When Oil Stops, Who Cares?
Rethinking Medicine for a Fragile World. Thursday, April 9th, 10:30 AM EDT
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A workshop & conversation with Didi Pershouse
Author of The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities
Thursday, April 9th, 10:30 AM EDT. See this in your time zone.
What happens to our health care systems if fuel prices continue to rise, global supply chains continue to break down, and medical supplies and medications are suddenly unavailable? Can we make plans for resilience? What examples do we have?
In this workshop, we’ll explore a perspective that often goes unspoken. Modern health care is utterly dependent on cheap fossil fuels and complex global supply systems, and "just-in-time" manufacturing leaves no wiggle room for disruptions. In addition to all our other challenges, the war on Iran has set off what will likely be a cascading series of shortages, price hikes, stresses, and environmental challenges that will affect our health care systems as well as our health.
Drawing from The Ecology of Care, we’ll look at what past oil crises—and more recent disruptions—can teach us about the hidden vulnerabilities in our systems of care.
But this isn’t just about looming problems. It’s also about possibilities. We will dive into these questions:
- What does a health-care system look like if it is designed for resilience rather than efficiency?
- How can we balance technological sophistication with simpler, locally grounded approaches to care?
- What skills, relationships, and infrastructure are needed to support community health in times of uncertainty?
- How can communities take better care of each other?
We’ll touch on examples from around the world—including places that have adapted to shortages in creative ways—and reflect on what we can learn from them today.
This workshop is for anyone who is:
- curious about the future of health care
- concerned about the impacts of continuing floods, fires, storms, and war
- and committed to building more resilient communities.
You don’t need a background in health care to participate—just an interest in how we care for ourselves and each other in a changing world.
We will meet for about 2.5 hours. (Though our last workshop went unexpectedly for 4 hours, as people didn't want to end!) Expect a mix of short presentations, small-group conversations, and full-group discussion.
The workshop will be recorded. Sign up now to attend live, or to get access to the recording, chat, and transcript files.
Your Instructor
Didi Pershouse is well known as an innovative international educator both in-person and online. She is the founder of the Land and Leadership Initiative. Her facilitator's guide Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function is used in over 90 countries.
She became deeply involved in the intersection of food systems and health systems while providing rural health care for two decades at The Center for Sustainable Medicine, and wrote The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities.
She has written a field training manual for the UN-FAO Farmer Field School Program and the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Initiative in India, involving over 1,000,000 smallholder farmers. She was a contributing author to The Climate Emergency: How Africa Can Survive and Thrive; Climate Change and Creation Care; and Health in the Anthropocene. She was one of five speakers at the United Nations-FAO World Soil Day in 2017.
She serves on the Planning Commission for her town, is a board supervisor for the White River Natural Resources Conservation District, and is on the board of directors of Regenerate Earth, Soil Carbon Coalition and the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition. While serving on the state appointed Payment for Ecosystem Services and Soil Health Working Group, she helped to reorient the program back to its public roots. She led a successful effort to conserve the Zebedee Headwaters Wetland while serving as a Vermont Conservation Commissioner.
She is on the Vision Council of the Global Earth Repair Convergence, and a member of the Ecosystem Restoration Alliance. She is a lineage member of the Change Agent Development Community (stewarded by Carol Sanford), and is seeding new communities of practice in a Wisdom tradition that uses living systems thinking.