To Your Health

by Matt DeNoto

I turned 30 over the weekend, and my parents flew out from Long Island to visit me. My mom brought me a very special gift: a cold. Over the last couple of days I’ve dealt with severe post-nasal drip, a very runny nose and a lack of appetite. But I don’t have health insurance, so I will not be heading out to see a doctor. Instead, I self-medicate with over the counter cold medicine that makes my brain feel ever so slightly detached from my body in a way that makes me glad I’m not operating any heavy machinery today.

So I thought this might be a good day to talk about health care. After all, the Green Revolution is all about treating the world better, and naturally that includes our own bodies. I got into a bit of a debate about health care with another family member last week. He held that socialized medicine doesn’t work, an opinion he formed on the basis of testimonies from friends who live abroad. My opinion was that any system must work better than ours. From my standpoint (as one of the many uninsured), government-run health care is better than depending on the emergency room for everything.

The debate ended with us agreeing that Congress couldn’t legislate its way out of a cardboard box and we went on with our meal. But a point came to me later that I wish we could have discussed further.

You see, he doesn’t want government-run health care because he thinks government cannot run anything intelligently on a large scale for a long term. I’m inclined to agree. However, I feel more strongly that health care as an industry should not be in private hands, because those hands will inevitably put profit above all else, including the well being of those insurance companies supposedly serve.

The idea has come into my mind several times over the last decade or so that things might run more smoothly if we built flexibility into the system. What I mean by that is it is not set in stone that the government can run certain things and private companies others. There are many places in the country right now where institutions that had been in government hands for a long time are being rented out to private companies, who are running those institutions better. Municipal services, prisons, even schools are being handed over. And for now, the private companies are doing it better because the government systems they replaced had grown too large, too bureaucratic and too expensive.

But eventually, those private companies will fall into their own trap. They will squeeze services too thin for the sake of profit margins. They will ignore the customer because they are a monopoly.

When that time comes, government will most likely need to take back over.

It’s a cycle that, when looked at objectively, seems fairly natural. One system takes on a task until it loses focus, at which time the task is handed over to a different system. If everyone were to take some perspective on it and accept that this situation is okay, that this is just how things are supposed to go, perhaps the idea of the hand-off wouldn’t be so dramatic.

Of course, nothing is that easy. Especially when it involves large organizations, profit, and the lives of private citizens. Washington is currently attempting to do what the Clinton Administration failed to do (and what other administrations in recent history didn’t even try to do): reform the health care industry. How does the country improve service while lowering costs without making the system completely unprofitable? Should there be a non-profit, government-funded intermediary between doctors and insurance companies to take over the authorization of services? After all, one of the big debates right now is that it is often more profitable for insurance companies to deny coverage, so what if we took that decision out of their hands? Insurance companies would obviously balk at the idea of giving that power to the doctors, so perhaps an independent body not driven by money should take over. On the other hand, would another level of bureaucracy really make the industry more efficient?

While you figure it all out, it’s time for another dose of DayQuil.

Evolution of the Revolution

by Matt DeNoto

Before the Industrial Revolution, travel was slow and dangerous. Goods were made by hand. Everything took much, much longer.

And that’s because there was a limiting factor to all human endeavors. Back then the limiting factor was power. The only means we had to affect change were our own hands or the animals we domesticated.

So we did the smart thing. We found a better source of power. At first it was steam. Over time we discovered oil. Suddenly power was, for the most part, no longer part of the equation. Human productivity flourished. We were able to make more food, stronger shelters, and faster modes of transportation and communication.

Today there are new limiting factors to our endeavors. These new limiting factors include the dwindling supply of natural materials, the buildup of waste, and the strains of urban populations.

Now we must do the smart thing again. We must find better ways of using what we have. That’s what the Green Revolution really is. A smart reaction to our problems.

I imagine that one of the reasons the Green Revolution is so polarizing is because it is a response to problems that we ourselves caused. We chose to use a limited resource that causes pollution when we burn it for power. We chose to bury our trash in the ground, rather than find ways of re-incorporating it into the flow of goods. We chose to allow cities to become clogged beyond their reasonable capacities.

Why didn’t we see it earlier? Why have we not been self-correcting all along?

For one thing, we didn’t have the information. Sure, burning oil churns out nasty-smelling fumes, but the fumes dissipate and then they’re gone. As far as we knew, trash buried was gone for good and would never bother anyone again.

