Climate Change: What this means for Medicinal Practices
Growing up with grandparents from Italy, my childhood was filled with delicious homemade food adorned with a carefully selected assortment of herbs and spices picked directly from their flourishing garden. Regardless of what I was served, I was always told that the food was good for my skin, my energy, my body. Moreover, each spice was “the best” solely because my grandparents’ knew this through decades of practice and communal knowledge that had been passed to them. Although scientific explanation was lacking, they had a point.
The rest of my childhood consisted of advertisements and doctor’s visits that advised me that medicine is the sole cure for sickness. Modern-day medicine in the US is defined by ideas of health and healing that often involve the use of synthetic drugs compounded by government acquiescence to major pharmaceutical corporations (“Big Pharma”). Known as allopathic medicine, characterized by healthcare professionals’ use of pharmaceutical drugs and surgery, the predominant medicine of the conceptual region of the West, which I will define as Western Europe, North America, and Australia, has become central to governmental and personal tenets. These tenets include regulations and stipulations by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that greatly influence patients’ perception of medicine and willingness to try different healthcare treatments. Because the West has become obsessed with the treatment of symptoms, physicians and individuals have lost sight of the benefits of preventative medicine and the fact that natural remedies contributed to the establishment of modern drugs in 1805 with pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner’s isolation of morphine from the poppy plant. Therefore, habitat destruction, resulting from climate change, will affect allopathic medicine just as it has homeopathic medicine because of this connection.
Homeopathic medicine focuses on preventative health using small amounts of herbs and spices, which was established by German physician Samuel Hahneman in the late 1700s.1 Although not completely synonymous with centuries-old traditional medicine, both offer a holistic, full body, alternative to allopathic medicine. In a world in which allopathic medicine has become dominant, homeopathic remedies have been lumped with traditional ones and viewed as “Eastern” (lumping much of the world in a box as “other”) in many cases. Whether it be the Sumerians compiling a book of 250 medicinal plants 5000 years ago or the divine connection between religion and sage for salvation and remedial therapy in the Middle Ages, the power of plants is documented in nearly all ancient civilizations. Thus, the Western World’s discredit and neglect of homeopathic and traditional practices discounts the learned benefits of centuries worth of history. A discreditation that has allowed the impact of climate change on medicinal plants to go largely unnoticed and unexamined.
Climate change poses an immense risk to overall traditional medicine because 80% of the world relies at least partially on homeopathic practices, due to its accessibility, affordability, and cultural permeation.2 Besides being a form of medicine, homeopathy has served to connect communities through ceremonial practices, such as Native American healing ceremonies in which herbs are used along with music to accelerate the act of healing for those suffering from major or minor ailments. It is this form of community and ritual that has been lost in allopathic medicine’s rigid treatment of symptoms and will continue to be lost with the acceleration of climate change, which has resulted in 15,000 plant species now threatened by extinction.3 Wildfires have directly impacted homeopathy killing millions of trees and flowering plants. Meanwhile, droughts, particularly in East Asia, have physically inhibited the size and weight of medicinal plants and more gravely chemically altered the bioactive components that are used for treatment of illness. Environmental stress due to climate change and its triggered response within plants threatens the continued application of homeopathic and traditional methods because medicinal plants are becoming less accessible and less effective.
Despite an apparent divide between the Global West and East on their views of health and treatment, both are unified in their unresponsiveness to climate change’s effect on therapeutic plants and spices. Continuing the knowledge and traditions of the historic East, such as China and Middle Eastern civilizations like the Sumerians, the contemporary East will suffer a great loss in medicinal practice with the advance of climate change. Moreover, it is essential for the West to recognize that 40% of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from oils and resins of medicinal plants.4 5 Therefore, a net loss of species and competent bioactive components in turn means a net loss of future knowledge for the processing of new drugs. Without the ability to learn from nature, existing pharmaceutical drugs will also lose efficacy as resistant strains of bacteria will emerge and require increased chemical diversity and dosage to combat. Thus, as a Western Society we must make it a priority to learn from ancient civilizations and protect the foundation of science, nature.
Looking to modern states that have mixed practices of homeopathy and allopathy is pivotal to recognizing the reasoning behind the United States’ negative view towards homeopathy. Germany, for example, allows clinical trials of phytotherapeutic doses used to treat a variety of illnesses, validating active properties in plants. Phytotherapy is the administration of medicines procured from plants and herbs, which is based in science. These treatments can be used in conjunction with conventional allopathic ones without stigma from communities or the government, a stark contrast to the United States in which the FDA does not approve clinical trials for natural remedies. Following suit, those who choose alternative roots to medicine in the United States are perceived as lacking any sense of science. Changing society’s view of homeopathic and traditional medicine stems from education. Just as children learn language and math in primary school, fundamental and basic knowledge of medicinal plants should also be incorporated. By instilling this knowledge from a young age, an appreciation for the benefits of herbs and spices and a closer connection to one’s own health and wellness will be established. This restoration of the knowledge of history’s most prosperous civilizations, as well as a renewed commitment to community and biodiversity through community gardens is needed to preserve a medicinal practice that caters to 80% of the world. And while I may still turn to the over-the-counter drugs I can find at my local CVS, I now will wonder when this too may no longer be accessible.
1. Loudon, Irvine. “A Brief History of Homeopathy.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2006, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676328/.
2. “Who Global Centre for Traditional Medicine.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/initiatives/who-global-centre-for-traditional-medicine.
3. Atmos. “Can Plant Medicine Survive Climate Change?” Atmos, 7 June 2022, https://atmos.earth/plant-medicine-climate-change-indigenous/.
4. Miller, James S. “The Global Importance of Plants as Sources of Medicines and the Future Potential of Chinese Plants.” Drug Discovery and Traditional Chinese Medicine, 2001, pp. 33–42., https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1455-8_4.
5. “U.S. Forest Service.” Forest Service Shield https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/ethnobotany/medicinal/index.shtml#:~:text=A%20full%2040%20percent%20of,in%20the%20United%20States%20today.
