Making the Connection Between the Environment and Our Health

Raising awareness in terms of how pollutants in our environment can come back to bite us is starting to gain traction as more people are now connecting the effect our immediate environment has on our health. Much like the anti-tobacco ads which draw a clear connection between smoking cigarettes and the effects of cancer, doing the same with our treatment of the environment answers the age old sales question “What’s in it for me?” Raising awareness is as simple as keeping up with current events. Take for example all the controversy regarding vaccinations and their supposed connection to autism, a debate which was later said to be based on false trial data. Instead of watching Jenny McCarthy on Larry King, the real story on autism was revealed in “Scientific American” which reported that in 2009 that a joint U.S./Swedish study that had examined the effects of household contaminants discovered that children who live in homes with vinyl floors are twice as likely to develop symptoms of autism due to the emission of hazardous chemicals called phthalates. This is immediacy in action. When cause and effect can be brought into someone’s living room, getting them to take action is fairly simple. One of the biggest challenges for the green movement is bringing the potential disastrous health effects of global warming into that proverbial living room. While the release of greenhouse gases may not cause immediate illness, the sum total of what has been released into the atmosphere is starting to cause problems around the globe. According to the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, climate change as a result of global warming over the coming decades is likely to increase rates of asthma, heart disease, and cancer. The spread of warm weather diseases to cooler areas is also likely. Another ramification of climate change is the accelerated loss of rain forest that is likely to occur with increases in temperature. The end result is less access to previously unknown medicines as well as the weakening of the environment’s ability to sustain our species. At this point, the impact of these climate change problems doesn’t have the “in the living room” type of urgency that watching a baby crawl across a vinyl floor that might result in autism does. Make no mistake about it though; there is definitely a growing awareness that global warming is a major concern. This awareness is good thing, and people can vote with their feet and insist on doing business with green or at least greener businesses.