“It may be said with truth that man is always susceptible of improvement.” —Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
Editor-In-Chief, Chester “Trip” Buckenmaier III, MD, COL (ret.), MC, USA
I have had the good fortune to live in a classic Annapolis, MD, community blessed with an old-growth forest that exists throughout this Chesapeake bayside development. Many of these trees are black and chestnut oaks, consisting of numerous specimen trees greater than 100 years old. My wife and I have managed to stay in this community since 2007. This is the longest I have ever lived in one place in my entire life.
As a military family and being children of military families, staying in one place for more than a decade is rare for my wife and me. For 14 seasons, I have observed the natural cycles of the forest I live in and the expected loss of old-growth trees in our community forest or on my own property. During the last couple of years, I have observed a dramatic change in my local environment, as countless old-growth trees have suddenly died in a short time. On my own half-acre property, we have lost nine 100+ year-old oaks, averaging a tree lost each year. This same scenario plays out all over our development and, as I have come to learn, all over Maryland.
Increasing oak tree mortality has become an issue for the entire mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The personal financial pain incurred from removing these dead trees that tower over my home is significant. More importantly, the direct evidence this tree phenomenon represents as a consequence of global warming is sobering. Local drought punctuated by violent wet periods due to climate change is weakening and killing these trees at a ridiculous pace. Global warming is literally observable in my own backyard.
These environmental changes impacting my family are just a drop in the bucket compared to the negative ecological situations playing out across this country and the world. One can hardly watch the evening news of late without another reminder of our natural environment negatively changing. The West bakes in drought and burns with an intensity beyond anyone’s experience. The recurrence of “100-year” flooding events seems to be an annual routine for the Mississippi River watershed. At an unprecedented rate, the East Coast is plagued with hurricanes and tornado-generating storms (a tornado recently hit Annapolis). Our climate is changing, and we know it is the result of human activity.
Basically, as we continue to burn fossil fuels to power our lives and economy, we are increasing greenhouse gasses (methane and carbon dioxide) in our atmosphere beyond the planet’s ability to reabsorb these gasses (plants do this). These gasses retain the sun’s heat energy on our world. This heat is changing our climate dynamic. The effects of this can be observed in the increased drought in parts of our country, increased violence of storms, increased glacial melting and sea-level rise, and the dying trees in my backyard, among myriad examples.
As with the science backing the use of COVID-19 vaccines in the management of the pandemic (no worries, dear reader, I am as exhausted about lamenting on our COVID-19 response as you are weary reading on the subject), the science linking human activity to global warming is as close to a fact as one can get using the scientific method. The latest environmental slap-in-the-face was provided by Hurricane Ida. The storm cut a surprising swath of destruction across the central and eastern United States. This lethal storm was made only more tragic by the families highlighted on the evening news, whose lives were upended by the violent weather, lamenting the government’s failure to protect them.
News flash: Governments today cannot control the weather or protect you from it. Governments and the people they represent can only influence those human activities that negatively impact the global climate, expressed in weather. At its most simplistic, human burning of fossil fuel for energy is moving our weather patterns in a negative direction that is obviously already bad and has the potential to get far worse. People and politicians with financial ties to the petroleum energy industry will deny, confuse, misrepresent and even lie in the service of their economic self-interest in this tremendously valuable industry. Millions of advertising dollars are spent by big oil to push ideas of clean coal (misnomer) or the tremendous expense of green energy or reducing carbon emissions is too expensive as examples. In fact, the physics of global warming and the environmental consequences that result do not care a lick for these excuses. The physics of global warming just is, and it does not concern itself with humans’ economic desires or health. Only humans have the power and ability to care for fellow humans in this universe. In short, we are the masters of our survival or destruction on this planet. The science of global warming is just that, dispassionate science; the facts and consequences will occur whether we accept it or not.
While Thomas Malthus (of Malthusian Consequence fame) was focused on the downsides of unchecked population growth on an ecosystem, his comments regarding our absolute need for improvement are as valid today as ever. One could argue that our current climate dilemma directly results from unchecked population growth and the ever-increasing demand for energy. The harsh reality of our present situation is that the climate is not just changing; it has already changed. The increased violence of storms, changing local flora and fauna (like the loss of oaks in my yard), the intensity of forest fires, drought and possibly even increased incidence of pandemics is our reality now. These negative Malthusian Consequences of our fossil fuel burning are here to stay. We failed as a species to prevent global warming. Currently, our discussion is limited to how we will adjust our lives to deal with this reality and how far we are going to allow our environment to deteriorate.
As federal physicians, I feel we have a collective duty to advocate for all things health-related regarding our patients. Our patients look to our community for leadership and direction regarding their health. I believe climate change to be the single greatest threat to the general health of the population we serve. I vote, buy products, and consume energy with an eye toward trying to reduce my carbon footprint, and I encourage my patients to do the same with my example. For everyone’s sake, I would suggest you do the same. Our human use of the resources of this planet is “always susceptible of improvement.” It will not be easy, but we should stop acting like we have any other choice.
