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Presidential address, Fourth International Congress, Tel Aviv, Israel, April 11, 1989
Vol. 17A. No. 2
March 1992
a day tour to Jerusalem, and a farewell dinner party that ended with everyone dancing on the tables. Once again our international community of hand surgeons proved, to be a very fine one. Almost 700 of them enjoyed each other’s company enormously, and all the speakers scheduled to deliver a paper did so. Our Federation that now includes so many more surgeons from Eastern Europe seems to be a much stronger one and the symbiosis between East and West an exchange of knowledge of mutual benefit. Most surgeons who care for hand injuries around the world do so in countries that do not provide them with
Fourth IFSSH Congess Report
403
the income enabling their attendance at sufficient meetings and thus their exposure to the state-of-the-art of hand surgery is not often enough. It would be advantageous if we could continue to move the venue of our congresses to those places as close as possible to these physicians to disseminate knowledge to areas where the need for information cannot always be matched by the financial ability to finance traveling. Joel Engel, MD Congress Chairman Fourth International Congress oj the IFSSH
Presidential address, Fourth International Congress, Tel Aviv, Israel, April 11, 1989 As President of this organization, I welcome you to the Fourth International Congress so ably hosted by our friends of the Israel Hand Club. It is a pleasure for me to return for the fifth time to the Holy Land, historical birth place of great religions and societies. Middle Eastem people have been the victims of ancient antipathy, religious. and demographic disputes. The Israeli people continue to struggle for their democracy and for peace and stability in their region. They deserve the sympathy and support of other nations in resolving their territorial problems. They have, without question, produced an oasis out of a desert. The peace process, however. has been long and arduous and continues. We have and will benefit from their scientific accomplishments and also their careful approach to ecolo&c problems. I have looked forward to this Congress and am especially interested in participating in the postCongress tour organized by the Jewish National Fund. This group focuses on environmental concerns and tree planting and has been actively reforesting Israel since 1901. As we have stated many times, medicine speaks an international language and provides physicians an opportunity for statesmanship, communication, and action for life’s problems. Along with this opportunity comes obligations. As I have traveled many times to 65 countries of the world, I have become increasingly concerned not only about medical problems, but also by the sad state of this planet. We have lost respect for
flora and fauna. With your permission, I would like to share my concerns. We need a world citizens’ plan for action. Citizen action can change history by requiring governments to lead in the right direction and by disseminating ideas and desires exponentially through a chain of personal networks. A critical mass of people can generate the necessary changes to ensure the desired future. Sensitive leaders will respond to constructive action. We must develop a people action plan that details their desires for a planet at peace in the future. We must understand the effects of language, culture, people, politics, religion, history, and geography on &sues affecting human, economic, ecologic, and political welfare. The critical issues requiring a plan for action include: (1) environment, population growth, nonrenewable resources, raw materials, oil, energy demands. water, atmosphere, soil, deforestation, desertification, food, agriculture, fisheries, and health; (2) economics, unemployment, migration, politics, religion, trade, debt, and communication; and (3) militarism. terrorism, nuclear control, and crime. The exponential attack on resources that are nonrenewable will see us struggling for what is at the bottom of the barrel in just a few years. As the resources become rarer and the population explodes, there is no question that this competition can be a cause for conflict and war. Our planet is 4% billion years old; in that calendar frame, man was created just 6 days ago, and
The
404
Swanson
we are now living in history just a few minutes before midnight. We need immediate action to save our planet. It took the earth 500 million years to create our oil reserves. We will have used them up in 2 centuries. It is estimated that all the world’s oil will be gone by the year 2050. How can we get off this track and head in a new direction? Is it intelligent for the world to spend 1 trillion dollars a year on armaments because of human disagreements that were generated years ago and that are not really fully understood by our present leaders? Can we evaluate our present situation in terms of our future rather than from our past? Can’t we spend a fair amount of the governmental budgets to save the earth? Man started the science of agriculture about 8000 years ago to more efficiently get food at a time when there was an estimated only 8 million people on earth and a slow growth rate because of deaths, diseases, and crises. It is estimated that when Christ was born, 250 million people were on earth. In 1750, when we started the industrial revolution, the world population was 800 million. Two hundred years later in 1950, the population reached 2% billion. During the past 35 years, this figure has doubled to 5 billion. It is estimated that at the turn of the century, 6 billion people will be on earth and that their number will double by the year 2040. We need immediate and effective action to bring about the necessary decline in propagation. We need to establish a desire for smaller families and means of implementation. We need to integrate improved child health, welfare, and education with promotion of family planning, to ensure that a child once born can grow into a healthy, educated, and contributing adult. An all-out effort needs to be made to preserve our biosphere and anticipate our needs for energy, food production, and medical care without destruction of our nonrenewable resources such as rain forests, water supply, top soil, and our atmosphere. We must develop a critical mass of peopIe with concerned leadership to reorient the priorities away from the immediacy of growth-economics and military conflict toward a sustainable security for the present and future inhabitants of this planet. There needs to be an understanding and an ethical relation to the living world. We need to replace human rights and special advantages with human responsibility and opportunity. We must become guardians of all living things. How are we going to control population, resources, and pollution on this planet when governments seem totally incapable of even considering the task? Candidates for office seldom mention these issues. There
