Projects, Projects, Need To Finish Projects
March 23, 2021
by drplasticpicker
It’s 5am, and I’ve been up for already 1.5 hours. I fell asleep early last night, and at 3am I wasn’t sure if I should start my day. But my body said, get up Dr. Plastic Picker – get up Dr. Plastic Picker. I am working on a journal article of the Built Environment and Environmental Justice with four other AAP Climate Advocates, so that article is on my mind. I should be able to write a lot of it today. My section is only about 1000 words which is the length of a blogpost. But it’s a “real article” and I have to get in the emotional and intellectual space to write it.
Early mornings are the best because I kind of sort out my brain and what I need to do for work and the world. I’ve mostly caught up on my work emails already as well. I have to work on this mediCAL Performance Improvement Project as well. I’m waiting for a colleague to see if she will participate, but life is complicated and I’m not sure how much she will do. In the end, I’ll get it done if I have to but I want to give folks space to do it if they can.
But the work is endless. Climate work as well. But knowing how absolutely dire and catastrophic things will be if we don’t do something if actually very freeing. It was a year ago that I completed my training as a climate reality leader. I forget how impactful those two weeks were.
I was catching up on some of the climate activist on Instagram, and listened to Greta Thunberg’s recent comments on another international summit. I kind of agree. It’s all blah, blah, blah. Talk, talk, talk. It’s important to talk and meet, and build and strengthen the social movement. I’m there in that space. Helping our premed intern Vivian Nguyen recruits speakers for a panel discussion on Environmental Justice for UC Berkeley Premed Students. During the kid’s school vacation, I committed to attending two conferences. One to be trained as a Legislative Advocate for the AAP, and another as a panel speaker for the Oregon Pediatric Society which is the AAP Oregon Chapter. I exchanged emails with some colleagues at work who want to start incorporating climate talks into their residency curriculum. It’s all fine and good. We have to inspire folks, but for me – its hard. I need to do things. I agree with Greta Thunberg, blah, blah, blah,. Talk, talk talk. Empty promises.
So I’m going about my life and trying to do things, and trying to be impactful. So today my goal is
- Get Decent Headway on Journal Article. This is actually really doing something, because this connects me with four other AAP Climate Advocates who are moving things in their regions. The journal article is an intellectual exercise, but also gives all of us some political oomph to move things forward in our regions.
- MediCAL Performance Improvement Project. This is actually part of work, but also important for the environment. If we can decrease the no-show rate for teen mediCAL patients, the whole medical system improves in terms of efficiency and we reduce health-care inequities. We also reduce carbon emissions by not having wasted medical appointments. I wonder if it has to do with whether they are signed up for the patient portal? I’ll have to include that in the study design. This is going to be a lot of work, but I need to present some preliminary stuff tomorrow.
- Starbucks Coffee Grounds. I did succeed yesterday finally in collecting coffee grounds from the HMO little cofffee stall. It wasn’t much but at least it was some. I need to add things to my composter! This is so important. There are a lot of unused coffee grounds going into the landfill. I haven’t been successful getting coffee grounds from the local Starbucks. I’ll call them today at 6am to see if they can’t save me some. This is important to reduce methane emissions!
- AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health Green Ribbon. This was an amazing project that really was spear-headed entirely by another pediatrician. But I did finish sending her my contribution to the cash scholarships for the 3 winners. I put that in my donations as well. I need to get the 3 concrete planters to the organizer. I’ll just send her a text when the rest of the world is up.
- HMO Butterfly Garden. I just did it myself. What is a butterfly garden? It’s just native plants that attract pollinators. Check out Instagram if you want. Sometimes things don’t have to be hard. When the flowers bloom and the soil is regenerated, everyone else can enjoy it and take credit. I need to plant the seeds now. We have to save the world at the microscopic / bacterial/ fungal network level.
And a bunch of other things done this morning. I made the two trash art wine cork figures this morning, after I cleaned out our junk drawer and reorganized things. Nothing was really thrown away but the plastic bread ties were not going to be used again. I thought I was very creative! The last trashart piece went to a special someone already, so I needed new things to give away.
I made pizza dough again but reusing the WHOY for the first time. Don’t know what WHOY is? Check out this funny post. Oh wait, I don’t think I blogged about it. It’s on my Instgram and personal Facebook feed. I declared the existence of WHOY, which is the strained liquid when you make soy-milk based yogurt. Yes I did. I gave my mom a Costco soup container sized amount of compost tea. She is too squeaming for the real compost stuff, but the compost tea is really good for her plants! I fed Dr. Dear Friend yesterday my Easy Peasy Split Green Pea soup and indeed the kids had the rest of it last night for dinner. I even gave Dr. Dear Friend some of the soy-milk based yogurt with granola. All that was essentially home-made, reused containers, and all really free. But more importantly the food was good quality. I’m sure she had good bowel movements. I almost texted her last night to see how regular she was. But then I thought, that’s kind of weird. I’ll ask her during the daytime. That’s more normal. We’re doctors, we talk about poop all the time!
And that is it. That is what I need to get done today. Thank you for following along. It really helps me sort out my mind in terms of really what I need to do for the day. I think I’ll crawl back into bed and sleep an hour or so. Last night was not optimal sleep, but I’ll take a nap today as well since I’m working from home. Oh, and then I have a Climate Actions Campaign meeting this evening at 530. We’re trying to take out the natural gas industry. Yes we are.