||| FROM BILL APPEL |||
At a faraway hospital at which that faraway region’s foremost medical specialists were on call, a comatose patient was brought in through its busy emergency entrance.
The patient had been found unresponsive in the mid-afternoon shade of a city park, and brought in as a charity case. Her vital measurements were taken:
- Heart rate: 120 beats per minute
- Body temperature: 107 degrees Fahrenheit
- Respiration rate: 26 breaths per minute
- Oxygen saturation: 72 percent
But there was another condition that was apparent to all who examined her: eczema. Her beautifully-formed face was pockmarked with sores surrounded by flaking skin. Her wrists and the backs of her hands were likewise blemished.
There was an immediate conference between the internist on duty and the dermatologist who had been reflexively called in by the intake nurse. A professional but heated discussion ensued and was referred to a medical administration that disliked arguments. A short time later, over the internist’s objections, the patient was wheeled into the care of the dermatologist, who, looking back over their shoulder, said to onlookers, “Well have her looking good in no time!”
The next day, the patient died.
This faraway hospital did not practice medical triage.
Moral:
We, too, must practice triage and establish a dynamic approach to resilience. Currently, the policy is, “Whatever we have, we must save every square foot of it,” a heroic stance of perfection that is the enemy of the good, thereby risking all we seek to save.
Given the need to literally clear the air and at the same time provide energy security to a demanding population, what can be saved, what can be moved, and where is there more of it?
Such an inventory with natural systems analysis would be a valuable planning tool.
We are in a conflict; whether we created it or not is beside the point. Why make it worse? There will be losses in any event, but only with triage can the losses be minimized while preserving life at large.
Think about it.
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Bill–I thought about it (didn’t take much). First thought: I liked the parable better without the moral or specific reference – that was pretty clear anyway. You could apply it to any number of situations.
Second thought: Yes, perfection is often the enemy of the good, but we do have to make hard decisions (“triage,” as the situation gets worse, which it will). But we do still need an ideal to hold in our vision and hearts, and against which to balance those decisions. Along the way, argument (civil discussion) is good. You’re a complex thinker; I know you know this.
Third thought: “Such an inventory with natural systems analysis would be a valuable planning tool.” You bet!–Let’s start right here in the relatively limited eco-social system of San Juan County!
you write “We, too, must practice triage and establish a dynamic approach to resilience. Currently, the policy is, “Whatever we have, we must save every square foot of it,” a heroic stance of perfection that is the enemy of the good” Could you give an example of this “current policy”? IMHO, the current policy is let the buyer beware, full speed ahead, the Comp Plan be damned. Saving every square foot (perhaps I don’t know what you mean here) does not seem at all like the current non-policy, in which there are essentially NO BRAKES on population growth. Island Stewards has a survey out there; we just added a question about preferred population desires by survey takers. Only a few so far as we just launched this question yesterday, but preliminary results should over 90% of respondents want no further growth in population and a number feel we are already “too full”. You can take the survey at
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdo6ihzAu6q2WEALknM3qCgLKi8ObNnzVxkuv-15pi9WG4y_w/formResponse
to offer your opinion about all the elements of the Comp Plan, including your thoughts about population growth. To learn more, islandstewards.org will get you started, and if you want to know what is really going on, visit doebay.net/bigpicture.pdf
Yes, Brian, I was a bit heavy-handed. And yes, an ideal is needed to be our pole star.
But the tough question is, if what we do to continue to meet current and anticipated (wait ’til this summer!) needs, something must be done to meet those needs because the failure of air conditioning during heat waves endangers a large portion of our population, let alone heat and light in midwinter. This will result in disturbance of some natural system somewhere. My point is, what natural system where are we willing to compromise in order to meet the needs/demands of humans here in the San Juans? Hospitals have triage rules. We don’t, leading us into a battle over every square foot.
It’s a tough decision, affecting aesthetics, and consequently tourism and real estate values, let alone local blood pressure and the consequences of destroying needed (usually determined after the fact) systems upon which we and our environment rely. So yes, the ideal is needed as our standard to do least damage to systems we must learn. I would expect the triage rules would change as we learn from our mistakes. Ideally, feedback and constant amendment would be the rule. No start, no progress.
So yes, our county should set the example by adopting a serious syllabus to build a set of triage rules involving all sorts of invasive behavior gradually evolving from civil engineering to natural engineering, and working toward a carbon-neutral energy resilience en route.
Joe, if you want an example of the “every square foot” policy expressed by individuals, read some of the other posts on this site over the past few weeks and by the plethora of objections to the proposed siting of a solar installation on Bailer Hill. The county is subtler though heavy-handed, by failing to recognize OPALCO as an “essential public facility”. These factors together make its ability to respond in advance to an anticipated power shortfall on the Northwest Grid (which nearly collapsed in January 2024) a long and drawn out process with success in constant doubt, which grants, what few are left, expire, all this to be paid for by OPALCO’s member-customers. This is not the way government and the only utility whose mission is to provide energy for the health and welfare of those the county governs, should operate.
As to the matter of population control, I find the psychological syndrome known as “Last man in the lifeboat” to be characteristic of many residents. I think polls while interesting, tend to increase expectations that will be frustrated if for no oter reason than lack of tools. Stopping development is apt to increase the number of unhoused, the tools dealing with which are constantly before the US Supreme Court. A thorough study of carrying capacity might be more relevant at the conclusion of which some tools might be reached but not before. But that’s another topic!
After seeing specialist after specialist, and trying multiple treatment programs and attending multiple support groups a man was brought into the emergency room of an isolated community clinic one day complaining of severe pain.
Patient: “You gotta help me doctor, I’ve tried everything.”
Doctor: “What seems to be the problem?”
