August 18, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I’ve done my due diligence. I’ve presented at multiple high levels meetings and I’ve told the divestment story. I’ve shown pictures of students protesting at the UC campus and at Harvard. I talked about how members took over the Board of Directors within the Harvard governance system, and that is what forced the divestment issue. I showed pictures of union groups rallying regarding SB1173. I said specifically at least five times now to those in charge or with some level of influence, “there is a huge up swelling of grassroots support for fossil fuel divestment and this includes union groups. We need to be ahead of the curve to gain public support and gain trust equity within the community. It’s the right thing to do.”

I was met with the same expected response. Thank yous for my advocacy and passion. Thank you for understanding the system. Advice about how to proceed by taking smaller steps. I will continue to talk about divestment versus investment. I will work within our system. I’ll move our investments forward to more ESG funds and yes there are other projects to do like reducing the use of unnecessary surgical drapes.

But in the end, this blog is my emotional journey of a pediatrician who recognizes the existential crisis of climate change. And I had some big meetings and will continue to have these meetings, but I’m frustrated to the 100th degree. I’m a working stiff, who happily worked the staggered late shift last night. I’ve done so much for our medical system and I am very cost effective. And I’ve never wasted any money. And those that are sitting and being cogs in the HMO machinery. Those who are not listening to me, I get it. We are so big. But you are not being cost effective. You are wasting my time and my money. Fossil fuel investments are investments in climate disaster. What is your money and our real estate worth is the world keeps on warming?

We need to stop the existential threat of climate change, and fossil fuel divestment by our large HMO could pop the bubble in oil extraction. We could help bend the arc toward a sustainable future faster and maybe avert some of the dire catastrophic climatic disasters that are coming. The megaflood in California, the wildfires that are already here, the heat waves that are already here. But in the midst of all that, HMO you are asking me to take baby steps.

Yes I’ll work in the system and take baby steps. Someone else already tried to raise a rukus and got in trouble from another region. I’m a former Assistant Boss and I know not to do that. I’ll take baby steps and get that regional position that no one wants, because no one is being paid to do it – and I’ll do it for free. But in the end, I’m as crazy an environmentalist as those others that you fear who realizes what the threat is. I’m just old enough to have been in middle-management to know you need those within who support this.

But when the children come. When the protestors come. When the megafloods come (the wildfires and the drought are already here), I told you so. They won’t come for me because I’m Dr. Plastic Picker, and I was an inside agent anyway. I 100% told you so. And I put it on the blog and I’ve put it in at least 5 power point presentations. And that is it. This is the emotional journey of a litter-picking pediatrician who continues to try to move the needle on climate change within the very large frustrating HMO system.