Distant policy makers decide issues whether we like them or not, and whether they reflect the wishes of the many or the few. With the stupefying array of environmental and ecological issues facing us as I write in late March, choosing coherent policies is complex. Clearly, however, we shall be on our own if unforeseen misfortunes materialize. Medicare, Tea Party, Supreme Court, Freedom of Choice, Cato Institute, SEC, Democrats, Republicans — these are almost irrelevant in the event of a Japan-scale catastrophe.
Look around you. We cannot eat money! Earth is the only home we are adapted to live on. I would love to be convincing when I argue for respect and care for it. We can refrain from harming life in order to learn about it. It frustrates me that the concept of Earth Day has joined the group of “annoying ideas” about changing our habits that causes human ears to clang shut.
Humans have adapted to living in wildly varied conditions, from Arctic to desert, yet they have succeeded. My interpretation of Earth Day means following practices and habits that allow for us, and for our descendants, to live on a fruitful and habitable Earth.
We have nothing without our health. The enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is burdensome, even meaningless, without good health. The importance of clean air, water, and food cannot be overstated. Here on Martha’s Vineyard we take the first two for granted, and the third for the most part. So I repeat the paraphrased laws of ecology:
All things are interconnected
Everything goes somewhere
There’s no such thing as a free lunch
Nature bats last
Since we are only truly in charge of our own behavior, it means starting with ourselves, where we live. Many notions and products have been advertised and sold to trusting citizens that promote the idea of control: control of dirt, insects, stains, smells. Ordinary soap-and-water good housekeeping makes these well-advertised, artfully manipulated negative concepts meaningless. Their purchase swells household expenses but contributes very little to our bottom line.
Maybe it is fatuous to recommend “eco products” and “eco lifestyles” when some people around here are on slim budgets; but it is worth remembering that low-income groups often bear a disproportionate burden of healthcare issues. Even without a lot of money, however, people can shop and compare, then make informed choices.
The amount spent at a convenience store on a bag of chips and a pack of cigarettes can instead purchase items of core nutrition and some simple home care products, such as soap, vinegar, and soda bicarb. Household products loaded with “fragrance” may aggravate conditions such as Chronic Pulmonary Insufficiency and asthma.
Look under the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and in the laundry area and broom closet. Separate whites and colored washes and eliminate the use of bleaches. Has the moral value of whiter-than-white laundry ever been established? Where do such products go after leaving your washer? Into your septic system and then into ground- and salt-water. Forego unnecessary chemical or pesticide-laced personal care products. Change DEET-based insect repellent in favor of herbal repellents that work well. Several are made on Martha’s Vineyard.
What is in your shed or back entryway? Get rid of yucky stuff: pesticides, herbicides such as glyphosate-based weed killer, and solvent-based products containing ingredients such as benzene, acetone, and toluene. Their presence is ultimately more harmful to our own health than to their supposed targets, which build up tolerance faster than we can.
Is your yard and garden dependent on applications of glyphosate-containing products? I’d ask myself which was more important: lack of weeds in my driveway, or lack of contaminants in my drinking water? Again, manufacturers have made well-advertised, artfully manipulated negative concepts seem like matters of moral virtue. Eliminate high number chemical fertilizers that give the “ka-boom” effect. Your lawn can thrive with organic fertilizer.
Has it ever been explained why a chemically produced, weed-free lawn is so important? Plus, assurances that breakdown occurs within 24 hours of contact with soil are incorrect. Measurable amounts of glyphosate, plus a cocktail of other toxic contaminants and fertilizers, persist in the groundwater of farming regions.
All things are interconnected. Is it worth the trouble, cost, and heartache of treating children with allergies and skin issues, and taking pets to the vet with malignancies? When you go after a “pest” with a poison, you send ripples up and down the rest of the food chain. There is always a chain reaction: you cannot kill one species and not expect other species to suffer.
Let’s say an oak tree, an arboreal ecosystem, is sprayed to kill twig-pruner insects. What happens to the myriads of aerial life living in that oak tree, from mammals to birds to mites? They are affected as well, creating a dead-zone tree. How many dead-zone oak trees can the woods contain without becoming dead-zone woods?
And how do we humans maintain ourselves, apart and unaffected by these changes we have caused?
Abigail Higgins, of West Tisbury, is the Garden Notes columnist for The Times.
