Health System Sustainability and Your Vegetable Garden

As of today, Oct. 8, 2025, my 20’ x 15’ vegetable garden in my backyard is still producing hot peppers, tomatoes and zucchinis. Producing as in generating new flowers that will soon turn into hot peppers, tomatoes and zucchinis. My still-on-the-vine pumpkins are looking at them and saying, “What tha…?”

Climate change, more appropriately called global warming, is real. I see it. I feel it. I experience it. All firsthand. This year’s extended growing season is just one example. I’m sure you’ve seen it, felt it and experienced it yourself. I know someone who didn’t drain his pool after Labor Day as is tradition, and he’s still cooling off in early October, much to the envy of his neighbors.

The question is, do you deny global warming despite what you see, feel and experience firsthand?

As you know, the Trump regime denies global warming and our contribution to it, and Trump likes to call the push for green energy a scam. The latest attempt to brainwash you is the regime’s ban on the U.S. Department of Energy’s use of the words “climate change” and “emissions,” according to a recent story in Politico. If you trust the regime more than your own vegetables or your own swimming pool, you’ve got a problem.

You also have a problem if you live in West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida or Mississippi. The five states, which, by the way, all went for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, ranked the lowest on The Commonwealth Fund’s new state scorecard on climate, health and healthcare. The scorecard uses eight indicators to create a composite score that quantifies how healthcare systems affect the environment and how the environment, then, affects public health and healthcare operations.

The eight indicators are:

1. Average annual air quality index
2. Health risk from extreme heat
3. Healthcare facility risk from natural hazards
4. Healthcare facility flood risk
5. State energy efficiency policy
6. State electricity emissions and their health impact
7. Healthcare sector greenhouse gas emissions
8. Healthcare worker commuting emissions

The Commonwealth Fund’s criteria for choosing an indicator included the data being available from a publicly available source and the indicator being “scientifically valid, reliable, unbiased and updated annually.” The Trump regime, like any fascist dictatorship, has problems with objective, credible and readily available facts.

“The healthcare sector is dedicated to promoting patient health, but also contributes significantly to climate change and environmental harm,” the report said. “Because of this interconnectedness, it is incumbent upon the sector to embrace sustainability measures and climate action in order to uphold its commitment to ‘do no harm.’”

The top five states on the scorecard, in ranked order, are Vermont, New York, Washington, New Jersey and Maine. The first four went for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election with three of four of Maine’s electoral votes going to Harris as well.

My state of Illinois ranked 13^th. We can do better. I’d rather be shoveling snow in January than canning peppers.

Thanks for reading.