September 16, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Above is a picture of my first born putting on his own shoes. For various reasons, I am very proud that he is able to do that and that he gets out the door by himself without assistance. Sometimes all of us just watch him leave from the porch: his grandmother, his grandfather, the puppy and myself. His sister was still sleeping because she had virtual school yesterday. He got to the car all by himself without any assistance, and his father (Mr. Plastic Picker) drove him to his fancy prep school in the family’s red Prius. They listen to NPR on the way to school. His breakfast was a vegan sausage and broccolli sauteed with some vegetable broth, and a piece of Dave’s Killer Wheat Bread which is palm-oil free. With that, he was sent forth into his teenage world hopefully avoiding COVID-19.

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September 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Above was bag #283 and item #1050 was a flattened alumnium can on the road. I oddly really like recycling those aluminum cans because I figure no one else will. Of those items, 483 have been aluminum cans. I only did an analysis on aluminum cans called “Aluminum Cans: The High Yield Salvagable” https://drplasticpicker.com/aluminum-cans-the-high-yield-salvagable/. At that point I was only at 150 aluminum cans. But even at 150 cans, I realized how high-yield it was to pick those on my walks especially the flattened ones that probably no one else would recycle.  I have always been fascinated by the idea of efficiency. So as drplasticpicker, I want to help the earth but do it in an efficient manner. Remember of the 100 billion aluminum cans sold in the US, only half are recycled. So every year there are 50 billion aluminum cans that never make it back. Recycling one aluminum can is enough to power a television for 3 hours. Therefore 1050 aluminum cans, I could watch Star Trek Enterprise straight for 131 days. But I can watch it anyway since we have solar panels that produce double the energy we use (yes I went a bit overboard). The best thing about aluminum cans is that they are endlessly recycle them.

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September 14, 2020

by drplasticpicker

When I started this journey of climate activism and picking up ocean plastic pollution a year ago, I never thought that writing would be my way to make a difference. I began blogging at 4am this morning, earlier than I usually do. I had to work yesterday at Pediatric After Hours Clinic and it was a relatively quiet and fun shift. I did pick up a hip click that two other doctors missed so I felt good about that. But anytime my schedule is a bit off – my sleep is disrupted. Writing like ocean plastic picking tends to quiet my mind. I love the sound of the clicking on my key board. It makes me feel like I’m going somewhere, eventhough most mornings I’m just sitting at my kitchen table. The air purifier is running this morning and that is a stark reminder of our climate crisis. It’s been running all night and stable in the 30s PM 2.5 but when you open the door, it shoots up to the mid 50s. Before the wildfires began it was in the single-digits. My father-in-law is moving around the kitchen quietly making his coffee. It’s usullay just him and me in the mornings, and he tries to not make too much noise. I think he thinks I’m doing really important things on the computer, eventhough most of the time I’m writing nonsence. But the air purifier is running today and we will buy an additional one for him, because increased particulate matter and air pollution is associated with increased cardiac death in older adults.

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September 12, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Our internship program is closed! We have four AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health Interns. I have to provide them with mentorship and guidance, and I can’t do it well if I have too many. So our internship program (which I just made up!) is closed. More candidates keep on coming out of the woodwork, but I tell them next year or the year after next we may have an opening. When one gets a job or gets into medical school, than a spot will open up. Sometimes when I wake in the morning, I’m not sure what to blog about. I half started two blog posts but deleted them. They were on environmental projects that are completed now, so really no need to write about them. So much of this blog is helping me figure out what to do next with the climate.

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September 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Yesterday was one of those discombobulating environmental work days. My post got published on KevinMD “It’s Time To Go All In on Climate Change,” https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/09/its-time-to-go-all-in-on-climate-action.html. Yet thus far, no shares. Hmmm. Half a million subscribers but no shares. Top Social Media Blog for Physicians yet the apathy on climate change in that virtual medical sphere is deafening. I agreed to do a podcast for KevinMD as well, so we shall see. Or maybe I’m just not the right messenger for that audience? I am who I am, so I’ll find another venue where I can try to activate more people.

