Monday, January 5, 2009

Environmental Health Resolutions to Start the New Year!

Inspired by my friend Brian's eco-resolutions blog post and Gina Johnson's excellent radio show "Its Hot in Here," I've decided to put together some environmental health resolutions for the new year. Add some more below if you've got them, and I encourage everyone to try to make some environmental health new years resolutions of your own.

1. Avoid products containing triclosan. Triclosan is an antibacterial chemical that is put in a lot of soaps and products, but is actually quite toxic. It is persistent and pervasive, contaminates waterways, and has been shown to be an endocrine disruptor in animals. For more information on triclosan, check out this factsheet.

2. Eat more organic food. Chemicals used in conventional agriculture are not only dangerous to our own health, but they pose major threats to farmworkers. Check out the website of one of my favorite organizations, Farmworker Justice, to learn more about some of the problems faced by farmworkers. A great alternative to organic food is buying from small local farms. 2009 = farmer's market time!

3. Eat less high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). (Thanks Brian!) HFCS is not only harmful to health (it has been linked to the rise in obesity), but anyone who has read or heard Michael Pollan knows how bad corn is for the environment. "The environmental footprint of HFCS is deep and wide. Look no farther than the dead zone in the Gulf [of Mexico], an area the size of New Jersey where virtually nothing will live because it has been starved of oxygen by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi from the Corn Belt. Then there is the atrazine in the water in farm country -- a nasty herbicide that, at concentrations as little as 0.1 part per billion, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites." High fructose corn syrup is in almost all processed foods, so this isn't an easy thing to avoid, but I'm going to try to be much more cognizant of it this coming year. For more on the environmental effects of HFCS, check out this Washington Post article.

4. Submit public comments to EPA on issues related to environmental health. The easiest way to do this is through groups that are active on regulatory issues- groups like Food and Water Watch, Environmental Working Group, and Beyond Pesticides often have action alerts about important items on the federal register, with directions on how to post comments, as well as talking points.

5. Get back on the blog wagon. Sorry for the lack of postings, y'all! I promise to do better this time.

8 comments:

Brian said...

Yay! Welcome back. MISSED YOU

Anonymous said...

Carry my mug and grocery bags with me in my pocket everywhere I go. Ohhhhhh yeeeah!

Anonymous said...

And COOK MORE AT HOME (or other people's homes)

Tali said...

i need to work on #5 also!!

GoSustaino said...

Excellent post on Atrazine! Keep the posts coming! Welcome back.

Sustaino

Brian said...

WHY DID YOU BREAK YOUR PROMISE

Anonymous said...

Greetings,

My name is Barbara O’ Brien and my blogging at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, AlterNet, and elsewhere on the progressive environmental blogophere has earned me the notoriety of being a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC.

I’m contacting you because I found your site in an environmental search and want to tell you about my newest blogging platform —the environmental concern of Asbestos Litigation Blog at www.maacenter.org/blog —where I am looking at critical issues in new light. Our shared concerns include asbestos contamination of the environment, environmentally safe workplaces, green public policies, health, and green building.

To increase awareness on these important issues, my goal is to get a resource link on your site or even allow me to provide a guest posting. Please contact me back, I hope to hear from you soon. Drop by our site www.maacenter.org in the meantime.

Thanks,

Barbara O’Brien
barbaraobrien@maacenter.org

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