Sandy Penn, Simon Fraser University

Download this essay: Sandy Penn_nature culture

“The Earth’s declining health is our most important concern, our very lives depending upon a healthy earth,” states Lovelock (2006) in his book, Revenge of Gaia.  Brian Handwerk[1] used the same metaphor in his article “The Earth’s Health in Sharp Decline, Massive Study Finds,”  in which he highlights a “UN-backed Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report [which] revealed that nearly two-thirds of Earth’s life-supporting ecosystems, including clean water, pure air, and stable climate, are being degraded by unsustainable use.”

The notion that the environmental crisis has led the earth to suffer from potentially terminally illness is a metaphor that relies upon our familiarity with illness.  It places global environmental concerns within a tangible anthropocentric framework. Illness, an affliction or pathology of the individual body that causes suffering, is universal in nature, but personal in its effect.  It has been with us since the beginning of human time. Our understanding, reactions, responses, management and approaches to human illness have evolved with us. In contrast our perceptions of earth, as a complex, intricate, fragile, discrete object is a recent phenomenon. Our responses to global environmental concerns are fresh, untried and unproven.  We are faced with rethinking our position and  our impact as earthly inhabitants. The illness metaphor framework allows us to empathize with the environmental crisis and explore how the variety of approaches to illness may be relevant when attributed to the global environmental setting.  This essay will take advantage of this paradigm shift in our understanding of the earth to explore the environmental crisis through the various lenses we usually confine to health and illness.

Medicine is the traditional framework we use to understand and manage acute and chronic illness. Entrenched in a scientific paradigm, empiric medical research has led us to aspire to a golden standard of “evidence based” care, resulting in continual increased complexity with its own specific consequences and complications. The high value we place on health combined with the relatively recent paradigm shift in our worldview led to the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948. A global public health initiative, the organization demonstrates the meta-level model of intervention to improve health. This narrow biologically based medical gaze is challenged by societal beliefs that influence our personal attitudes towards illness, while a variety of forces within the larger social infrastructure impact both our abilities to respond to illness and the mechanisms available to initiate change.  While medical strategies, health care models and social policy perceive and manage illness from variety of perspectives, it is when we, as individuals experience illness or death ourselves that a whole other set of responses are exposed.  We approach illness personally and emotionally through a grieving process.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross (1969), in her exploration of grieving experienced by terminally ill patients, defined a series of stages which influenced their attitudes and behavior, as well as affected  their ability to take action. Kubler Ross took a significant turn when she shifted her gaze of the ill person from object to subject.   As a subject the sufferer had the opportunity to progress through the grieving process with agency.  In comparing our understanding of the earth’s future health with our approaches to human illness, our greatest opportunity may lie in shifting our view of the earth from object to subject.

Shifting Paradigms

Man’s conceptualization of the earth has evolved as he has contemplated nature through different paradigms to reach the current paradigm that the earth is a finite object. The modern turn, resulting from the discoveries of Copernicus and the influence of Galileo, “moved” the earth from the heliocentric position at centre of the Universe to a more peripheral position in relationship to the sun.  Magellan’s epic circumferential voyage placed Galileo’s spherical world within man’s grasp. Metaphorically the earth was getting smaller.  Air travel has continued to shrink the physical enormity of the world. Armstrong’s voyage [Apollo 11] to the moon, broadcast worldwide on television portrayed a novel photographic image of the earth, the marbled sphere, a beautiful blue globe tightly garbed in the translucent pallor of clouds. For the first time, man viewed the earth, not from an embedded local position but as an object, unique and finite.

With the conquest of space and images of earth from afar, initial responses considered space travel as an exciting opportunity,  “a first step toward escape from men’s imprisonment to the earth” (Arendt 1958:1). While dreams of abandoning the earth for space offered some inspiration and comfort for those troubled by worldly affairs most accepted the reality that humans are “earth beings.”( Plumwood 2002: 240) and this globe will remain our home.

The new relationship between humans and the earth is reflected in political action.  In 1973 the United Nations established Earth Day to recognize, respect and honor our planetary home, a tangible, unique object. This new understanding also created the opportunity for revisiting our concepts of nature, the “web of life” within a well defined whole.

