Waste Not, Want Not
Sidney N. Kahn, MD, PhD
Topic I: Energy Conservation
The scale and range of human activities that harm the environment and human health are vast, and many of the most damaging require political, economic, and structural changes at levels ranging from local to global, so how can any individual make a meaningful contribution?
One positive action concerned individuals can take is to make their voices heard by local, regional, and national political and business leaders and demand they support practices that contribute to the environmental well-being of the planet and all its inhabitants, which may even enhance (or at least not compromise) their own interests overall. Well-informed, credible, authoritative individuals and organizations, especially those such as health professionals and PSR PA, with their focus on human health, can have an outsize influence on societal leaders.
At the level of daily living, individual choices and actions can substantially alter the carbon footprint of households and workplaces. This column will illustrate how personal life style choices and actions individuals can adopt in their daily lives, however minor, can in aggregate create meaningful reductions in energy consumption and waste generation.