Environmental Health

I think the top five threats to the environment are rainforest destruction, water pollution, ozone depletion, toxic waste, and air pollution.

Rainforest destruction affects people at local, national, and global levels. The rainforest is a valuble resource for everyone. They store water, regulate rainfall, and provide a home to over half the planets biodiversity. Rainforests also play an important role in climate change.

Water pollution affects our oceans, lakes, rivers, and drinking water which makes it a global concern. Many diseases and health problems have been associated with water pollution.

Ozone depletion is also a global concern. The ozone is deteriorating due to the release of pollution containing the chemicals chlorine and bromine. This deterioration allows large amounts of utlraviolet B rays to reach Earth which can cause skin cancer and cataracts in humans and it can harm animals as well.

Toxic waste mostly affects people at an evironmental level. These toxins are buried in the ground, in stream runoff, groundwater supplies, drinking water, and floodwaters. When humans and animals absorb these toxins, health problems can occur.

Air pollution affects us most at local and global levels. Smog that hangs over cities is the most familiar form of air pollution. Some kinds of air pollution are visible and some are invisible. Either way all air pollution leads to global warming. Any substance that is introduced into the atmosphere can have damaging effects on living things and the environment.

Soy a superfood?

When i researched the dangers and benefits of Soy, I found that Soy has many positive and negative benefits. The positive aspects include:

• Soy contains the highest amount of protein of any grain or legume.
• Soy is useful for the prevention of diseases such as cancer, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease.

The negative aspects include:

• Soy contains Phytoestrogens which are plant-based estrogens that mimic estrogen in our bodies. Many people mistake pytoestrogens as being healthy but research has clearly shown that phytoestrogens are dangerous for the human body.
• Soy destroys your thyroid. Soy is goitrogenic like many foods, but soy leads all others in the amount it contains. Goitrogens prevent your thyroid from getting the amount of iodine it needs.
• Soy contains Phytates, an enzyme-inhibitor that blocks the mineral absorption in the human digestive tract. Phytates are found in all grains, seeds, and nuts but soy has the highest level of phytates.

It is hard for me to come to a conclusion about what i think about soy because a lot of research has been done on this topic and the results arent always consistant. Even though it is hard to come to a conclusion, the facts that i have found lead me to believe that it is more dangerous than beneficial.

Industrialized farming

Agriculture has changed drastically over the last 50 years. Even though industrialized farming has resulted in cheap and plentiful food, it has caused many negative health problems. Some of these negative health aspects are:

• Animals are fed hormones and antibiotics to promote faster growth, but these medicines are affecting the people that eat the meat.
• The excessive waste created by the large concentrations of animals is handled in ways that can pollute air and water. For example, the manure is normally sprayed on crops but it often runs off into surface waters.
• Factory farms pollute communities and affect public health which increases medical costs for those living near these farms.
• Farms have started to use technologies such as pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers which could end up polluting groundwater.
• Scientists have created strains of crops, these strains are known as high-yielding varieties or miracle seeds. These seeds have an increased nitrogen absorbing potential compared to other varieties. These strains have lost nutrients as they were developed so they are not as good for the consumers.

I think it could be possible to reverse these trends but it would be a very slow moving process. We could reverse this by putting an end to the factory farming system by buying our food from smaller, sustainable farms. These smaller farms work for social and environmental gain so they wouldn't sacrifice the health of the land or the quality of food to make an increased amount of money like the industrialized farms would.