For example, the Gaia hypothesis, named after ancient Greek Earth goddess, conceived in the 1970s by James Lovelock, postulates the earth is “ a planet that keeps itself fit for life”(Lovelock 2006:17), a living super organism which is self-regulating, reacting to the influence of the sun, and now human intervention.

The meta global viewpoint has not only shifted our relationship with nature but highlighted the impact of humans on a global scale. Although even before the industrial revolution man expressed concerns about the local environment, our relationship with the earth was rooted in an understanding that there was a seemingly endless supply of resources for our needs and pleasures. Since the latter part of the last century we have become aware that global resources are finite, limited and inadequate for the human population to survive at its current level of consumption.  This century we are experiencing an increasing sense of fear about our environmental future and the future of the earth, as we know it. The paradigm shift from an encompassing earth with limitless bounty to a fragile globe with an uncertain future facilitates an opportunity for us to feel the earth’s suffering and consider her ill.

“Medical management” for the environment

“Before the emergence of scientific medicine and epidemiology [illness and] death [were] connected with luck and chance, as random, unpredictable and untamed, as an event that could strike one at any time”(Lupton 2003:48). The medical paradigm has reconstructed our knowledge, so that illness has become a conglomeration of physical symptoms, or ailments, many of which can be prevented or treated.  Furthermore we can be ill without physical effect, our pathology evident in measurements or tests, for example with hypertension and anemia. Similarly with the environment, melting glaciers as well as measurements that predict global changes can be understood as symptoms that inform us that the earth is suffering from climate change.  Dramatic symptoms, such as hurricanes and floods incite immediate responses, while more gradual symptoms, such as changes in the fish population or melting ice caps are reflective of chronic illness profiles. Different prognoses call for different reactions from the populations looking to “treat” these ailments.

One form of acute environmental crisis management uses an approach similar to  immediate medical resuscitation. Scientific information aims to influence outcome while minimizing risk. When someone suffers a life threatening illness or injury, such as a motor vehicle accident or a heart attack there is a finely tuned response that involves paramedic experts in the field and hospital based medical services. Management is procedure and protocol driven. The knowledge used for treatment, Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is ascertained by empirically supported science.

“Where once death was considered under the auspices of fate or God’s will” (Lupton: 52) resuscitation is now our “natural” response unless in rare circumstances the person has, with foresight, requested a DNR (Do not Resuscitate) order. Resuscitation often involves reversing the symptoms without addressing the underlying illness. We respond to sudden catastrophic environmental disasters such as a large earthquakes or hurricanes with similar responses, using science, procedure and protocols to attend to the symptoms, the emergency, leaving the underlying problems for a later consideration that may or may not occur.  Scientific discourse encourages us to believe that our knowledge is powerful enough to manage environmental crises and perhaps even control nature in the foreseeable future.

There are significant drawbacks to this approach. Michel Serres suggests our approach is short-term while substantial change and building is a much longer-term prospect. (Serres 1995: 30)

While in medical practice definitive treatment can cure a few diseases such as acute appendicitis, often the underlying illness remains unresolved.  For example while people who experience myocardial infarction usually benefit from acute invasive procedures such as angioplasty, outcome is improved further with longer-term rehabiliation.

Longer-term therapy is also the mainstay of treatment for chronic illnesses such as diabetes which develop slowly and usually evade cure. As with acute illness the traditional medical approach is empirically tested scientific management coupled with reduction of risk factors.  Treatment includes various types of symptomatic therapy with the goal of prolonging and improving the quality of life for the suffering individual.  Some environmental organizations, such as the Suzuki Foundation recommend a scientific model, similar to the one used to manage chronic illness, to approach environmental issues with the goal of delaying and decreasing our impact on the earth.  For example David Suzuki’s website [2] suggests “New technologies and techniques in machinery, heating, lighting and ventilation can significantly cut energy use, production costs, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.” From a chronic illness perspective Suzuki is suggesting minor technological improvements that will assist in decreasing or delaying symptoms without addressing the underlying cause.