Patient: “I hurt everywhere.”
Doctor: “Can you be more specific please?”
Patient: “Yes, (pointing with his finger), it hurts here, ouch! And here, ouch! And here, ouch! You gotta help me Doc. What is it?”
Doctor: “You’ve got a broken finger.”
Moral:
Know what the root problems of your symptoms are before you initiate policy objectives designed to solve them.
You said, “My point is, what natural system where are we willing to compromise in order to meet the needs/demands of humans here in the San Juans?”
You ask the wrong question. When I look around (both here, nationally, and worldwide) at the degenerating state of affairs (climate change, ecological overshoot, wars for resources, income inequality, homelessness, war and climate refugees, etc.), the answer to this seems clear. As humans, we’ve already crossed that line. Putting energy security for an ever-growing demanding population over the needs of the environment is ecocidal in nature.
A better question might be, “Should we continue going down our current path knowing that it’s compromising our natural systems and degrading our quality of life?”
Just because we live in relative isolation from the mainland does not mean that we’re islands unto ourselves. What we do here has a cumulative impact upon the world around us. We need to establish a method of monitoring our carbon footprint and our impact upon the natural systems around us in order to create a baseline from which we can quantify and measure our impacts on the health of our natural systems. Without such a tool we have no way of knowing what the threshold is for either our, or our surrounding environment’s ability to assimilate the impacts created by business as usual.
We’ve already started along this path with our ability to measure our annual greenhouse gas emissions, our ability to monitor our air quality, and the Salish Sea Institute’s annual report of the State of the Salish Sea… how can we synthesize and further these efforts?
Once we establish a method of quantifying and measuring our carbon footprint, and correlate this with the impacts that our activities are having on the natural world around us we will undoubtedly discover that the status quo, that is, that business as usual is not in the long term best interests of humans and non-human species alike.
Good conversation!
When everything goes wrong, like Inigo Montoya, I go back to the beginning…
Consider that ever since some single celled organism discovered the magic of photosynthesis and became the Plantae, other cells, the Animalia, have been eating the photosynthetic ones (or each other), essentially harvesting/stealing/parasitizing energy from somewhere/someone else. That seems to just be the way the thin crust of Life on this whirling ball of rock works. We have each grown ourselves from a single cell (zygote) to whatever state we are currently in, using available molecules from our immediate environment. Those borrowed elements and molecules have been circulating through Lifeforms for a long, long, long time before we got to use them and we all know that will have to give them back eventually so someone else can have a turn with playing with them.
My intended point being that it is foolish to over-focus on our LOCAL ecological footprint for several reasons: there is no real environmental “edge” to anything except the edge of space. Certainly there is nothing “real” about a political boundary on a map. Our wastes mostly leave the county via the atmosphere, the water and via trucks. Likewise, most of our inputs come from outside of the county. Given those points, how can we speak rationally of our ecological footprint without considering the WHOLE of the biosphere?
I suggest that we ignore WHERE our individual damage to the biosphere is being done and focus instead on reducing the damage everywhere by making decisions that prioritize the health of the entire biosphere, not just the bit of it that we happen to be standing on at the moment. A brilliant friend of mine once said, “Wisdom is difficult to define and even harder to quantify, but Health IS definable and to some extent at least, quantifiable.” Perhaps we should make Health our metric for decision making?
Assuming that we have crossed the line would argue that nothing can be done, so going on from there is meaningless.
I am suggesting that we get our arms around the problem by fully assessing our environment, local though it be, and take such measures as we can to prevent or at least minimize further damage. This involves choices, all of which add to the ecological damage. But some, needed for the health and welfare of our population, do less damage than others. Insistence that we do nothing will continue the larger damage of steadily increased fossil fuel use.
Although when it comes to ecological overshoot and climate change there are experts in the field who would say that “there is no way out of this one,” that the damage that has been done is irreversible, when I stated “we’ve already crossed that line,” I’m merely referencing the fact that as humans the path we’re on is certainly a downward spiral with the end result going to a no win for anybody… we all lose. Not that there isn’t anything we can do, or should try to do about it.
You, Bill, are more concerned about creating enough electricity (more electricity) to avoid blackouts in order to continue doing everything that we’re doing wrong now, (increased tourism, increased growth, increased development, etc.), than youi are damaging the environment. You speak as if damaging the environment is a given (you state as much), and that there is no other way. This should not be our only option.
Degrowth and massive conservation is an option that will not further damage our ecosystems. And thouygh most all of us have recognized that this is the only viable solution, but there are many out there, yourself included Bill, who keep saying that degrowth and massive conservation (which may be ultimately what we will do), though indeed what we need to do… will not happen until people have to. “Until they have to.” I’ve heard you say that yourself before. What does that mean? Until the government forces them to? Until the world’s gone to shit and they have no other choice?
Again, you said, “My point is, what natural system where are we willing to compromise in order to meet the needs/demands of humans here in the San Juans?”
And again I say, “You’re asking the wrong question.” Compromising our natural systems to continue doing what we’re already doing wrong should not be our only option. The sacrifice we should be making is in our personal lifestyles, and our county’s choice of economic engines… it’s time for degrowth. How absurd it is to think we need to continue destroying nature to continue what we’re already doing wrong. It may be an option, but it’s not the only one,. and it’s not the best one.
Ken, you have shown repeatedly over the years that you’re opposed to anything that you have to help pay for, and that you’re against any further studies of any kind. My guess is that as a realtor and a vacation rental operator your fear is that your pocketbook (your lifestyle) might be negatively affected by such. You seem to be all over doing something, or nothing, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect you. It’s time we all take a look at how we conduct ourselves in union with our natural surroundings (that we take measure of our impacts), and we start making sacrifices accordingly.