Emily's Worldview

I was in something of a reverie yesterday at one of the public computers at school. It was the day that the 2000th soldier was killed in Iraq and I was reading the saddest article about a few of the people who had died and their families. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped, realizing all of the sudden that tears had gathered in the corners of my eyes and the tip of my nose was turning pink.

Whenever I read those articles about people my age and younger dying in Iraq, I always feel so heartbroken and so helpless. I think back to the days leading up to the war, when we were protesting in the streets in Chicago. I felt powerful then, and I felt like I was right when I joined the chorus of voices saying it would be a waste of resources, a waste of blood, a monstrous debacle. As dissidents, we have been proven right a thousand times over, yet there is no satisfaction in it. Then, I thought that one good thing about the war maybe could be that it would lead to the downfall of its architects; but now, even that would be the hollowest of victories in the face of this shameful, dreadful waste of lives.

On Saturday, I went to a halloween parade with giant scary puppets, marching bands, gussied up hearses, and lots of fake blood. The crowd was a mix of everyone from punks to preschoolers. That night, a good friend came to visit me from Chicago. We ate biscuits and barbecue, watched people throw frisbees to their dogs in a big grassy park, checked out line dancing at a gay bar, and rooted for the White Sox over beers. Maybe this country's not so bad after all, despite how I feel when I read the news.

I got a question over email: "oh we are or are not going to all die from bird flu?".

I didn't have a good answer until just now, when I saw this article on the NYTimes website. Basically, the article says that the Middle East and East Africa are at risk of having bird flu enter the region, carried by wild migratory birds, and that they are not prepared to respond due to the difficulty of culling birds if chickens do start passing flu around. The article doesn't mention, but other important factors include, the limited capacity of the public health systems to purchase vaccines or vaccinate widely if the epidemic starts and widespread immune deficiency due to HIV and other diseases.

So the answer to my friend's question is that "we", wealthy citizens of Europe and North America who have been the real focus of the speculation and scare-mongering so far, are not all going to die from bird flu. The people who will die from it, if anyone, are the people who are poor and sick already, and for them it will be just one more pound on their already intolerable burden.

So lately I've been feeling like the world is coming to an end every time I read the news. It's hard to tell whether there are more earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and tsunamis this year, or if the media's (and my) appetite for them is keener.

But it is not really accurate to call these events "natural disasters". In the case of the hurricanes, global warming, which is directly linked to human patterns of consumption, has created an environment where unusually large and less predictable storms take form. It's not accurate to say that global warming "caused" Katrina and Rita, but more storms like them are what the climate scientists predict. It is fair to say that flooding was a result of having people live below sea level with inadequate protections around them. Wildfires and mudslides have everything to do with land management and the ways human settlement encroach on forested areas. Even with earthquakes, the types of housing and the places people live are patterns that allow an earthquake to become a disaster.

The reason this is an important distinction is that when we stop seeing disasters as "natural" and "inevitable" and start seeing them as outcomes of choices made by humans, governments and other actors have a stronger mandate to prevent, to prepare, and to plan a response. These are natural events that don't need to be disasters.

I am writing from the exotic locale of Atlanta, GA. I am 7 weeks in to my masters program at Emory, and finally beginning to feel at ease. When I first got here I felt pretty off-kilter--three weeks at home wasn't enough and all of the students I met were well-researched and ready to get started. People were asking me what my first semester electives would be, where I would be working, which version of Epidemiology I would be taking. My roommate asked me what I liked to eat and what I did for exercise and I couldn't even answer her. It was pretty overwhelming to be adjusting to life in America, life in Atlanta, and life in the university all at once.

But I did adjust and now I'm really enjoying being here. Three of my classes are disappointing introductory courses in things I mostly already knew. The fourth is pretty interesting and the fifth, "AIDS: Public Health Implications", literally gave me goosebumps at the first session. I am so thrilled to be surrounded by students with diverse international experiences and a passion for health issues, not to mention the professors and lecturers who are all giants in their fields of public health interest. I am living with another first year student and we have a great place--half of a duplex with a big lawn and a backyard patio. My bedroom is a little odd, with floor to ceiling wood-paneling, but the kitchen is great. It's a forty minute walk or a short bus ride to campus. In fact, my greatest challenge so far has been dealing with Atlanta, The Urban Planning Horror Show, without a car. That, and finding a job, but I remain hopeful.

So that's the update, and here is the shameless plug. Being in a new city, I have wanted to find a way to make a difference for people who are living with HIV/AIDS here. There are 27,000 HIV positive people in Georgia, making it the eighth most affected state in the country. The best opportunity to make a difference that I have found is to participate in the Atlanta AIDS Walk this Sunday, funds from which go to support AIDS service organizations in Atlanta. If you would like to learn more or support me in this effort, you can make a donation online by clicking below. You can give anonymously or hide the amount you've donated; as always, whatever you can give will help! I greatly appreciate your support and will keep everyone posted on my progress. Click here to donate!