Green Build Lecture Series: Indoor Air Quality and Our Health

Thursday I attended a lecture sponsored by the City of Scottsdale‘s Green Build Lecture Series on Indoor Air Quality and Our Health.

Anthony Floyd, the Green Building Manager for the City of Scottsdale, and Dr. Donese Worden were the speakers.  I was very curious how an architect and a doctor would team up and talk about the very subject that has caused millions of people to become chemically sensitive, a subject very dear to my heart as not long ago I was suffering from toxicity due to my previous environmental exposures.

Floyd and Worden were very informative and treated the subject with the utmost importance and relevance to our lives, and the lives of our future generations.

Below are some facts I found interesting and think you will, too.   You need to know, so read on.

The FDA has told the chemical industry they have to regulate themselves, as they just don’t have the staff to do it (ok, really, do we honestly think that the Chemical Industry is going to regulate themselves?!)

62,000 chemicals were grandfathered in when the EPA was created in the 1970s.  That means that those chemicals were never tested, and will never be tested.

There are 42 disease clusters in 13 states.  People are becoming so ill with cancers and autoimmune disorders that the CDC has now started a Biomonitoring project in those areas.

California’s Marin County posts signs (called Integrative Pest Management signs) near parks indicating pesticide/herbicide free play areas (as those elements are neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors…feminizing babies and causing thyroids to slow down!)  Makes me think twice about the parks here in Arizona.

According to Worden, golf courses are one of the most toxic places on earth.  Makes sense to me.

California has a “Cleaner Air” symbol that is posted on buildings where the air is less toxic.  There is a national standard, but Floyd said he does not know of any other states that are following this standard.

Edgar Allen Poe was said to be going crazy.  Well, literally, he was…by “burning the midnight oil”- or writing next to a lamp and inhaling carbon monoxide

There is an international panel trying to come up with resolutions to our environmental problems called the Beneveto Resolution.  I want to know more about this!

Flourescent lighting causes cancer cells to grow in Petri dishes.  Would follow suit that it would do the same in our bodies.   That in addition to flourescent lights causing school children’s ADD/ADHD act up is enough to enough to make me avoid flourescents.

Full Spectrum lighting is the best

LED lighting has been shown to aid in DNA repair

Brain tumors in children has skyrocketed in the last several years…believed to be caused by EMF from cell phones.

Use as little electricity in your sleeping space as possible.  We are electrical systems, and we do not yet know the longterm effects of changing that system with outside electrical influences

You can buy kill switches for electricity (I know very little about this and am probably sounding that way!)

You can buy a device called a Pong for your phone to cut down on your EMF exposure (I am sure there are others, but this is the only name I know)

These interesting little facts (all documented by scientific studies, yet I did not write the studies down!) above have given credibility to the issues we as Americans are dealing with, and provide a warning to us and guidance for the road that we should go down.  Like many other cultures do, we REALLY need to stop and ask ourselves how our choices will affect our children’s children, 7 generations down the line.  So many of the conveniences that our lifestyle offers will make it harder to choose differently, however, maybe with the number of loved ones becoming ill around us we will be more motivated by our compassion and understanding for those we love.

I think that is where I will stop.