April 29, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

This is the relevant information from Climate Central about the March/April marine heat wave https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-shift-index-alert/severe-marine-heatwave-climate-change-California-Mexico. Please feel free to share broadly. Raising awareness that global heating affects oceans and marine life too is vital. We are all connected.

“A large and persistent marine heat wave is impacting the northeast Pacific Ocean, with notable intensification and expansion throughout March and April, particularly off the coasts of Central and Southern California and along the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

A marine heat wave is defined as sea surface temperatures exceeding the 90th percentile of a 30-year climatology for at least five consecutive days.”

H3SD is the acronym we came up for the Heat and Human Health Summit. Really we should do one on Heat and Dolphin Health, Heat and Whale Health, Heat and Seal Health, Heat and Fish Health, Heat and Clam Health, Heat and Coral Reef Health. Gosh this makes me incredibly sad to think of how hot the oceans have been the last two months.

Our whole way of life is changing and there are huge ecosystem disruptions. Just with any crisis, everyone’s true nature comes up. Some are imprisoning people and others are building networks of nonprofits and service organizations to try to help. The COVID crisis taught us that. The worst and the best of people come out during disasters, and the climate disaster is here now.

I was walking with our daughter after returning back from the Harvard admit weekend which is called Visitas, and we were talking practicalities in terms of what she wants to study and how to navigate the university system to try to get studio time and space in ceramics. I reminded her something that she actually taught me, that I did say during a podcast on the Prebys Foundation, any large task you have to break things into chunks. Every day you just keep on doing something to further yourself along on that task. The key is to pick the right goal, and to know your north star.

I’ve been lucky to know myself quite well, and to come to better understand that my life force/my time is valuable. My energy and my love and my care is valuable, and it should not be wasted on frivolous things or with certain annoying people who I talked to for 11.30 minutes yesterday. I don’t have time to waste stroking someone’s maternal ego over whether her precious child should go to Harvard versus Stanford when I have not spoken to them in over a decade. If my congratulations and advice is not enough, than you were not listening to me and just wanted my attention. It felt good to end that connection politely at 11.30 minutes. Anyway, I’d rather pay attention to the marine life that are getting too hot! Poor dolphins. Poor whales. Poor seals. Poor fish. Poor coral reefs.

I’m continuing to plug away and do what I can every day to help stop the climate crisis, which is already here. So this is what I’ve done this week. Just in case anyone wandered over from KPBS. (Not that I need to justify why KPBS profiled me! Honestly, I really enjoy talking to Tammy Murga and she’s such a super wonderful person who is herself working on behalf of our environment! Who wouldn’t admire and want to walk and talk with someone like that!). Anyway, these are the things I am up to this week.

1. Public Health Advisory Council , Climate Action Campaign. We meet virtually yesterday, and I was there to support the two new chairs! And I was happy and upbeat, and SHOWED UP! They mostly talked and I did get to tell all my friends that we donated in-kind $7,000 + back over a year ago during the Power San Diego campaign and helped gather signatures. That was back when it was a more grassroots movements. I got to share with my friends what an interesting and odd experience it was working with the Power San Diego people. I am grateful to have been recognized by them, and supported that effort at that critical juncture due to the advice of my good friend Prof Adam Aron. I didn’t tell folks back them because I’m pretty sure SDGE shut off the power to our family office in North Park three times!!! If you see me in real life, I’ll tell you about it! I’m not quite a conspiracy theorist, but sometimes I think I’m getting there!
2. Tijuana Sewage Crisis, meeting with someone (who is it?) yes it’s Xavier Becerra! Let me read up on him via wikipedia! Okay! I’ve read up on him! Who knew? He went to Stanford and has had an amazing public service career, and is running for Governor. He looks pretty good! I’m not really endorsing anyone on the blog. I’m showing up because San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre’s office asked if I was available to give my perspective as a community pediatrician on the Tijuana Sewage Crisis. I just show up when I can. I happened to be working the late shift 1-730 today and the meeting with him is at 11-12 so I can make it. This is not open to the public, so don’t come! I apologize. I’m not sure how this all works. But it helps for me to show up when I think it’s appropriate when asked, to raise awareness. The hydrogen sulfide levels are really high right now and folks are getting very sick. So I’ll show up! I’m pretty proud of myself since I was asked to meet 3 candidates, and as an almost full time working pediatrician I was able to work into my schedule to meet 2 of them. I met Matt Mahan too, who is the mayor from San Jose. I forget who the other person is, but I had clinic. It’s funny how sometimes the politicians don’t realize that most doctors work 830-5pm and can’t make normal daytime hours. I happen to work a lot of mornings, so have some afternoons off which I mostly do climate work.
3. H3SD San Diego’s Heat and Human Health Summit: We are meeting tomorrow for our planning meeting and I’m super proud of us! Mostly the students! The videos of the lectures were finally edited and posted on our youtube channel! I’m letting the students announce it, but I’ll share shortly. Next year it will be easier.
4. UCSD Academic Internship Program: I’m super proud of us this year! We are much more organized! Meeting with the 4 students on Thursday and they are going to get to speak with Bruce Bekkar who is one of my mentors. I think we’ve created a great little program for them, and they get course credit to help organize the summit. I’m meeting with two students this weekend as well to guide them on their premed journey.

OMG, I actually have a gazillion other projects going on which I need to get to now. But those of the four things I’m doing this week that I wanted to let you know. It’s all related, dolphin health and human health. I don’t think the dolphins like the sewage contamination either. I bet they are getting lung abscesses as well. Do dolphins have ears? I wonder if they get ear infections. My patients are getting ear infections from the sewage as well. Isn’t that horrible? I hope everyone who stumbles onto the blog does something to help the dolphins today. The best things we can all do, is try to chip in and do our part. And I think that is why Tammy Murga profiled me on KPBS. But it’s amazing to see so many people doing their part, and it’s not small. A lot of people are doing HUGE and IMPORTANT things! That’s why I love being in this advocacy space because people who are environmentalists are usually really nice and sometimes vegetarian and vegan. I’m not, but I’m lactose intolerant after trying to be vegan a few years ago. But that’s a whole other blogpost LOL.