September 10, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s muggy outside and there is a hurricane coming up from Baja California, that has brought much needed rain to us. There might be too much rain though. One of my longtime parents who is also a climate advocate told me the rain is helping put out the 20,000 acre fire in Riverside County. Pakistan is currently 1/3 flooded. We are living through already major weather events and natural disasters that were foretold, but even Dr. Plastic Picker did not listen soon enough. It’s interesting but certainly scary. The world is in mitigation mode, as recent American investments in climate including the Inflation Reduction Act and the recent California legislative wins that brought another $54 billion into climate investments – we are now all doing something.

Oh the title!!! It’s really funny isn’t it? It sounds like a curse word but it’s the medical term for “fake lens” for a patient that has cataract surgery. Pediatric cataracts are rare, but can happen and after someone has surgery this is what is placed in their chart to describe the presence of the artificial lens. Pseudophakia. Again, sounds like a curse word. I was having fun playing with the term yesterday and used it in dinnertime conversation. I find life interesting and stimulating, even having the mental space to learn something with each patient encounter. It’s the curiosity that I had when I was a child and in high school. I feel like a child again with that curiosity, and that’s a beautiful thing.

And indeed I think I see the world very clearly and not through a pseudophakia. I’ve done a lot in the last three years of blogging and four years of litter picking. I’ve helped move San Diego and the state of California a millisecond quicker in addressing the code red for humanity, the climate crisis. Folks are catching on. Everyone is waking up. We have hopefully the Climate Ride, Ride for Your Lives, planned and anxiously waiting institutional approval to start from a certain HMO. Children’s Environmental Health Day is taking off, and as a national HMO group we are trying to get publicity and recognize it. I have an October date to present on ESG investments for our physician group, and hoping that will happen. The patch above is the final version of the 200 pilot patches we will be ordering to give out to children during the combined AAP San Diego and San Diego Audubon events. Our paper on leaded aviation fuel has been submitted, and I’m almost 100% positive it will be accepted and it helped a local San Diego premed get into medical school. All our premedical students are doing fantastic and I’m so proud of them.

But given that I see the world clearly and myself clearly and not through a pseudophakia, I know where I’m meant to go. Climate change is going to disproportionately affect my ancestral home. We are at the mouth of the Mekong River and sea level rise will fundamentally displace my family’s home town. There are climate migrations happening already, and will continue to happen. The nature of humans to exploit others is still there. Recently there was a news story of Vietnamese youths being kidnapped in Vietnam by Vietnamese gangs working with Cambodian/Chinese casino bosses, and basically imprisoning these youth to work in these casinos. I am no different then these youths that were kidnapped. When sea level rises, there is going to be those who exploit and what is Dr. Plastic Picker going to do? I’m making plans dear readers. I’m lucky. I’m able to create things, and I’m called to create training programs and schools and opportunities for climate migrants. It’s only something I’m able to do, and I have the commitment and the understanding that I could have been one of those families that will have their homes submerged and their children kidnapped by evil doers. I’m almost at bag 800, and ready to write my book soon. After I get to bag 1000, the book will be done and I’ll probably take down the blog. And then I need to get to work, to continue to help save the earth. But since I’m healed and I am curious and like to figure things out and have the ability, I’m called to create something that I think only I can create.

Meandering thoughts of your local litter picking pediatrician.