Doing Something

There's always a lot of debate about the validity of global warming and whether or not any of our current environmental problems are really something worth changing our lives over. However, whether one is right wing, left wing, or somewhere in the middle, I can't help but wonder: does it really matter if the idea behind global warming is correct or not?

I would hope that regardless of where one stands on these issues that they would recognize that the environment is indeed changing and that we need to make changes as well. I would hope that fundamentally people would CARE. If people can't care about the environment, I hope they would care about others. If they can't care about others, I would think they could at least care about themselves. And that they would realize that so many of the choices that we make today have negative effects on the survival of the environment, others, and on ourselves-generally hitting us where it hurts the most-through our health.

Without the environment and others, we are nothing. Without the environment we cannot survive. I have been attempting to formulate some different posts based on environmental health issues that I think are of utmost importance. Instead I am going to attach some links to some pages that I think are vital to understanding the underlaying issues of what is happening in our country and in the greater world.

Dr. Donohoe has written an outstanding article in which he compiled a variety of statistics based on the current state of environmental global issues. The article, "Causes and consequences of environmental degradation and social injustices," can be found here, and makes a fabulous resource. The website it is taken from contains a variety of other articles and slide shows discussing many of the other issues that are going on.

I recently found the video entitled The Story of Stuff, which depicts what really happens in the production and distribution of our consumer goods. It takes about 20 minutes to view it but is well worth it. Important to note is that so many of our consumer goods are made of chemicals and toxic products which are not researched and investigated before being put on the market. This was a fact I discovered multiple times thoughout the last term through my own research (including government sources) and in resources given to us in class.

And thirdly is the issue of the cosmetics industry, which in this case cosmetics includes all hair products, soaps, and lotions-so yes this applies to men too. While the US only has banned about 9 products, the EU, which uses the precautionary principle and believes that industry needs to prove that a product is safe for human use before selling it, has banned over 1,000. The Cosmetic Database is a website that lists ingredients and potential negative health effects of a variety of products. Another fabulous resource on this topic is a book that just came out by Stacy Malkan, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.

While we might have diferent opinions on how we got to this point, and we might not all agree on what is really going on, I hope that we all can see that change is necessary. I hope that we all can care. I hope that we would believe in precaution rather than treating the problems. I hope we would believe in preservation of our resources, of our planet, of our faith, of ourselves, and of each other. I hope we would want to grant future generations with a healthy, safe, and beautiful planet. I hope we would want to stop the negative effects that have started and to keep bioaccumulation of toxic substances from impacting more of our future generations. I hope that we all would believe that change is truly possible and would begin to embrace what can be. I have hope in you and in me.