This column is sponsored by ESRI
The stewardship of our planet has many parallels to the healthcare system for the treatment and prevention of illness and disease in humans. For starters, human biology is a balance of systems much in the same way that our planet’s biosphere is a balance of systems. Similar to how modern medicine tackles human health issues, we tend to take both a medical and social approach to eradicating the ills of our planet. An example of a medical approach is the determination of point-source pollution, while a social approach deals with the effort to modify our lifestyle choices in order to make our planet healthier.
While the healthcare system is far from perfect, there have been dramatic improvements to quality of life and human longevity. The way that we care for our planet could learn much from the systemized approach that is taken for patient care, particularly through the application of interdisciplinary teams.
Treatment Escalates with Severity
When you’re ill, you go to a general practitioner and your symptoms are used to form a diagnosis and treatment plan. If your symptoms are easily recognizable and treatable, a prescription is given and you’re left to apply medications and heal. If you have a more serious illness, you’re referred to a specialist who deals specifically with your type of ailment, and has better insight into an effective course of treatment. If you’re really ill, then you’re admitted to a hospital where your care is supported by a broad range of workers that are all focused on making you better.
At a hospital, each person on the team deals with your care. Specialists take a close look at the treatment that’s been prescribed by your primary doctor, and consult their own domain expertise to mesh their treatment with what’s already been prescribed. A large body of support workers are there to administer treatment, feed and care for you, and mend you as quickly as they can.
When it comes to the health of our planet, the general practitioner isn’t necessarily present. There are a cadre of specialists that work to address the many issues involved in our planet’s health, but our understanding of the interworkings of our planet’s systems isn’t very mature. Measured steps can be taken to right the course of large planetary issues, with some impressive measures of success (e.g. the ozone hole), but we don’t have an easy means for interdisciplinary treatment of the very broad and complex problems such as climate change.
Side Effects Are Expected
With the health of our planet, the root cause of large issues aren’t always readily apparent, and the damage that we cause through our ignorance can last generations. Major changes by individuals that alter the landscape or planetary systems can have implications that are only apparent many years down the road, after the health of the land is further compromised.
Certainly medicine undergoes similar issues, particularly when new drugs are prescribed. Side effects of treatment are accepted, and sometimes these side effects can be quite severe. Side effects offer a complex decision about trade-offs that needs justification by individual patient or projects. Sometimes taking measured steps toward our goals of better health or remediation are enough to justify unpleasant ancillary outcomes.
Mapping and Modeling
Advances in medical science have given us much better insight into the way our bodies work. The discovery of DNA gave us insight into our building blocks to understand how individuals are different. The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an amazing accomplishment to decipher and map the 25,000 genes of the human genome for insight into physical and functional details of how we differ.
Continued efforts to understand the connections and inner workings of the human genome will provide benefits, particularly in preventive medicine. Companies have arisen to decode and test for specific markers to help patients determine their likelihood for certain cancers, and give these people advance warning to proactively deal with the issue if there’s a match. Scientists are now working to map 50 cancer genomes, a project that is 25,000 times larger than the output of the HGP, and a very worthy goal considering the impact of this disease.
When it comes to mapping the human body, great advancements have been made to create detailed virtual models to assist students in their knowledge and understanding. In fact, medical students now rely heavily on these virtual models instead of cadavers, and autopsy rates are well below 10% now, given our advanced understanding of trauma and disease.
There are obvious parallels between mapping and modeling the human body and our planet. The more information that we can discover, map and model of both ourselves and our planet, the better we’ll do in managing the health, well being and longevity of both.
Mandate for Health
There’s an ever-increasing body of knowledge about human health, because we all want to live long and healthy lives. We acknowledge the importance of research into disease and illnesses, and we fund that research in order to continuously enhance the quality of our collective health. It would be nice to see the same level of global commitment to the health of our planet.
Most wealthy industrialized nations provide universal healthcare to their populations. Even without publicly funded healthcare, our health is something that we safeguard and we pay into. For some inexplicable reason, the health of our planet becomes a politicized issue, with a lack of consensus about spending what’s needed to fix the problems that we’ve created.
While we’re slowly gaining a better understanding of our complex impacts, a more measured approach would provide a much more efficient and effective answer to our planet’s needs. We need to see the coming together of our knowledge base in order to treat the perils of our planet in a holistic fashion.
Similar to a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath, those disciplines that administer to the health of our planet are ethically bound to leave the Earth better than they found it. Taking actions with the best knowledge available can’t be faulted. While mistakes do happen treating both patients and our planet, it’s the responsibility of professionals in both domains to provide full disclosure and take corrective action.
Read what Jeff Thurston has to say on this subject here.
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