We have seen these last few months how important our health is And we have all tried to use this lockdown to do better choices for our 'health', perhaps we made sure to stay active or tried to look after our mental health, perhaps found a new love for cooking... But do we realise that health goes hand in hand with sustainability? The link between the two is far from a 'new' thing, it has been an object of workshops and policy summits, for example the one reported here from the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine in Washington in 2013.
Unfortunately, despite the link being obvious (and I will expand on some clear examples later), public health and sustainable environment organizations insufficiently collaborate to put health and environment on the political agenda, and maybe we should take more responsibility for the values they we really consider of importance, and the actual translation of these into our daily lives and economy (and people like you and me have a great power, by demanding action, being actively interested in politics and voting right). Perhaps, this pandemic that we are living is giving a push in the right direction. Yes, because I mentioned already that the outbreak has some intrinsic links with environmental disruption, and there is a call for pandemic risks to be included in sustainable development goals (remember when i discussed these ?). So, let’s have a look at some aspects to make our lives healthy and see the tie with sustainability
Yet politicians are not doing us any favour - and despite citizen worries and protests, in Venice they just went ahead approving an incinerator (on the mainland) and last week an accident in one of the chemical industries in the area ended up in a big fire with black smoke that ended up polluting the local waters killing many fish but potentially ending in the soil and in the food. Plastic also is an object of discussion in politics but, while Italy claimed it was going to put a plastic tax - it slowly slipped away unnoticed from the plans. So the fight is far from over, but if fighting for nature is not enough then let’s fight for our own health.
3 Comments
5/25/2020 09:05:49 pm
That's so right. Even in the most advanced countries those points are major problems. I think the food problems is largely underestimated. People don't know the fruits they buy from the supermarket contains less vitamins. They don't know how bad ultra transformed food can do to our bodies. How we ingest microplastics everytime we eat from a Tupperware. It is really important to spread the word about this so thank you !
Reply
5/25/2020 09:27:15 pm
I agree that there is not enough collaboration between movements. We tend to divide issues up into one category which limits the support that it might draw if we addressed how it actually fits into health, social justice, economic stability, etc.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Disclaimer: some posts may contain affiliate links. At no extra costs to you, buying through the link will help me in this blogging journey!
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
|