Type two diabetes was almost unheard of in teenagers when I was young, but now close to a third are at risk. Humans change culture and culture changes humans; there is no easy escape. I think going to the doctor for a check-up is a good thing, but the synergy of potential harmful man made environmental factors are so complex, one could worry themselves to death by learning all the details of what could be dangerous. There are advantages like hot showers, central heating and cooling, comfortable beds, and toilet paper that only a few generations ago, were beyond imagination.
Despite all the potential dangers of cultural by-products some human beings and their domesticated animal friends, are living a little slice of heaven in the Universe, in a little slice of time, that is likely beyond the comprehension of 99.999999999999999999, etc. % of other creatures that have ever lived.
There is an ever present risk of death with life, but it doesn't get much better than this, at least for most creatures that have lived. There is also a risk of too much reward that moves in the other direction, including strange chemical by-products of a clean and wonderful life, or even being too clean, germ free, with fingernails with no mineral deposits.
Overall, I don't endorse shows like the Doctors; they can take too much away from the little slice of heaven, as an aid in imagining all the things that can and do go wrong in existence. Naivety is harder to come by these days; at least for me it was a blessing most of my life.
The EPA has done a pretty good job of cleaning things up compared to when I was young and there was that Italian Indian on TV, with the tear running down his cheek with the air pollution backdrop.
I use to jog behind cars sucking up fumes from leaded car exhaust, with other fresh scents of paper mills and chemical factories in the background with yellow billowing smoke. And I lived in a small town; can't imagine what a city would have been like. As well as asbestos floors, leaded paints, asbestos shingles on the outside of the house, DDT sprayed over farm lands, and so many other little details, that the EPA has since outlawed.
Not to mention a workplace of over a hundred people smoking in one huge space over the course of almost two decades. That part of the environment is much improved in the last few decades. However, whatever synergistic effects in changes per my biology that may have resulted, I lived long enough to understand just how fortunate I was, in my little slice of heaven, in that tiny slice of time, somewhere in the Universe.
It is pretty amazing to me to imagine what all my direct ancestors faced to give me this opportunity for life. They all had one thing in common, they didn't give up until they reproduced.
That is becoming less of a priority for some that are more culturally advantaged; perhaps that is the most significant cultural environmental impact of all, and something more people are sharing with their domesticated animal friends.
Empirically speaking there is less of a negative environmental chemical concern in many areas of life, as compared to the past. There appears to be much more psychological pollution now than environmental pollution from the past. It's not likely that chemicals in the environment are the largest factor causing type two diabetes in children. That is a much larger health concern, per the costs in society, than Autism. And much less difficult to figure out some of the non-chemical causal factors that are very visible in the environment.
23 Nov 2012, 6:16 am