However this approach does not address the complexity of issues involved, evidenced by historical cases of failed traditional scientific attempts to control human impact.  For example biologists calculated mathematical systems with which they claimed fisheries would preserve species by determining “maximum sustainable yield” (Botkin 1990: 21).  However these were inaccurate, as they did not consider all possible variables.   Similarly the Lotka Volterra equations which estimated “predator prey interaction” to maintain species of deer and wolves ignored the broader environmental impact of weather and rainfall (Botkin).   Any new technology is an intervention, which will have consequences that require recognition and consideration. It is both interesting and disturbing that biologists such as Botkin revert back to confidence in science, progress and technology suggesting “modern computer models which are being developed more and more from this new perspective are a first step along the pathway”(Botkin: 181). If we consider how this approach has been used in medical management, major drawbacks are evident as we become increasingly dependent on technology and science to reduce our symptoms without success in reducing chronic illness rates. Increasingly, complicated scientific “solutions” create their own set of problems, such as recurring and increasing antibiotic resistance to new drugs, resulting in a vicious circle of research, development, efficacy and resistance that in turn require new developments and “solutions.”

The traditional medical management of chronic illness not only creates a vicious cycle of increasing prevalence such as in the case of diabetes, but has limited our gaze. Diabetes has grown exponentially in the last century to reach almost in epidemic proportions. It is one of the most significant illnesses of our time (Table 1, Table 3). An illness largely caused by our dietary consumption, its epidemiological growth parallels our increase in fossil fuel consumption (Table 2).   Just like the rise in carbon dioxide levels attributed to modern lifestyle with our dependence on fossil fuel for automobiles and domestic power, type 2 diabetes is really an anthropological phenomenon whose increase can be directly attributed to our current consumptive  lifestyle.  It is attributed to our refined diets, overconsumption of calories and carbohydrate overload. When symptoms of diabetes arise management falls within the realm of medicine. Health care providers are considered the experts who have the skills to provide care and conduct research while patients are encouraged to absorb information and adhere to treatment regimes. Although treatment may include some attempts at lifestyle modification the mainstay is another consumptive step, this time chemical intervention, in pill form or as injectable insulin.

A parallel situation arises when considering environmental problems. The vicious circle caused by a technocratic approach is evident in many alternative energy strategies scientists have suggested to meet our insatiable need for energy while we make feeble attempts at reducing our consumption. Governments continue to express faith in the power of science to find solutions by creating policy which funds new technology and research. The boost in Canadian Federal funding  for biofuels [3] is just one example and the US governments environmental policy [4] is another. However Plumwood argues “technofix solutions make no attempt to rethink human culture, dominant lifestyles and demands on nature.’ ( Plumwood:8) Science alone is too limited to deal with anthropological challenges as it neglects “methodologies of reciprocity, generosity, and communications in place of monologlical methodologies of reduction and human centeredness that abound in contemporary subject/object science.” (Plumwood:51)  Not only is scientific expertise limited in its abilities and narrow in attitudes but as Plumwood highlights, when the consumer or  patient are conceived as objects  rather than subjects active in their own future,  their opportunity to effect change is bound by this limited, expert advice.

Plumwood notes that the limited gaze of the scientific solution model creates a gap which is filled by other powers.  In our capitalist society this gap is convenient for economic interests. The increase in fast food outlets, the use of corn syrup as a cheap preservative in packaged food, aggressive food advertising on television demonstrates the commercial influence on human eating habits. These developments are not only coincident with the increase in diabetes but also contribute to its pervasive nature.   Social activism attempts to counter these harmful effects with well intentioned but limited symptomatic “ therapy” such as recommending improvements in school canteen merchandise, exercise in schools or more recently suggesting calorie counts on restaurants menus are hardly effective when the challenge is the economic enormity and power of private enterprise.

Our dependence on fossil fuels and the difficulties in recruiting alternatives is just as complicated. Plumwood is emphatic that if we place our hope in the scientific basket we will succumb to a  “form not well adapted to its own or our survival” (Plumwood: 61).  Although Science has provided us with useful information, empiric methodology and innovative mechanisms and tools to address specific environmental issues, seeking diagnosis, treatment of “symptoms” has not led to an improvement in our global environmental situation. Due to its limited gaze, and lack of understanding of other powerful influences with powerful influence such as private enterprise, the privileging of science above other ways of thinking has not led to better outcomes.  Opportunity to implement change can also come through political channels. Public Health initiatives warrant exploration to determine whether this may be an effective model for environmental improvement.