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September 10, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I learned about the film “Gather” through Instagram friends https://gather.film/. It just was released a week ago and there is a review on the New York Times. But I heard about it on Instagram. There was a movie advertised heavily where Woody Harrelson and a super model married to Tom Brad (I forget her name, Giselle?) talk about regenerative agriculture. The movie trailer seemed very similar to 2040? I passed that one up. I think our world (and definitely for me) is past the point when Hollywood has any sort of moral authority. But then I heard the music from Raye Zaragosa and it reached me. Raye Zaragosa, folk singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice https://www.rayezaragoza.com/. She is Native American and Japanese, and I discovered her through her music as part of the new release on the film “Gather” which I watched last night. It is about fixing Native American food systems and centuries of systemic violence against the Native Americans. Took me to my mid-40s to find a musical artist that speaks to me.

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September 8, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I can’t sleep, or maybe it’s that I got up too early. It’s 3AM and a good 1-2 hours before I usually get up. California is literally burning. We have no rain in sight. Colorado is burning as well, although they may have snow soon. Do you remember last year when Australia was up in flames and koalas were dying? Did you wonder what the Australians were feeling like? What were they doing? Well that is us now. Literally in flames. It’s an interesting dynamic being Dr. Plastic Picker right now. For the last year, I’ve essentially done a mini-fellowship on environmental action. I have picked up #277 bags of ocean plastic pollution and salvaged now #1030 items in the process. And in the process of blogging and healing my body and mental health through plogging (picking up plastic and jogging) along the beach, I saw the state of the world most mornings. I finally looked around me and understood the broken food system that caused umpteenth tons of plastic to flow into our ocean, food that has very little nutrient value, while returning to clinic and seeing an entire generation of children with more obesity-related diseases. I try to gather plastic before it enters in the ocean because I know that the oceans absorb gigatons of carbon dioxide, while at the same time seeing my patients back at clinic who are mostly brown and black children suffer increasing rates of asthma from toxic air pollution. And as my body and mind healed from plogging and being out at the beach in the early mornings, I saw the stark reality of how sick our earth was. I decided to go all in to do my part to save the earth.

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September 7, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Last night I had an irritating interaction regarding my finances. I will deal with it and the person today, and it will be fine. I am very detail oriented and for various reasons the interaction was the utmost annoyance. But the power of exercise and good deeds is amazing. After that irritating interaction, I joined the family for the National Parks Trekking game, still irritated. I went to sleep last night, still irritated. Woke up this morning, still irritated. Edited some older blogposts while drinking coffee and started this weeks Hopeful Wednesday post early, mildly less irritated. And then I went for an epic plogging run and picked up two bags of plastic pollution and I feel great! I finally ran to a barren area that is mostly gopher holes (which is good because we need gophers right?) and cleaned that area. I also spread a packet of wildflower seeds that are supposed to “Bring Home the Butterflies.”

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Wow. This post really should be a year-in-review. An entire year of litter picking which includes street cleaning and beach plogging run, with the immediate goal of reducing ocean plastic pollution and the lofty goal of trying to save the planet. In total I’ve picked up 273 bags of ocean plastic pollution and salvaged 1006 items from the ocean https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/. I’m also mentally and physically healthier, and still working in health care middle-management. I’ve already made a big fuss about my Dr. Plastic Picker birthday, as Dr. Dear Friend bought me a birthday cake and I posted on the blog and my own personal facebook page. I keep spreadsheets of two things, our financial spreadsheet and our networth and the amount of bag of plastic that I have gathered. Both are very important to me, as I have stated before I am FISE (Financially Independent to Save the Earth) https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-financial-independence-to-save-the-earth/.

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September 2, 2020

by drplasticpicker

An unexpected gift of embarking on Dr. Plastic Picker a year ago is the mentors I have gained along this journey. Dr. Lori Byron is one of my environmental mentors that I met through the American Academy of Pediatrics. She leads the national group of pediatric climate advocates that represents all our states and territories, and corrals our group toward national action on climate change. Dr. Lori Byron is past president of the Montana AAP Chapter, and spent most of her career practicing in the Indian Health Service. She is semi-retired now, and spends most of her time coordinating climate action within our profession. But most importantly, she is encouraging and kind and experienced. She has guided me through my fits and starts on climate activism. I sometimes feel like a college freshman, emailing her our small wins and awaiting words of encouragement via email. Most importantly, she is so cool! Here she is in the picture above biking in the Arctic Circle.

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