Health, safety, and energy

I have noticed that when it comes to prevention our society tends to place a lot more emphasis on safety than it does on health. This may seem surprising at first glance, given that "health care" currently uses up nearly half of all provincial budgets.

"Health care", very tragically, focuses almost totally on attempts to repair our health, not on preventing disease and injury. Even the Canadian Cancer Society invests some on cancer prevention, but the vast majority of its resources go into researching cures for cancer.

When it comes to improving the safety of such things as our highways, airports, and even some inter-city buses a great deal of effort and money is being expended. Increasingly we continue to lose rights as national governments attempt to prevent terrorism (however rather narrowly defined).

This tendency to focus on safety over health is most vividly observed when it comes to transportation, especially the private automobile. It is in our collective perception that travelling by car is safer than it is by bicycle. Stats suggest that the margin of improved safety is very slim: despite the number of cyclists who frequently break traffic laws it is only nominally more risky to be riding than it is to be driving. Motor cyclists and pedestrians are at far higher risks of injury or death.

Contrast this perceived risk for cyclists to the actual outcomes: cyclists are far more likely to be healthy, simply because we get a decent amount of exercise and more fresh air. Exercise alone leads to improved mental and physical health, lowered rates of obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, premature death and a lot more. Further, eliminating pollutants by cycling reduces the incidence of asthma and a few thousand deaths in Canada, every year.

Even users of public transportation are several times more likely to meet the minimum health levels than are car users.

Our dependence on the automobile is also greatly increasing the risk to the planet due to run-away climate change. For several years the Pentagon has been assessing how to minimise the resulting security risks to the United States. Note that they are assessing security risks, not health risks.

The good news is that those who "get it", those who care about their physical, mental, financial and the planetary health (all of these go hand-in-hand) are far more likely to change their lifestyles so as to minimise the use of driving and eating way less red meat, and instead get exercise, enough sleep, eat organically, laugh frequently, appreciate meaningful relationships, and all the things that make for a high quality life.

Such preventative measures improve our individual, collective and planetary health. And, as it turns out, also improve our collective safety and security!