"If the earth were the size of an egg,
then all the water on the planet would be just a drop; all the air, if
condensed to the density of water, would be a droplet only one-fortieth
as big; and all the arable land would be a not-quite-visible speck of
dust. That drop, droplet, and speck are all that make the earth
different from the moon." We live in a delicate balance. Water, air and soil are precious resources on which life depends. It is the politics of survival and sanity to treasure those vital resources, and it is the politics of madness of pollute and destroy what sustains us.
Air pollution in the UK has been bad enough that people in
London were advised not to cycle. The government are keen to crack on with
fracking – which will not improve air quality and is likely to poison our
water. Climate change threatens our food supplies and collective long term
health.
The dominant health story in the news this week has been
eating 7 portions of fruit and veg a week, and cutting sugar intake to stay
healthy. The week before that, we were talking about obesity. We get plenty of
public information about smoking, alcohol consumption and exercise, as well.
What these stories do, without exception, is to put the responsibility for
health squarely on the shoulders of the individual.
We aren’t talking about the 38% of sick leave from work
being caused by work stress. It was in the chief medical officer’s report, but
didn’t make the news. We aren’t really talking about the implications of air
pollution even though we know it’s a killer. We know that water pollution
nearly rendered otters extinct in the UK – being predators at the top of a food
chain, they are where the toxins collect. We don’t talk about what those pollutants in our rivers might have been doing to the human population in the
same time frame.
Health and the environment are not different issues. What we
eat, drink and breathe impacts on our bodies. What is in our clothes, in our
buildings, in the plastic bottles we drink from? What’s in our soil?
If you care about your health, then you need more than the
efforts you can make on your own behalf. You need political action to safeguard
your food and water, and to tackle the smog. There’s not much point giving up
cake if a sick work culture is undermining your mental health. An extra portion
of fruit and veg might not be so good if the TTIP forces genetically modified
plants on us.
There is nothing more precious than health. Our personal
health, and the health of our eco-systems are one and the same. If we poison
our air, then we poison ourselves. If you care about your health, you need to
vote Green. We can have a better future.
