Health & Environment
Health and Environment can both be looked at in several ways.
We have the potential to be healthy in mind, body and spirit. Environment can indicate the community one grew up in and the particular behaviors encouraged there. Health can also be the state of being free from illness or injury and the environment the natural world as a whole or a geographical area. Regardless of which definition you apply health and environment and intricately entwined.
A large portion of the world’s health problems are fundamentally justice issues. Being denied access to medical treatments in the United States, or living in Guinea Bissau’s capital where 80 percent of the water is contaminated with harmful bacteria that leads to outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases- is not acceptable in a world where high-tech computers and gold-plated bathroom fixtures exist.
As citizens learn more about the lives of people living in extreme poverty they can make a difference in the practices and polices of governments and companies by speaking up for those in need. Consumers also change lives as they become more conscious of the implications of their purchase to their health, and to the lives of others.
I am not a health or an environment expert. I do hope however that we can learn how justice and equality for our neighbors near and far, in the areas of health and environment directly effects our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the generations to come.