With the growing anxiety over global warming and other environmental problems, individual actions, like changing a light bulb, no longer seem sufficient. As environmentalists focus on global changes, we have lost touch with local concerns. Natalie Jeremijenko, PhD, who started the Environmental Health Clinic at New York University, says, “The unfortunate consequence of this global conversation is that it makes the problems seem like they’re not local enough to be actionable, and anything you do is by definition marginal, at best symbolic.”
Jeremijenko, in response to this issue focuses on projects that give people the power to change their immediate communities. Even as the environment influences our health it has become more apparent every day, that we should take the advise of the experts and start with yourself, your home, and ultimately, your planet.
Savannah, where I live, is made up of several islands as well as the mainland. Houses are built close to the creeks, the river, and the ocean, and everyone uses fertilizer and other chemicals to keep their yards looking pristine without thinking about what they are doing to the waterways. Ten years ago there were small schools of fish and we had stingrays coming into the creek, now there are only the fiddler crabs. I believe my neighbors and the other people who have property that backs up to the waterways around here, do not even realize that every time they use a chemical on their yards or bushes that they are killing the creatures that come into our waterways. I do not use fertilizers or for that fact any chemicals on my yard and bushes, I let nature take it’s course. The only thing I do is water when need be, and I am not on city water that is filled with chlorine, we have a deep well that goes into the Florida aquifer.
PROBLEM: OUTDOOR SOIL AND WATER QUALITY
After it rains, chemicals, oil-produced neurotoxins, and other waste will wash off the streets and flow into drainage ditches, creeks, and rivers, which are host to a diverse ecosystem.
...
Read more...
| 