Public health and the environment

The WHO constitution states “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being…” [5] However the relationship between the WHO and the environment is complex. Firstly, the success of public health initiatives from the WHO has a direct impact in expanding human’s environmental footprint. For example, since the latter part of the 20th Century, medical intervention in the developing world has introduced rehydration fluids, vaccination programs, and mosquito netting all of which have reduced infant and child mortality.   This success in decreasing death rates has occurred on a background an increased world population to a population of 6.5 billion. Lovelock suggests that overpopulation is one of the fundamental challenges to Gaia, and may be its downfall. Implicit in his text is his suggestion for significant population control.  Secondly, other types of Public Health initiatives  such as population control, aimed at  counterbalancing decreased mortality infringe on personal and cultural rites.

Thirdly, the WHO recognizes the quality of the environment, access to clean air and water, as fundamental rights (Table 4). Ironically our worsening environmental situation results in increased health problems. Perhaps, the WHO structure, with its global mandate, could provides some insight as to how a similar global environmental organization may be modeled. Dobson, a member of the English Green party, promotes a form of global stewardship  “to extend the discourse and practice of rights-claiming into the environmental context” (89). Kyoto was an attempt for nations to work together to manage fossil fuel output. Unfortunately there is no international organization to support    “a safe and healthy environment … as a pre-condition to the exercise of existing rights” (Dobson: 99).

A global environmental organization modelled on the WHO, could consider and act upon the enormous variability in distribution and access to resources.  Dobson highlights the need to address the environmental global imbalance by “northern” developed countries with respect to poorer “southern” neighbors.   He suggests a form of post–cosmopolitan citizenship that would obligate wealthier regions to support less wealthy ones. This responsibility was built into the Kyoto accord, allowing developing nations to pollute more while they were “catching up”, but unfortunately resulted in creating a situation where wealthier countries could outsource their polluting industries (Dobson). Public health on the other hand requires close connection of health care personnel with the populations they serve. For example vaccinations are administered directly and individually.  Environmental impact is not so simple. Plumwood notes that we can “avoid the ecological consequences of [our] decisions  [by] living somewhere remote from the places and people they effect”( Plumwood: 72),  for example , dust from coal burning in China (possibly used to manufacture goods for export to North America) results in acid rain in the Pacific Northwest.  Hypothetically a global environmental body could investigate global environmental interdependency, publicize and respond to the environmental issues on a meta scale.

Illness as a metaphor

Although science is the dominant paradigm Western society uses to explain issues of health and illness, our personal understanding, feelings and reactions to illness is heavily dependent on social constructs. Illness has always been part of our private, personal, social and public lives. We seek to understand its causes, manage its consequences and find meaning in suffering and tragedy. Death, implied in Lovelock’s statement which opens this essay, is an inevitable component of life, one that calls us to action on a most basic level. The sanctity of human life is paramount in biblical texts and health is considered a basic human right. Susan Sontag in her book Illness as Metaphor describes the cultural and political influence on our understanding of illness such as cancer, HIV and Tuberculosis.  For example, she explores the social stigma and feelings of guilt associated with acquisition of HIV which are related to the ways it can be acquired.   Similarly in North America smoking carries a significant social stigma whereby smokers are considered responsible for bringing harmful health effects upon themselves. Although for some young people smoke to imitate adult behavior and think smoking is “cool”, in general smokers are perceived as socially irresponsible weak individuals who have succumbed to an addiction to their own detriment.

Are there similarities between our negative attitudes towards smokers and our  feelings about environmental issues?  The medical literature suggests smoking leads to the most significant self- induced chronic illnesses that humans in the western world face. Smoking exposes our lungs, our breathing body to toxins that change our personal respiratory environment and make us ill.   It is uncanny that the earth’s perceived illness has surprising parallels in symtomatology patterns.  Most scientists believe climate change is a result of increasing levels of carbon dioxide, which is caused by human action.  Much of the carbon dioxide is created as we burn fossil fuels, not in cigarettes but in our vehicles and in our homes. Humans are effectively “smoking” the earth into sickness and decay.  Cigarette smoking causes acute illnesses such as myocardial infarction, and a variety of chronic disease such as emphysema, peripheral vascular disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease as well as fatal illness such as lung cancer.  Climate change, like smoking, has been blamed for both acute disasters such severe weather pattern changes as well as chronic changes.  Chronic changes are multifaceted, interconnected repercussions such as the melting of the ice caps, changes in ocean currents and biological changes such as the infestation with the pine beetle. Considering Lovelock’s view of our earth, Gaia is like an aging man who is experiencing the negative effects of smoking.

