers made from old street signs by Jesse Hanson (top left), sushi rollers made from bicycle spokes by Keagan McCurdy (top right), X-acto blade handles made from old toothbrushes by Jason Harrow (bottom left), and fully biodegradable plant pots by Erica Brissenden (bottom right).

This year, Goods for the Planet and the Seattle Art Museum will host these products beginning November 2nd through December 25th, 2007.

Meet the designers @ Goods for the Planet
November 10, 2007 from 5 - 7 PM
525 Dexter Avenue North
Seattle, Washington

[via epodic, core77]

Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell believes in a binary, or dyadic model of the universe in which consciousness must be taken into account as a causal element.

As a scientist and an astronaut, Mitchell has been personally searching for answers to this fundamental dichotomy. He conducted in-flight experiments in extra-sensory perception with professional psychics back on earth and reported a success rate that was phenomenally greater than that predicted by chance. In 1971, while on the Apollo 14 mission, he looked back at the earth from his space capsule and knew intuitively that an intelligence was at work in the universe.

Mitchell’s epiphany in space did not end there. He returned to earth, left the space program, and founded the Institute for Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, California. “It is becoming increasingly clear that the human mind and physical universe do not exist independently,” he says. “Something as yet indefinable connects them. This connective link — between mind and matter, intelligence and intuition — is what Noetic Sciences is all about.”

Mitchell chose the word noetic from the Green work nous, meaning “mind, intelligence, and understanding.” The word noetic encompasses the intellect’s ability to reason, the perceptions of the physical senses, and the intuitive, spiritual, or inner ways of knowing. “The psychic part of the intuitive function, that is, the ability to perceive information in ways unexplainable, is a natural part of the universe. It is available to everyone. We have got to experience powerful intuition, psychokinesis, and healing to know that it is real. There is nothing magical or mystical about it. It is only that aspect of the unknown which we cannot explain yet,” Mitchell says.

While most physicists believe that everything can be reduced to matter and energy, and mentalists take the view that consciousness is the causal element, Mitchell believes that both are mutually necessary. “Like the north and south pole, you need both matter and consciousness for the universe to be complete.” Mitchell sees mainstream science as primarily reductionist, breaking the atoms down to elemental particles. Although that is valid for the physical spectrum, he believes that you have to take into account the nonphysical spectrum, as well. You have to ask, “What is the most elemental thing about our nonphysical essence?” For Mitchell, who holds a doctorate in aeronautics and who has spent eighteen years developing this scientific theory, the answer is information - the ability and intent to distinguish between two simultaneous states. Like a north pole and a south pole, energy then becomes the basis of physical reality and information the basis of consciousness.

Mitchell’s model is unique in its integration of the principles of physics with principles of the new science. “Physics says the matter/energy is the creator of all while the religious camp says that the mind is the creator of all. Everyone is trying to create a monadic model, one that posits one or the other as correct,” he says. And he believes that in failing to recognize the binary or dual nature of the physical and nonphysical dimensions, scientists are restricting their own efforts to find answers.

For example, Mitchell points to the difficulty that physicists have had in trying to come up with a unified field theory. Scientists today have one set of equations for subatomic activity and a different set of equations for atomic activity. A unified field theory would allow them to develop consistent equations for both subatomic and atomic activity. “It’s clear that they are interconnected and that the subatomic level affects what happens at the cosmic level. Tiny, subtle effects do have a major impact, but it’s not clear that with the present state of knowledge scientists can write the same equation for both cosmic and subatomic levels,” Mitchell notes.

Until science studies the fundamental interaction between micro determinism and macro determinism no scientist will be able to develop a unified field theory. As Mitchell points out, “Scientists will never find the unified field theory until they look at human consciousness. Mind and mental phenomena are the last challenge of physics.”

The posting above is excerpted from Dr. Laurie Nadel’s Sixth Sense: Unlocking Your Ultimate Mind Power with Judy Haims and Robert Stempson (ASJA Press) available on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk . It was published by The Bleeping Herald.