“If you look at every medical drama on TV, who gets the hero buttons?” Julia Hubbel asks. Answer: “The ER doc who saves the victim, the guy who let a disease progress way too far.” It’s true: Healthcare has incentive problems. And though ego boosts and savior complexes might only make a small portion of doctors act against their patients’ best interests, money interests everyone — and that holds even more of the same power.
Imagine the government offered a reward of $1,000 for every person who never gets diabetes. That sounds lovely, but it pales in comparison to tens of thousands of dollars of insulin payments. Plus, you’ll have to wait for them to die to arrive at your conclusion. And which company gets the money, anyway? Prevention is the most efficient medicine, but unfortunately, it isn’t all too profitable.
In healthcare, this dynamic affects millions of people, and you’d think that’s bad enough. When it comes to the climate, however, it affects literally everyone — yet here, too, we seem to insist the heart rate monitor go flat before rushing to…where exactly, actually? That’s climate change’s unique problem: There won’t be an ER to stitch up the planet in by the time it goes into cardiac arrest.
Carbon credits are the 21st century’s letters of indulgence. “We’ll pay someone else to offset our emissions” sounds like a nice idea, but if the ultimate goal must be to reduce the totality of our carbon wastage, it’s simply a paid permission to pretend to hand off a responsibility that, in the end, no one can get rid of. Every company is passionate about reducing all emissions but their own. “Ours are special! Important! Necessary!” Even if the certificates are costly, they’re not exactly existential motivation to think about better ways of operating. But if we don’t all come up with those ways soon enough, eventually, our carbon sins will be impossible to pardon. If only the church sold a letter guaranteeing our entry into heaven…
Planting trees is a better, albeit still too run-after-the-bus solution, for it comes with a 40-year-delay we might not be able to effort. By the time each new tree absorbs enough CO2, we’ve long produced a thousand times the emissions. Let alone will we find the time and space to each plant 200 trees per year.
When prevention is the only thing that works yet not well-incentivized, perhaps it is easier to bring sexier incentives to the task than to try and force productivity despite their absence. If Tesla can make electric cars cool and desirable, surely someone else can do the same for solar modules, green production, and living without grid reliance.
As for being healthy? That’s always been cool — and so is telling people how to brush their teeth correctly, make a habit of light exercise, and eat well enough to avoid insulin injections. If you’re one of the few renegades taking extra time to do so after you’re done writing prescriptions, drawing blood, or changing a patient’s pillow: Thank you. Thank you for your service.
And if you’re “just” one of all of us affected by the dilemma, know it’s never too late to take the first step into the right direction. Prevention might not be profitable, but if money was all we sought, humanity would have gone extinct a long time ago. Let’s choose kindness one more time, and see where it leads.
Grab a copy of Nik’s book, 2-Minute Pep Talks.
2-Minute Pep Talks is a collection of 67 jolts of inspiration for more hope, comfort, and love in any situation. With more than two months of daily inspiration across five categories, 2-Minute Pep Talks will make you feel more comfortable in your own skin, remind you to love yourself enough to ask life for what you truly want, and provide you with the world’s scarcest resource: hope. Whether you’re looking for a pick-me-up, new perspectives, or more fuel to accomplish your dreams — if you’re ready to regain that light, passionate, optimistic feeling we all used to possess as children, this book is for you.
AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON!
—
This post was previously published on Niklas Göke’s blog
Subscribe HERE
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
 |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