While cigarette smokers are stigmatized for their socially irresponsible unhealthy behavior, SUVs owners in North America are similarly ostracized as for their inconsiderate wasteful use of fossil fuels and the pollution their excess causes.   Government has attempted to tackle this latter issue with recent propositions for introduction of a carbon tax. The implication is that taxing gas consumption at purchase point will discourage burning fossil fuel in a similar  fashion that  the tobacco tax  discourages smoking.   There is no basis to support that this type of taxation will change behavior but it is acceptable because the principle draws on our concepts of social responsibility.

The social stigma of overconsumption and the associated feelings of guilt, extend to the sense of our global responsibilities. Dobson uses the term “”thick” community of historical obligation” to describe the increased responsibility the “north” (First World nations)  as  “not all humankind contributes unsustainably to global warming” ( Dobson:81) For Dobson, the underdeveloped “southern” nations are victims. They are similar to those who suffer from inhaling the second hand smoke of inconsiderate smokers.  While smokers deserve to be taxed for their negligence while the sufferers of their second hand smoke should have compensation.

The metaphors we use to understand the environmental issues we are facing will have an enormous impact, not only on how we perceive the environment, but on how we respond to this crisis.  Language, metaphors and their conceptual underpinnings, (feelings such as guilt and blame) construct and reconstruct  our discourse. For example vehicles such as the Escalade and Hummer, which reflected wealth and power, have been discontinued as their popularity waned with a change in attitude that they were wasteful, bullish and irresponsible. As such metaphor is a powerful tool for change, depending on its use.  As our experience, knowledge and understanding is still evolving- we still have the opportunity to massage and influence the metaphors we choose.

Our emotional responses to illness or death

While medical experts and health organizations propose treatments and strategies to manage illness for both individuals and populations, persons experience illness and death from other perspectives.  The feelings of suffering and loss that come with illness are similar to feelings that extend beyond human relationships, friends, family community to living and even inanimate objects in the environment: a forest, an animal, a home, or even a glacier.  These particular responses are universally experienced. Grieving is universal human quality that has traditionally been the purview of spirituality and the soul, but has not escaped empirical analysis. In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler Ross published On Death and Dying, a pioneering project that reflected on the grieving process in the dying hospital patient and their family. She observed that while “ we make advancements in science the more we seem to fear …the reality of death”(Kubler Ross:7) While the “death” of earth may appear an alarmist far fetched concept and books such as The Revenge of Gaia  foster apocalyptic fear, there is a growing body of data from science that informs us that the earth is suffering an unprecedented rate of change, which will profoundly affect life on the planet as we know it.

As we grapple with this distressing news of the earth’s demise with a sense of concern and loss, we parallel the grieving process Kubler Ross so eloquently categorized. The first stage,” Denial”, “functions as a buffer after unexpected shocking news.  It allows the patient to collect himself and, with time, mobilize other less radical defenses.” (Kubler Ross:19) Perhaps this is the basis of opposing views that challenge the accuracy of the scientific data that suggests we are going through a period of global warming.   For example financial institutions, (which have ulterior investment motives) circulated information that the earth is going through a cooling period due to a diminution of sunspot energy released from the sun[6].   This information is useful to  financial advisers as justification for investing in fossil fuels who suggest that using fossil fuels will offset the earth’s cooling trend, while carbon dioxide levels, water pollution or unprocessed toxic waste are distracting considerations that will be solved with time( personal communication).  As Serres suggests “ We must also fear that the short-term solutions proposed by these disciplines(economy, industry, technology, demography) would reproduce the causes of the problem by reinforcing them .“( Seres:6) Denial is temporarily convenient, but not effective.  Another consequence of denial that  Kubler Ross noted  was that of distancing oneself from a problem. For example a wife  “Never faced [her husband]  voluntarily or attempted to have a dialogue with him….she was as far detached from him as possible ( Kubler Ross:53)  This strategy is evident when western countries outsource dirty industry and turn a blind eye to the environmental consequences (Plumwood, Dobson)  Although denial may be a comforting psychological tool  which reduces superficial fear and curtails  desire for  action, it cannot be sustained chronically.

