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Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
×
Page 24
Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
×
Page 25
Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
×
Page 26
Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
×
Page 27
Suggested Citation:"4 Human Health and the Natural Environment." Institute of Medicine. 2002. Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States: Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10535.
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Page 28

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4 Human Health and the Natural Environment* The natural environment is the thin layer of life and life supports, called the biosphere, that contains the earth’s air, soil, water, and living organisms. The connection between protecting the natu- ral environment and safeguarding hu- The effect of various environmental man health has been recognized for exposures, such as toxic chemicals, air some time. In recent decades the focus pollution, and biological agents on the of research and legislation has been human body, is commonly perceived as identifying and regulating environmen- the central problem in environmental tal toxics to reduce harmful human ex- health. However, maintaining a healthy posures. The effect of various environ- environment extends beyond controlling mental exposures, such as toxic these hazards. chemicals, air pollution, and biological agents on the human body, is commonly perceived as the central problem in en- vironmental health. However, maintaining a healthy environment extends be- yond controlling these hazards. Preserving the variety of life on earth is also essential to human health. The natural world continually offers compounds that are useful to the pharmacopoe- ia. Animal and plant products are vital for research and diagnostic tools, and they can be used as indicators of pollution-related disease. Research suggests that biodiversity may hold a key to the prevention and treatment of many diseases (Lovejoy, 2001). An even more direct connection between the environment and health is the potential enhancement of our physical, mental, and social well-being through our daily exposure to the natural environment. People’s nearly universal prefer- *This chapter and subsequent chapters were prepared from the transcipt of the meeting by Laurie Yelle as the rapporteur. 22

HUMAN HEALTH AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 23 ence for contact with the natural world—plants, animals, natural landscapes, the sea, and the wilderness—suggests that we as a species may find tranquility in certain natural environments and may derive health benefits from them (Frumkin, 2001). Recent research has confirmed this link. For example, hospitalized post- surgical patients (Ulrich, 1984), employees (Kaplan, 1992), and prisoners (Moore, 1981) have been shown to gain health benefits from exposure to views of nature. Health benefits have also been reported from viewing plants in gar- dens, interacting with animals (including pets), and participating in wilderness experiences (Frumkin, 2001). This evidence of health benefits from contact with the natural world suggests a broader paradigm of environmental health that in- cludes health-giving environmental exposures (Frumkin, 2001). A panel of speakers and respondents discussed strategies for ensuring hu- man health through the maintenance of a healthy natural environment. John Sibley, the Georgia Conservancy, noted that in environmental circles the three- legged stool is often used as a metaphor for sustainability. The three “legs” represent the natural world (the environment), the physically built world (the economy), and the social world (equity). Sustainability requires that all three areas be taken into account. Representatives from the three areas must engage in conversation and form partnerships with each other. Sibley noted that the meta- phor fails to reflect one essential part of sustainability—the connection between the environment and health. Representatives of the natural environment, the built environment, and the social environment must also work with, and form partner- ships with, representatives from the health services community. Sibley invited participants to explore these connections and to consider what new metaphor may be needed to go forward. VALUING THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT Many environmental problems stem from our failure to value the natural environment as we should, according to Eugene Odum, University of Georgia, Institute of Ecology. Current market economics deal largely with human-made goods and services and very little with nature’s goods and services (Odum, 1998). The market forces that regulate human-made goods and services in our free market economy are not applied to nature’s goods and services because these resources are considered “economic ex- ternalities” and are perceived as free. For example, we view clean air and Only when a natural resource is scarce, clean waterways as free; even domestic as is water in the southwestern United water is so cheap that market forces rare- States, is it regarded as having ly influence demand. By taking this per- significant value. spective, however, we fail to appreciate the true costs of these resources. In the Eugene Odum past, these “externalities” (for example,