Journal of
HAND SURGERY
must be a pursuit of truth. It must be understood that private choices for the environment, natural resources,
and population, may have to become restricted in favor policy. Individuals must be willing to sacrifice their personal well-being and comfort if threatening to all humanity. A desire for health and survival should predominate over economic interests or ideology. Every governmental activity should be described not only for its expected effects but also for its side effects and longterm effects for the future. If laws cannot be implemented or changed, perhaps constitutional amendments should be considered to provide human rights and opportunity for future generations equal to the rights of those living today. If these were made, we would in fact have a sustainable society. Civilizations die of suicide not by murder, and the various issues that we have discussed here must be addressed if we are to avoid disaster. I would like to close by discussing a foundation that we have formed in the past few years, AMIS (Alternative Methods for International Stability) and a branch called the International Trees Corps. As I have traveled the world, I have observed the destruction of not only tropical rain forests but also other standing forests. We have lost one third of the world’s forests by the incredible destructive practices of mankind. Concerned scientists are telling us that the so-called “greenhouse effect” on our atmosphere will bring disastrous climate changes within the next 50 years because of air pollution from fossil fuel emissions and the loss of biologic aircleaning of trees because of their destruction. We must cease fouling the air, but we must also protect our trees and have a planting program to replace the 1.7 billion acres of trees destroyed by so-called development. As the Jewish National Fund has reforested Israel. we should develop programs in our own communities. We must mobilize people at the local, regional, national, and international levels to preserve and plant trees around homes, along roads, and in large acreage areas. Our group has provided trees for local school children to plant around their homes. We strongly suggest that all of you develop tree planting programs for your own communities. We need trees for life-trees need us to live. As I pass this Presidential Medal to Douglas Lamb, a friend I have known and admired for many years, I trust the future of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand and its activities and potentials will be in good hands. I thank you for the honor of serving this great international organization. ofpublic
Alfred B. Swanson,
MD
March 1992
a day tour to Jerusalem, and a farewell dinner party that ended with everyone dancing on the tables. Once again our international community of hand surgeons proved, to be a very fine one. Almost 700 of them enjoyed each other’s company enormously, and all the speakers scheduled to deliver a paper did so. Our Federation that now includes so many more surgeons from Eastern Europe seems to be a much stronger one and the symbiosis between East and West an exchange of knowledge of mutual benefit. Most surgeons who care for hand injuries around the world do so in countries that do not provide them with
Fourth IFSSH Congess Report
403
the income enabling their attendance at sufficient meetings and thus their exposure to the state-of-the-art of hand surgery is not often enough. It would be advantageous if we could continue to move the venue of our congresses to those places as close as possible to these physicians to disseminate knowledge to areas where the need for information cannot always be matched by the financial ability to finance traveling. Joel Engel, MD Congress Chairman Fourth International Congress oj the IFSSH
Presidential address, Fourth International Congress, Tel Aviv, Israel, April 11, 1989 As President of this organization, I welcome you to the Fourth International Congress so ably hosted by our friends of the Israel Hand Club. It is a pleasure for me to return for the fifth time to the Holy Land, historical birth place of great religions and societies. Middle Eastem people have been the victims of ancient antipathy, religious. and demographic disputes. The Israeli people continue to struggle for their democracy and for peace and stability in their region. They deserve the sympathy and support of other nations in resolving their territorial problems. They have, without question, produced an oasis out of a desert. The peace process, however. has been long and arduous and continues. We have and will benefit from their scientific accomplishments and also their careful approach to ecolo&c problems. I have looked forward to this Congress and am especially interested in participating in the postCongress tour organized by the Jewish National Fund. This group focuses on environmental concerns and tree planting and has been actively reforesting Israel since 1901. As we have stated many times, medicine speaks an international language and provides physicians an opportunity for statesmanship, communication, and action for life’s problems. Along with this opportunity comes obligations. As I have traveled many times to 65 countries of the world, I have become increasingly concerned not only about medical problems, but also by the sad state of this planet. We have lost respect for