Kubler Ross noted a trajectory of responses evolved when illness persisted. ” When the first stage of Denial cannot be maintained any longer, it is replaced by feelings of anger, rage, envy, and resentment” “Anger is displaced in all directions and projected onto the  (patients) environment” (Kubler Ross:50) . Her study environment was health care system, including doctors, nurses and family.  Anger is evident in the works of eco-feminists, such as Plumwood who analyze root causes of environmental problems through deconstruction of political  and social systems. “We in the losing 4/5 cannot pin our hope on waiting until the abuse of the earth catches up with the “winners” as it eventually must…. they may well be the last to feel the fatal effects” (Plumwood: 237). Serres’s in anger and disgust, exhibits blame thrown  into to an even wider net.  “ Whence comes this filth that is choking our little children with asthma and covering our skin with blotches? Who, beyond private and pubic persons? What, beyond enormous metropolises?” (Serres:32)  Plumwood, like Serres challenges our anthropocentric, egocentric perspectives suggesting that time is running out and we need to take action, personal, social and political to prevent disaster.

Kubler Ross noted that the grieving process takes us beyond denial, and anger, to the 3rd stage, that of bargaining, the 4th of  depression and finally  the 5th of acceptance. Bargaining, a psychological tool arises from our childhood experiences where we believe a “from past experiences that there is a slim chance [to]  be rewarded for good behavior and be granted a wish for special services” (Kubler Ross:82)   Riding a bike to work on sunny days, using transit or choosing to buy local produce are environmentally sound and socially responsible small personal steps,  but we are playing a bargaining game if we pretend to ourselves they are sufficient to make a  difference. As Serres  notes  “to be sure we can slow down the process …[with] fine initiatives, but together they amount to the sailing of a ship …toward a rocky bar.” (Serrres:30)

The tunnel of the grieving process continues into the 4th stage with depression,  “the tool to prepare for the impending loss of all love objects” (Kubler Ross:87).   Many of us have not traveled this far down the tunnel, to consciously consider as  Serres  has, “The Earth existed without our imaginable ancestors, could well exist without us, may well exist tomorrow or later still, without any of our possible descendants, whereas we cannot exist without it.” (Serres:33) Here the grief process has taken a turn. Serres reminds us not only are we embedded in our earth mother, but the our grieving is for our human loss and the familiarity of earth as we know it.  Although our depression could easily turn to despair, Kubler Ross’s work led her to greater optimism  “Though every man will attempt in his own way to postpone such questions and issues until he is forced to face them, he will only be able to change things if he can start to conceive of his own death. … This has to be done by every human alone.” (Kubler Ross:140). She discovered that in the final days or hours her suffering patients and their families, after passing through the stages of the grieving process, denial, anger, bargaining and depression, developed a degree of acceptance and reconciliation. Although Kubler Ross suggests that the 5th stage of acceptance is not “a happy stage” ( Kubler Ross:113) and the struggle is over in the case an individual suffering terminal illness those who are grieving in the living world have the opportunity for understanding and reflection or possibly in spiritual terms, redemption.    A turning point is reached and an opportunity for change created.  Where could this grieving response lead us with respect to our relationship with earth? Serres reflection concludes that it is time to  “cast off.. “to go out from this world and enter another, where nothing will be the same “( Serres: 99) His is a conceptual not literal departure whereby we reconstruct of our relationship with earth.  His voyage has taken him, like Plumwood  to  realize that we need to find “the ability to respond to it [earth] and environment] in ethical and communicative terms”.(Plumwood:238).