24 HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES air, water, and the cost of waste treatment) have held little economic concern because the environment seemed large enough to absorb the costs (Odum, 1998). As the human population continues to burgeon and our demands on the environ- ment skyrocket, this assumption will no longer be valid, concluded Odum. It is important that we understand the actual costs of the goods and services that nature provides. For example, household water bills cover only the expense of pumping, filtering, and delivering water. They do not pay for nature’s pro- cessing of that water. About a third of the solar energy that reaches our planet is used to conduct the water cycle. The sun evaporates water from the seas, de- salinates it in the process, and delivers it via rain clouds to where people need it. If we had to duplicate these services by replacing them with human-made systems, the expense would be extraordinary. Only when a natural resource is scarce, as is water in the southwestern United States, is it regarded as having significant value. The same analysis extends beyond water and air to resources that grow on the land and lie within the earth. Although we pay for goods that grow (e.g., food and lumber), we do not pay for nature’s building up and maintaining the fertility of the soil or the solar energy that makes growth possible. Similarly, we pay for drilling, mining, processing, and transporting the earth’s chemical and mineral resources, but not for the effort that nature expended to create them. As long as natural resources are not regulated by market forces, it is likely that they will not be properly valued. We must find a better way to merge eco- nomics and ecology. Is it time to consider the application of market principles as an alternative to environmental regulations? Can we protect the environment in this way? We are used to regulations and have often used them to good effect, but people dislike being regulated, and insufficient attention is paid to 90 percent of existing regulations. Odum suggested that perhaps market incentives for promoting environmen- tal health and reducing pollution should be considered. Tax relief and other incentives could be used effectively to reward industry for being guardians of the environment. For example, it is expensive for a power company to be a good steward because antipollution equipment is costly to install and operate. If the company passes the cost on to its customers, the price of the power will not be competitive with that offered by the company’s less noble competitors. One alternative is to give the company tax relief until the equipment has been paid off. Once all power plants have antipollution equipment, the environment and our health will benefit, and market forces can again take effect. Extending market forces to environmental resources poses the potential risk of making basic human needs unaffordable for some and thereby increasing social inequity. Although certain changes may raise the price of the basic neces- sities of life such as water and power, these costs need not be passed on to the poor. The tax system is currently a vehicle for addressing the problems of social inequity, and it could be extended to environmental issues.

HUMAN HEALTH AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 25 The potential benefits of extending market forces to environmental resourc- es are immense. As an example, the state of Georgia in the 1970s assessed the economic value of its coastal marshes at approximately $50,000 an acre, based on the “work” that marshes do to ensure environmental health. As a result, marshes are now considered more valuable left in their natural state than filled in and developed. Odum suggested that a spirited debate about the costs and bene- fits of extending market principles to environmental health is warranted. PROTECTING THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: LESSONS FROM NATURE The question of how to eliminate pollution has plagued humans for the last century. Industrial by-products are often difficult to manage in large quan- tities, and solutions for eliminating waste have often been prohibitively expen- sive to implement. As a result, the present “solution” is no solution at all: continually dumping waste until there is no place left to put it, except in “some- one else’s” backyard. In contrast to industrial systems, natural ecosystems are very efficient. Waste is virtually eliminated because it is reused in some pro- ductive manner. Source reduction, evident in natural ecosystems, is the ulti- mate solution to pollution. Mimicking the workings of natural ecosystems in our industrial complexes would cause raw materials to be used more effectively and waste to be reduced or eliminated. As companies invent ways to mimic nature’s efficiency, they benefit from not having to dispose of waste, and they may be able to sell or license the technology for additional profits. When such technology is applied correctly, profits improve, stated Robert Kerr, Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The current regulatory process generally takes a single-medium view and considers various aspects of pollution and waste control in isolation. Companies may have several environmental permits—an air permit, a wastewater quality discharge permit, and a solid waste permit—but in many cases they have no relationship to each other. Sometimes, for example, companies take the pollut- ants out of the air and create solid waste, which then must be disposed in a landfill. A systematic, holistic view is need- ed to examine the interrelationships in A systematic, holistic view is needed to the process of pollution and waste con- examine the interrelationships in the trol and to apply them to reduce busi- process of pollution and waste control ness and industry’s environmental foot- and to apply them to reduce business print, concluded Kerr. In some cases, and industry’s environmental footprint. several facilities could work together in a cooperative effort. The result would be Robert Kerr to transform industrial ecosystems from

26 HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES linear processes that end with waste disposal to a cyclical process more akin to the process that natural ecosystems use to recycle waste. Not only would the impact on the environment be reduced throughout the life cycle of the product in a cost-effective manner, but the environmental ethic would be incorporated into the company’s core business philosophy. Such a solution could also potentially transform government regulatory agencies into partners prepared to assist indus- try in reducing the environmental impact of waste in a cost-effective manner. This approach has been taken by the Blue Circle Cement Company in Atlan- ta, which worked with the Pollution Prevention Assistance Division of the Geor- gia Department of Natural Resources to identify potentially useful waste by- products from other industrial companies in the region. These waste by-products are now used by Blue Circle as raw material or as fuel for making cement. Also, Blue Circle now has the capacity to burn a million used tires as fuel each year, which benefits the environment by reducing air emissions. The company is also looking into using industrial carpet scraps as an additional fuel source—waste that was previously destined for landfills. This effort is only one part of a region- al carpet-recycling system being developed by the Department of Natural Re- sources in concert with Georgia Institute of Technology and the Carpet and Rug Institute. Synergistic methods of waste reduction are also being identified among other industries and organizations. Working with Georgia Institute of Technology, the Department of Natural Resources has established 18 regional environmental networks throughout the state. The networks hold quarterly meetings in which representatives of various organizations learn from each other and develop relationships so that they can share their waste by-products as raw materials, said Kerr. This effort has extend- ed beyond the manufacturing community to include state prisons, military bases, colleges, and state parks. Lessons learned from examining the dynamics of natural and industrial eco- systems will better equip environmental agencies to work with industries, busi- nesses, and institutions to reduce their impact on the environment and simulta- neously increase profits. The ultimate result will be to minimize public health risks through cost-effective preventive solutions to current waste-generation prac- tices, concluded Kerr. ENSURING THE HEALTH OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: POTENTIAL STRATEGIES A prevailing theme among conservationists has been that preserving nature and protecting natural areas require keeping them pristine and completely free of the imprints of humans and human systems. This view is in many ways no longer practical because most ecosystems today are impacted in some way by human behavior, stated Matthew Kales, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. Vir- tually every stream in the world is affected by atmospheric deposition. The air

