The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Physicians and Global Warming

H. Steven Moffic, M.D.
smoffic@mcw.edu

Yale got me started as a community-oriented physician and psychiatrist. How could that not happen, when I was exposed to Fritz Redlich, M.D. as Dean and a rotation at the Community Mental Health Center? Redlich was famous for his treatise on how social class adversely effected mental illness, which was illustrated to me at my community rotation in medical school.

However, it wasn’t until 40 years later that I realized that such a “community” was really the world. At least from a global warming standpoint, the world has to be my community.

From a psychological point of view, and I am a psychiatrist, these recent years of ignorance shouldn’t be surprising. Our evolutionary response to immediate – but not distant – danger is to fight-or-flight. The Freudian defense mechanism of denial allows us to prioritize what is most important in life, and goodness knows, physicians are more and more subject to productivity goals that leave little time to pay attention to social and humanitarian factors. And, until recently, perhaps the science affirming the future risks of global warming wasn’t convincing enough.

But no longer is my ignorance satisfactory. Not when I have three young grandchildren. Not when I now know that we physicians have been conspicuously silent on global warming. Not when I know that violence increases with small annual rises in temperature. Not when I know of the other health risks of global warming, including infections, dehydration, and climate refugees. And not when I know that Section VII of our AMA’s Principles of Medical Ethics states: “A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health.” Now I know of the many personal things I can do in my everyday life and the many advocacy groups to join.

How about you?

Published: July 26, 2007