—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Erica is a physician and Professor in University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health and Department of Family Medicine in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine. She is also Affiliate Faculty in Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies, and served two terms as the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Preventive Medicine and Population Health and as a UBC University Sustainability Initiative Fellow.
Dr. Frank is an internationally prominent public health researcher, educator, and leader, nominated in 2016 by the Canadian Medical Association and the American College of Preventive Medicine to be the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Her intervention research examines globally-scaled educational interventions. Dr. Frank is the Founder/Inventor (in 2001) of NextGenU.org (with learners registered in every country and receiving free education), and the Principal Investigator of the Healthy Doc = Healthy Patient initiative (demonstrating and building on the strong and consistent relationships between physicians’ personal and clinical practices).
She was trained at the Cleveland Clinic (Internship), Yale University (Preventive Medicine Residency), and Stanford University (with a three year long NIH/NHLBI fellowship). She is a lifelong advocate for population health, including serving on the Boards (beginning in 1998) of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Board in the U.S. (including as 2008 President) and Canada (where she stewards the commemorative casting of IPPNW-Canada’s Nobel medal).
She has considerable experience in the use of media for scaled health education, including as the Editor of Preventive Medicine and of the student Journal of the American Medical Association, as a Producer/instructor for the U.S. CDC, and as a reporter/producer for Lifetime Medical Television, Medical News Network, ABC-TV (Georgia affiliate), and Vogue Magazine.
I rarely get to talk to people who expect living more sustainably to be joyful and rewarding from personal experience, not just hoping for the best. I enjoyed sharing that perspective with Erica last time, I invited her back with no specific agenda. This episode presents conversation between two people who have left mainstream culture and are living more how many people agree we should, but hold themselves back. So they speak in speculation and generalities. They still think more sustainability means lower quality of life because they can't speak from experience otherwise. Erica and I can, so we do. We don't lament missing out on things we don't do any more because we don't miss them. Moreover, we realize they weren't helping us in the first place. Soon we'll all talk about how much we prefer living more locally with less stuff. Today, for listeners who suspect it's possible but haven't witnessed it, enjoy listening.
I met Erica in a online meeting of academics who promote avoiding flying. A major perk for many academics is that universities pay for flying to academic conferences, for research, and for other academic reasons, of where there are many. In other words, they often fly for free. (As an aside, since academics learned about our environmental problems first, people flying free and often include many academics.) I found her comments valid, including a criticism of something I said, so contacted her afterward and invited her to the podcast. I also think people who hold Nobel Prizes are more influential than those who don't, in general, and a goal for this podcast is to bring the most influential people. The conversation was fun and a blast! She does more than research and promote less flying. She lived off-grid long before I started, for example, something we could bond on. More than any actions, I found her tone and attitude engaging and infectious. She enjoys living more sustainably. Most of the world acts like each step of living more sustainably means more deprivation and sacrifice. What do you know, they haven't tried it. Erica has, and found joy and liberation as I did. She is a role model. We can all enjoy sustainability as much as her and more than we enjoy life now, twisted up inside knowing we're hurting people (and wildlife). Enjoy our conversation. Join the club of living joyfully sustainably.