flora and fauna. With your permission, I would like to share my concerns. We need a world citizens’ plan for action. Citizen action can change history by requiring governments to lead in the right direction and by disseminating ideas and desires exponentially through a chain of personal networks. A critical mass of people can generate the necessary changes to ensure the desired future. Sensitive leaders will respond to constructive action. We must develop a people action plan that details their desires for a planet at peace in the future. We must understand the effects of language, culture, people, politics, religion, history, and geography on &sues affecting human, economic, ecologic, and political welfare. The critical issues requiring a plan for action include: (1) environment, population growth, nonrenewable resources, raw materials, oil, energy demands. water, atmosphere, soil, deforestation, desertification, food, agriculture, fisheries, and health; (2) economics, unemployment, migration, politics, religion, trade, debt, and communication; and (3) militarism. terrorism, nuclear control, and crime. The exponential attack on resources that are nonrenewable will see us struggling for what is at the bottom of the barrel in just a few years. As the resources become rarer and the population explodes, there is no question that this competition can be a cause for conflict and war. Our planet is 4% billion years old; in that calendar frame, man was created just 6 days ago, and
The
404
Swanson
we are now living in history just a few minutes before midnight. We need immediate action to save our planet. It took the earth 500 million years to create our oil reserves. We will have used them up in 2 centuries. It is estimated that all the world’s oil will be gone by the year 2050. How can we get off this track and head in a new direction? Is it intelligent for the world to spend 1 trillion dollars a year on armaments because of human disagreements that were generated years ago and that are not really fully understood by our present leaders? Can we evaluate our present situation in terms of our future rather than from our past? Can’t we spend a fair amount of the governmental budgets to save the earth? Man started the science of agriculture about 8000 years ago to more efficiently get food at a time when there was an estimated only 8 million people on earth and a slow growth rate because of deaths, diseases, and crises. It is estimated that when Christ was born, 250 million people were on earth. In 1750, when we started the industrial revolution, the world population was 800 million. Two hundred years later in 1950, the population reached 2% billion. During the past 35 years, this figure has doubled to 5 billion. It is estimated that at the turn of the century, 6 billion people will be on earth and that their number will double by the year 2040. We need immediate and effective action to bring about the necessary decline in propagation. We need to establish a desire for smaller families and means of implementation. We need to integrate improved child health, welfare, and education with promotion of family planning, to ensure that a child once born can grow into a healthy, educated, and contributing adult. An all-out effort needs to be made to preserve our biosphere and anticipate our needs for energy, food production, and medical care without destruction of our nonrenewable resources such as rain forests, water supply, top soil, and our atmosphere. We must develop a critical mass of peopIe with concerned leadership to reorient the priorities away from the immediacy of growth-economics and military conflict toward a sustainable security for the present and future inhabitants of this planet. There needs to be an understanding and an ethical relation to the living world. We need to replace human rights and special advantages with human responsibility and opportunity. We must become guardians of all living things. How are we going to control population, resources, and pollution on this planet when governments seem totally incapable of even considering the task? Candidates for office seldom mention these issues. There
Journal of
HAND SURGERY
must be a pursuit of truth. It must be understood that private choices for the environment, natural resources,
and population, may have to become restricted in favor policy. Individuals must be willing to sacrifice their personal well-being and comfort if threatening to all humanity. A desire for health and survival should predominate over economic interests or ideology. Every governmental activity should be described not only for its expected effects but also for its side effects and longterm effects for the future. If laws cannot be implemented or changed, perhaps constitutional amendments should be considered to provide human rights and opportunity for future generations equal to the rights of those living today. If these were made, we would in fact have a sustainable society. Civilizations die of suicide not by murder, and the various issues that we have discussed here must be addressed if we are to avoid disaster. I would like to close by discussing a foundation that we have formed in the past few years, AMIS (Alternative Methods for International Stability) and a branch called the International Trees Corps. As I have traveled the world, I have observed the destruction of not only tropical rain forests but also other standing forests. We have lost one third of the world’s forests by the incredible destructive practices of mankind. Concerned scientists are telling us that the so-called “greenhouse effect” on our atmosphere will bring disastrous climate changes within the next 50 years because of air pollution from fossil fuel emissions and the loss of biologic aircleaning of trees because of their destruction. We must cease fouling the air, but we must also protect our trees and have a planting program to replace the 1.7 billion acres of trees destroyed by so-called development. As the Jewish National Fund has reforested Israel. we should develop programs in our own communities. We must mobilize people at the local, regional, national, and international levels to preserve and plant trees around homes, along roads, and in large acreage areas. Our group has provided trees for local school children to plant around their homes. We strongly suggest that all of you develop tree planting programs for your own communities. We need trees for life-trees need us to live. As I pass this Presidential Medal to Douglas Lamb, a friend I have known and admired for many years, I trust the future of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand and its activities and potentials will be in good hands. I thank you for the honor of serving this great international organization. ofpublic
Alfred B. Swanson,
MD