It’s only over the past couple of decades that our collective consciousness has really started putting the pieces together. And a lot of that has to do with a technology that simply didn’t exist previously. Computers.

The ability to store and manipulate huge amounts of data has finally shown us the consequences of our choices. Computer models are what tell us that the climate changes we’re seeing now do not line up with nature. They tell us when we can expect every oil well to run dry.

And just as computers were able to show us the problem, they are now being utilized to formulate the solutions. They are modeling more efficient batteries and cities. They are finding the ideal placement for solar arrays and wind turbines. Perhaps even more significantly, the internet has allowed like-minded individuals to come together and form plans of action.

Just as railroads and the telegraph helped speed up the Industrial Revolution, so our modern means of communication are building the momentum of the Green Revolution.

I guess the point I’m getting at is that the Green Revolution is not terribly revolutionary. And that’s a good thing. We’ve been through this before. It should be a comforting thought to those who believe we as a people don’t have a capacity for change, and it should be a wake-up call for those who don’t want to.

At the same time, there are those who feel we are not moving fast enough. It can be hard to look at the huge problems facing humanity in the future and not feel frustrated with it for the slow pace of change. To those people, I hope this little meditation has a calming effect. It’s only been a relatively small amount of time that we’ve known enough to see the problems we’re causing.

It will take time, but we’re now doing the smart thing.

opinion: green backs

By Matt DeNoto

What if doing the best thing for the environment also meant never having to pay income taxes again?

One of the major factors slowing down the Green Revolution is cost. New technologies, new infrastructure and new designs all cost money, even though they’re not (yet) commercially competitive. So where would the money come from?

Visionary book Natural Capitalism, by Amory & Hunter Lovins (co-founders of the Rocky Mountain Institute) and Paul Hawken, paints a picture of a world where doing the right thing is not only the most responsible choice, but it’s also the most economical. And it all rides on one simple fact that lawmakers everywhere should come to accept.

Taxes are a burden.

Like jury duty and voting, paying taxes has been pitched to us as a civic duty. But at the end of the day, no one looks at taxes that way. All we see is the money draining from our wallets. First through the deductions from our paychecks, and then again through sales tax when we go to buy anything. Come April, everyone in America does their best to pay as little in taxes as possible.

As it stands today, taxes appear to be punishment for doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing – working hard and contributing to society. What if we took the negative connotations associated with taxes and used them to encourage more conscientious behavior?

The first step is doing away with all income taxes. The second step is reapplying those taxes to practices and materials that do harm to the community and the world. Under this scenario, when a contractor was shopping for windows for a new building, the most affordable windows would no longer be the ones made from the flimsiest material. Shoddily made windows don’t insulate well, and they would be taxed more heavily for it. Windows that do insulate well would be subject to less tax, thus helping make them more competitive. Recycled paper would be taxed at a lower rate than paper made from virgin pulp. Gasoline would be taxed at a higher rate than sustainable biofuels. Sustainable fish, sustainable wood, sustainable sources of heat, products made without toxic chemicals, all of these would become commercially viable options.

The really wonderful thing about this system is that it reinforces where responsibility truly lies, with the consumer. If a homeowner wants a certain brand of siding on his/her home that isn’t as environmentally friendly as a different brand, the homeowner knows s/he is paying the price for that choice.

Another benefit of the system is its flexibility. As consumers become more and more aware of their purchasing power, unsustainable products and practices will become uneconomical and go bankrupt. Now the government can redistribute the taxes in order to encourage even MORE sustainability.

It appears that the process may already be starting, albeit slowly and without much fanfare. Part of the recent stimulus plan passed by Congress is income tax cuts, which as President Obama has pointed out we can expect to see factored into our paychecks next month. The money for the tax cuts will come from the carbon ‘cap and trade’ plan that Obama is currently trying to get through Congress. The plan will most likely mean, as Republicans are quick to point out, that energy prices will rise. But it also means that we as consumers have more money in our pockets. It will be up to us whether we use that extra money to pay the higher energy prices, or put the money toward finding ways to cut our energy use altogether. It means that the choice most industries have made to pollute indiscriminately is one we will no longer have to carry on our backs.

So what do we do when the system is as sustainable as it can get, and there’s nothing left to tax?  I think that’s a problem our great-great-great-great-grandchildren will be happy to have.