SUPER BLOG FAIL!!! BUT I'M BACK...

This blog has languished.  There are many reasons.  I'll list a few below.  But I recently happened upon some wisdom I turn to often these days:  "Justification is the enemy of intention (and leads to self-sabotage)". 

INTENTION:  I'll write a blog on personal and planet health!  JUSTIFICATION for not writing: Life, priorities, overwhelm.  

So, join me in forgiving yourself if you've ever had the very best of intentions but still screwed up and didn't follow through.  Forgive and get on with it.

I admit, climate change is a HUGE and OVERWHELMING topic and my tendency to want to be well-researched and thorough meant that each time I thought of a topic to write about, I was drowned in a sea of too much information!  It felt like I was back in school contemplating the daunting assignment of writing a term paper.  With footnotes.  And it's so "science-y"!  That part of my brain goes to sleep at times.  Also a whole raft of personal issues sort of took priority.  Staying alive and functioning takes some time and energy.  Go figure.

So, this time....I'm giving myself permission to write here without expectation of brilliance or even regularity.  When it comes to climate issues, I'm NOT an expert and I am NOT going to write 3,000 words on forest management and wildfire prevalence or whatever.  I'm going to chat about climate related topics, offer some personal story experiences, maybe share a few tips or resources and call it good.  The main thing is to raise awareness, hopefully form some community and conversation around this topic.  I hope you are "in" with that.

I'll also throw in some posts about personal health because our bodies are part of the planet and it's all connected. I find that amongst my age cohort -- older adult -- personal health is a popular and necessary topic.  We can all be each other's support and resource.

Some posts will be about healthy human bodies; some about the natural environment; some about both; and all about health in general and its benefits for self, others, nature, and the future of Earth.

Stay tuned....I'll be back.  This time I mean it!!!

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet...©

HEALTHY PLANET (AND BODY): CLIMATE CHANGE, PANDEMICS, BATS

Over on one of my other blogs I've been writing about the current pandemic of Covid-19 novel coronavirus.  We here in the Puget Sound region are the hardest hit so far anywhere in the U.S.  The first case was diagnosed here with that patient (who recovered) hospitalized within 3 miles of where I sit writing now.  Here's a link if you want to read my posts about this and how it's impacting me/our area:  https://myviewfromhere-donna.blogspot.com/2020/03/beware-virus-on-amazon-boxes.html

Curious how this happened and why it has spread from Wuhan, China to my town (and across the globe) in less than two months, I Googled "where did covid come from?"  I waded through some scholarly papers that were above my Liberal Arts degree level of understanding until I found a couple of resources that were accessible to me.

So, where did this Covid virus come from?  Probably bats.  Bats are carriers of many different types of corona viruses (so named because of their uniquely shaped "crown") and this covid-19 is presumed to be one of them.  Bats are not really to blame; they are not malevolent.  Bats just do what they do, live where they live, poop where they poop.  Other animals live alongside them and also do what they do, which sometimes includes eating bat poop (no accounting for taste; I can't abide bleu cheese, so there ya go.)

One of these animals is the pangolin (sort of an armadillo looking creature) whose scales are prized in Chinese medicine and sometimes for its meat.  This animal may well have ended up in a Chinese "wet market" where live animals are kept for sale.  They are stacked in cages; it's a super crowded area with people milling about.  Droplets of pangolin sputum or feces could easily transfer to hands and then nose, mouth, or eyes of those human unwashed hands, infecting that person and on and on and there you have it.

Covid 19 is new (that's why its called "novel") and humans know almost nothing about how it behaves.  There is no treatment, no cure, and it's more deadly than any known flu at this point, especially for those who are older or with underlying health issues.  Health care facilities in many areas are unable to handle the demand for treatment.  It's scary!

But back to how climate change contributes to pandemics...

Get ready.  This won't be the only challenge we will face as the planet warms up.   Humans and animals have always lived together.  But conditions change due to climate change, we come into closer proximity, even competing for habitats.  Bats and human interactions led to the Ebola virus outbreak in Africa and this could be a harbinger of things to come as bats are forced to hunt and feed closer to human settlements as climate changes. Think also about the Zika virus outbreak -- as the earth warms, mosquitoes will expand their habit into areas not normally warm enough for them to live -- they will move farther north to right here in the U.S of A.

Climate stress also causes humans to move around.  We already see large migrations of people due to drought, poverty, and violence moving from rural to urban centers, bringing whatever illness they may have with them.   These illnesses spread like wildfire, through no fault of the folks who contracted these diseases.  It is tragic all the way around.

We live in a changing world, on a changing planet, with changing challenges.  This is no time to throw our hands in the air, hoarding toilet paper and N-95 masks as if we can protect ourselves from every bad thing.  It IS time to be aware, be educated, be cautious, and to be involved.  The personal is political -- vote for people who are well-equipped to lead, who believe in science, who can manage crises, who surround themselves with experts.

And hey, let's lean into kindness.  We are one human community.  We are in this together. 🙏🏽

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet...©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/another-deadly-consequence-of-climate-change-the-spread-of-dangerous-diseases/2017/05/30/fd3b8504-34b1-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/did-covid-19-start-in-bats-how-did-it-transfer-to-humans-answering-your-coronavirus-questions/283-a9b29735-c25e-402d-98c2-be2171dc3f3a

HEALTHY PLANET: DON'T THROW THAT AWAY!

Since this blog will combine information about healthy eating with information about addressing our planet's health, lets move on to Healthy Planet:

I'm reading Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by Paul Hawken.  It's really great .  It can get a bit science-y for me at times (anything with weights, numbers, and percentages should be explained in iambic pentameter, don't ya think?) but also outlines clear solution-based strategies, large and small, that we can use to help our planet survive.

For example, did you know that 1/3 of food produced on the planet doesn't make it to a dinner plate?  The food wasted contributes 4.4 gigatons (that's a lot) of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere annually, or roughly 8 percent of total human-generated greenhouse gas emissions (the bad stuff that is causing our climate to warm up and freak out).  

In low-income countries this can happen due to poor equipment, bad roads, or lack of refrigeration with food rotting on farms, in transit, or at distribution points.  In higher income countries (ie, our grocery stores; our homes) this waste happens when grocers and consumers reject imperfect fruits and vegetables so they are tossed before they are even shipped, or when they arrive at the store; when retail stores and restaurants order more food than they can use; when super-sized portions are left uneaten; when home cooks make too much and the family eschews leftovers; when we over-buy large quantities to save a bit of money (Hello, Costco) believing it cheaper to just throw away what we can't use, to name a few wasteful practices.  Up to 35% of food in high income countries is thrown away by consumers.  Not good!

Reducing just 50% of current food waste is the 3rd most important step we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.   That is significant and has nothing to do with belching smoke from chimneys or driving gas guzzling muscle cars, which we smugly believe to be the main culprits in climate degradation.

Do you ever walk around a grocery store and gape at the enormous quantities and varieties of foods we can buy?  It's overwhelming at times and also something we just take for granted.  Do you think about the farmland, the fertilizer, the migrant worker, the transit and distribution centers, the many stops along the supply chain that got the food to the store and then to your pantry?  Do you honor what it took in terms of landmass and labor to get that food to you by only buying what you will eat?   Do think about how much of it you may throw away?  

It's an exercise in consciousness-raising to really stop and notice.  I've been doing that lately and it is slowly changing my buying decisions.  It's a simple act -- noticing.  It's a simple act -- to be intentional about what we buy and what we eat.  It's a simple act -- that anyone can take.

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet...©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

Resource: Drawdown; pg 42-43.