Blank Insurance Claims Submissions

Stuff to enhance human health and prolong
lives: insurance claims forms from
when Rich was in private practice

Day 114: Blank Insurance Claims Submissions

Our lack of diversity in agricultural crops is a disaster waiting to happen, a set piece for death by starvation at rates comparable to the Irish potato famine, scaled up to encompass the entire world. That was the message of the keynote speaker at this year's American Public Gardens Association meeting, Simran Sethi. Perhaps genetic engineering isn't the worst of Monsanto's sins; its worst sin (along with other agro-conglomerates) is relentlessly narrowing crop diversity. Like the 19th century investor who put his whole fortune in the steam engine, we are headed for ruin.

The message that wasn't included - that is never included - that is too hot even to speak aloud - is that a reduction in world population (for whatever reason) would be good for the environment. Famine, virulent disease and contaminated water may be bad for people, but they are good for the ecosystems in which people live. While solar energy may be better for the environment than burning coal, it won't really solve the problem. And the Affordable Care Act, while good for the average Joe, may have the side effect of increasing our lifespans yet again - and thus increasing the human population size.

Whatever happened to the conversation about population control? I remember this topic being widely talked about in the '70s. Didn't my mother tell me that she and my father had originally wanted to have four children, but decided to stop at three after they started thinking about the population explosion and its impacts?

When a species becomes too dominant, nature reaches out a hand and gives that species a slap. Sometimes, she eliminates that species altogether. 

And life goes on. Not human life, necessarily, but life.

Human beings have the ability to understand, analyze and plan for changes in our environment. If we can act for the public good, we don't have to wait for nature to cut us down or wipe us out. Resolving that each couple will have only one child would result in an immediate, dramatic reduction in the environmental impact of our species. If we persisted in this practice for 100 years, the earth might have the ability to absorb reduced humanity's greedy consumption of resources. 

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." Could it be that Scrooge, the epitome of selfish greed, had his finger on humanity's best interests?