6/17/24: A Plea for the Planet, A Return to Empathy, the Facets of Wellbeing, and More
Elizabeth Moore
Author | Consultant | Conservation, Parks, and Recreation Expert | [email protected]
Every week I share feature articles, news, tools, and actions to help everyone protect and enjoy our wonderful planet, from the sea to the sky and everything in between. In this week's issue:
#bluegreenbetween #theoceanisforeveryone #conservation #parksandrec
Something New: For the Sake of the Planet
We know we're in trouble. We know we're facing an existential, ultra-complicated ecological and social crisis. But it's sometimes hard to summarize all the facets of that crises, which is vital in meeting the challenges of the massive problems it presents. A recent article published by PNAS Nexus does a terrific job of summarizing the ecological, economic, cultural, and social dimensions of the crisis. It's hard but necessary reading.
Read more here.
Something New: Pollution is Deadlier Than You Think
If someone were to ask you what the top global killer of humans, what would you think? War? Natural disasters? Disease? Nope. Turns out that the combined kinds of pollution--air and water pollution, heat waves, noise and light pollution, synthetic chemicals, and smoke from wildfires--kill more people each year than war, terrorism, several major diseases including malaria, and drug and alcohol abuse combined. Recommendations to reduce deaths from pollution include speeding up decarbonizing our energy systems, making cities more pedestrian friendly, and better educating medical professionals about the dangers that pollution presents.
Read more here.
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Something New: A Return to Empathy and Kindness
For the last decade, I kept thinking that we were scraping the bottom of the barrel of hatred, malevolence, and extremism in the US and could not get any deeper. And yet every bottom turned out to have another one under it and after some time, while my anger and sadness never went away, my outrage did and I greeted each new incident with a resigned kind of both wariness and weariness. I was heartened to see that new research indicates that Americans, despite recent news, are returning to feelings of kindness and empathy for each other. I greet it with a wary and weary hope.
Something Delightful: Corals in Textiles
In small and large loops of yarn, in wool wound in cones and jugs, in falls of fiber fringe and embroidered dots and spirals, artist Vanessa Barragao recreates coral reefs and other marine habitats in textiles. Her works are a wonderful way of teaching people about the value of diverse, healthy coral reefs, especially those who might never see underwater habitats, or those who think of them as boring or foreign.
See more of Barragao's work here.
Something To Do: Understand the Eight Facets of Well Being
Looking after our own wellbeing, and the health and happiness of those we love, is hard even on the best days. One way to make it easier is to understand the eight dimensions of wellbeing--emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual--and what we need in each one to take care of ourselves and each other. This great resource, from the Department of Health and Human Services, defines each one, provides further information and resources, and also provides a worksheet where you can develop your own action plan for addressing each facet.
That's it for this week - see you next week!