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Humans turned out as masterminds at both trashing the only planet with rich life and treating the sick on it. "No rain drop thinks it's responsible for the flo

Humans turned out as masterminds at both trashing the only planet with rich life and treating the sick on it. "No rain drop thinks it's responsible for the flood...nor does it care."

o10449366 8y ago
"Modern problems require modern solutions." I was reading Michael Pollan's famous "Unhappy Meals" essay the other day and I was struck by this paragraph: "It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we’d have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That’s not what we’re doing. Rather, we’re turning to the health-care industry to help us “adapt.” Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It’s gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it’s working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable." Unfortunately, I see a lot of parallels between food, health, and nutrition and our approach to climate change, too. Every year we incur more and more costs associated with climate change. Entire cities are destroyed, thousands die, and millions more slowly become more and more sick. The costs are truly unsustainable, but the root problems are never addressed. Instead, the homes are simply rebuilt and the cycle continues. We're committing self-destruction as a species. We don't deserve to find another Earth if we can't sustain this one.

Humans turned out as masterminds at both trashing the only planet with rich life and treating the sick on it. "No rain drop thinks it's responsible for the flood...nor does it care."

o10449366 8y ago

"Modern problems require modern solutions." I was reading Michael Pollan's famous "Unhappy Meals" essay the other day and I was struck by this paragraph: "It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we’d have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That’s not what we’re doing. Rather, we’re turning to the health-care industry to help us “adapt.” Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It’s gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it’s working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable." Unfortunately, I see a lot of parallels between food, health, and nutrition and our approach to climate change, too. Every year we incur more and more costs associated with climate change. Entire cities are destroyed, thousands die, and millions more slowly become more and more sick. The costs are truly unsustainable, but the root problems are never addressed. Instead, the homes are simply rebuilt and the cycle continues. We're committing self-destruction as a species. We don't deserve to find another Earth if we can't sustain this one.