Energy, Climate Change, and Complexity in Healthcare

Dan Bednarz

Abstract:           

Modern healthcare systems are intensive users of fossil fuel produced energy and therefore significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. This suggests a moral imperative to lower energy consumption for reasons of ecological sustainability. A second, and less articulated, practical reason to lowering energy consumption is that it is no longer inexpensive; rising costs, which derive from a geological peaking of worldwide oil extraction rates, are creating a strong economic incentive to reduce energy consumption. The implications of these twin driving forces -which have a common root in our reliance upon fossil fuels- for healthcare are complex and if misconstrued can lead to public policies placing them in opposition. In other words, assigning differing weights to these driving forces leads to divergent decision trees which, on the one hand, could exacerbate climate change, as in a scenario where coal is turned to as a substitute for declining supplies of oil and natural gas. On the other hand, an alternative decision tree weighting each driving force equally has healthcare setting a leadership example for energy conservation and ecological sustainability. This latter decision path, however, will –in all likelihood- introduce revisions of extant health theories and models of practice. How sweeping these changes will be is an unknown and therefore should be conceptualized with a full spectrum of scenarios that take account of the interplay between varying degrees of climate change mitigation done under varying conditions of energy constraint.