The subject object debate: the environment as subject

Kubler Ross’s work  was revolutionary in the medical world as she considered the dying patients not as research objects but as subject. “ The importance of her approach is reflected by Kohak.” Patients, they are persons, agents, seeking to act as best as they can, within however limited a range. (Kohak 1984:157) She simply noted, “Few people place themselves in the patients position and wonder where the anger comes from” (Kubler Ross:51)  In a world where science had usurped the meaning of death from religion, her approach uncovered new hopeful and comforting ways of thinking about death and grief within a medical, scientific context.

As in medicine, information and knowledge regarding the environmental crisis arises from scientific research, where the environment remains an object of empiric study. In considering earth as an object man has traditionally attributed the role of subject to himself.    Scientists remain the “physicians” for healing the ills of the planet, while politicians occasionally respond to find ways to improve the “public health” of the environment.  This simplistic approach places us in a vicious cycle of increasingly complex problem management, just as the spiraling epidemic of diabetes and antibiotic resistance demonstrate.

Just as Kubler Ross redirected our gaze of the dying patient, in the last few decades many authors have realized the importance of viewing the earth as subject . (Arne Naess; James Lovelock; Michel Serres; Val Plumwood; Erazim Kohak ) Although their individual philosophical nuances may vary, from deep ecology, which describes the entirety of earth’s processes as being interconnected without hierarchy, to the conception of the earth a reactive organism or an integral character in human relationships, their general approach  reflects that the earth  as, “[a] moral subject is the clearest instantiation of meaningful being, at the intersection of being and meaning, of time and eternity.” (Kohak: 209) Moving through the grieving process, reaching a level of acceptance brings a sense, a possibility that if we are generous enough to respect the earth as a subject with agency  then there may be hope.

Hope is based not only on scientific solutions, increasing control, and quick fixes, but rather requires a broader and deeper recognition of earth as a subject. Acknowledgement of our embeddedness, increased sensitivity to the interconnectiveness of nature and  an understanding of our relationships within nature will help us make better choices.

Tables



Table 1: Wild, Sarah et al. Global Prevalence of Diabetes  Estimates for the year 2000 and projections for 2030 Diabetes Care, Vol 27, No. 5, May 2004.

Table 2: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Table 3:  http://www.who.int/diabetes/facts/en/

table 4:         http://www.who.int/globalchange/en/index.html

Endnotes

[1]http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0331_050330_unenvironment.html
[2] http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Solutions/Industry.asp
[3] http://www.wd.gc.ca/eng/77_9590.asp
[4] http://www.america.gov/global/environ.html
[5] www.who.int/hhr
[6] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2234571/posts

Works Cited

Arendt, Hannah. The Human condition. Chicago press, Chicago.1998.

Botkin, Daniel. Discordant Harmonies, A new Ecology for the twenty-first Century Oxford University Press Inc, New York 1990.

Dobson, Andrew. Citizenship and the Environment. Oxford  University Press Inc, New York 2003.

Herdwick, David, Earth’s Health in Sharp Decline, Massive Study Finds:National Geographic News., March 31, 2005. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0331_050330_unenvironment.html May 29, 2009

Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth. On death and dying. Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., New York 1969.

Lovelock, James.  The revenge of Gaia. Basic Books,  New York, 2006.

Lupton, Deborah. Medicine as Culture. Sage Publications Inc, London, 2003.

Plumwood, Val. Environmental Culture. Routledge, New York. 2002.

Serres, Michel.The Natural Contract. Trans E. MacArthur and W. Paulson. University of Michigan Press, United States of America, 1995.

Wild, Sarah et al. Global Prevalence of Diabetes  Estimates for the year 2000 and projections for 2030 Diabetes Care, Vol 27, No. 5, May 2004.

David Suzuki Foundation. Solving global warming, Solutions: Industry
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Solutions/Industry.asp May 29, 2009

Health and human rights www.who.int/hhr
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5131.html  May29, 2009

U.S. Department of Commerce | National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration | NOAA Research  Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide – Mauna Loa http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/  May 29th 2009

New Biofuels Development Council receives federal-provincial funding http://www.wd.gc.ca/eng/77_9590.asp May 29th 2009

Energy & Environment | Protecting our natural resources  http://www.america.gov/global/environ.html May 29th 2009

Global Cooling Earth’s Little-Known Threat. CBN News  | April 20, 2009 | Dale Hurd http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2234571/posts May 29, 2009