My Environment is Killing Me

And I blame humans. We started this war and Mother Nature is finishing it; playing dirty to get even with us.

I like to believe I am a healthy individual. I eat properly, exercise daily and generally speaking take care of myself. It does not matter how many vegetables I eat or how many kilometers I run a day because dearest Mother Nature has launched a vendetta against me and my fellow humans. She’s hitting below the belt, attacking where it hurts most and frankly, I’m sick of it. Literally.

Today, I realized that many of the things that are physically wrong with me have some sort of link to my environment. Sure, maybe I was simply reflecting fondly on my environmental epidemiological paper I wrote last semester for Health Geography, but still.

From Kawasaki Syndrome to my sucky kidneys that I have been struggling with since having E coli last summer- I can attribute most anything to my environment (thanks presumably to heavy cleaning chemicals and barn animal feces in my drinking water). Even though such connections are sometimes difficult to make due to all the possible underlying factors, it is obvious with current research that our impact on the environment is directly affecting our health. Take GEG3303 if you don’t believe me.

Solution? Well, if we want to start taking our health seriously we should aim to nurse our poor, old Mama Nature back to health. Stop polluting the air so poor Jimmy can run around the school yard without wheezing from his asthma. Quit pumping cattle full of Human Growth Hormone so little Sara can enjoy her youth rather than hitting puberty by age 8. Maybe we should reconsider the addition of fluoride to water, genetically modifying our crops or using aspartame and related sweeteners because extrapolating data from animal and short term studies just does not quite cut it for me.

If only it was this easy, Katherine could potentially eat gluten and I could have an ice cream cone.

-merissa

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com