HUMAN HEALTH AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 27 Box 4–1 Ways to Protect the Natural Environment 1. Monitor the health of our local environment actively and continuously 2. Create outreach programs for educating individuals about environmental health issues 3. Continue to address issues related to pollution 4. Base policy about the environment and health on sound science 5. Strategies of improving environmental health need to include the particular cir- cumstances of each locality quality in some of our national parks has been found to be no better than in some of our cities. Essentially, no place exists where we cannot feel, in some measur- able way, the footprint of humans. All solutions to environmental health prob- lems must be grounded in this reality. Any proposed solution to problems in the natural environment that discounts the impact of the social and the built environ- ments will be inadequate. To protect the natural environment, solutions are need- ed that consider the entire environment in a holistic way (Box 4–1). A first step is to monitor the health of our local environment actively and continuously, said many participants. A set of indices for the health of the envi- ronment (e.g., rate of biomass production and respiration, microorganism activi- ty, rate of erosion, levels of toxins) would create a profile of a healthy environ- ment and serve as important benchmarks against which to compare future changes in the environment, noted Odum. A second step is to create outreach programs for educating individuals about environmental health issues such as water quality. An example of such a pro- gram is the bacteria alert network for the Chattahoochee River conducted by Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper in concert with the Georgia Conservancy and several federal and state agencies, reported Kales. The Chattahoochee River is a prime resource for the area, supporting navigation and hydropower, providing drinking water, assimilating wastewater, and providing a rich environment for many recreational activities—fishing, boating, swimming, paddling, and walk- ing. Readings of Escherichia coli and other bacteria harmful to human health have recently been found to be extremely high. Representatives from Riverkeep- er and the National Park Service are taking water samples and publicizing the condition of the river to let the public know whether the area is safe for recre- ation. A related program is one that offers outreach to “subsistence anglers,” people who fish for food, to inform them when bacterial counts indicate that the fish are not safe to eat. In this instance, merely publishing passing guidelines is inadequate. Materials must be available in forms that will reach all affected individuals, perhaps in pictorial form or in languages other than English.

28 HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES A third step is to continue to address issues related to pollution. Extensive networks and partnerships among industries and between government and indus- try must be created to reduce waste by-products and minimize the health effects of pollution. Fourth, our decisions about the environment need to be based on sound science, stated many participants. Fifth, approaches to environmental health, including generating environmental indices, have to take into account the particular circumstances of each locality, suggested Samuel Wilson, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. Strate- gies that are the most effective may be different in the Southeast than in other regions, said Wilson. Many participants agreed that the local community must work as a unit to define local environmental problems, to generate creative solu- tions, and to advocate the adoption of those solutions.

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The purpose of this regional workshop in the Southeast was to broaden the environmental health perspective from its typical focus on environmental toxicology to a view that included the impact of the natural, built, and social environments on human health. Early in the planning, Roundtable members realized that the process of engaging speakers and developing an agenda for the workshop would be nearly as instructive as the workshop itself. In their efforts to encourage a wide scope of participation, Roundtable members sought input from individuals from a broad range of diverse fields-urban planners, transportation engineers, landscape architects, developers, clergy, local elected officials, heads of industry, and others. This workshop summary captures the discussions that occurred during the two-day meeting. During this workshop, four main themes were explored: (1) environmental and individual health are intrinsically intertwined; (2) traditional methods of ensuring environmental health protection, such as regulations, should be balanced by more cooperative approaches to problem solving; (3) environmental health efforts should be holistic and interdisciplinary; and (4) technological advances, along with coordinated action across educational, business, social, and political spheres, offer great hope for protecting environmental health. This workshop report is an informational document that provides a summary of the regional meeting.

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