Do you know what your air quality is? (Hint: “F”)

The most basic fact, and grounding premise, of biocitizen is that there is no such thing as “environment” because we cannot separate our bodies from air and water. What the EPA calls the “environment” is actually our body, the “long body.” This is a scientific fact, not some new age theory.

Right now, your body is about 65% water. Your lungs, brain & muscles are especially water-rich, not to mention your blood, which is obviously almost all water.

The water you are comes from….where? Do you know where your water comes from?

This is not a trick question. It might seem like one, though, because our education system—from K through grad school—has no curriculum that teaches this subject, yet. (Biocitizen was created precisely to focus on this and kindred crucial, institutionally-ignored, subjects.)

Plato said the essential task of life is to know thyself. I have often wondered how, if a person doesn’t know where their water comes from, they can reasonably claim to know who they are. I have often wondered, too, how a culture that prides itself as being the most “advanced” in human history can know so little, while pretending to know so much—alas, the results of this pretense is seen everywhere around us.

Because we take showers and drink Fiji etc, water is very present in our lives. We have to bring our selves into contact w/it constantly, and absorb it into our cells, through willed effort.

Air is more abstract than water, at least to our visually-oriented minds, because it does not take too much effort to absorb it. We breath and it becomes us.

So—do you know what your air quality is?

This is, for us in the Ct River Valley of Western MA, it:

All 11 Massachusetts counties that were rated for air quality due to smog, including Hampden and Hampshire counties, received a mark of F in a new report from the American Lung Association.

Yes, that’s right. Our air is worse than unsatisfactory. It is a “fail.” See the full report.

I’m just wondering: how many people in the Happy Valley know they are breathing disease-causing filth? And, how many schools—k-through grad school—teach this subject?

In my next post, I’ll consider what we can do about this situation. There definitely are things we can do—

Related posts:

1. Using EPA & MA DEP data & reports to understand our air quality
2. Trans-generational Amnesia, conclusion
3. Consider: a new oil & natural gas burning electricity-generating plant in Westfield
4. thinking like a superorganism—again!
5. the mental equivalent of wilderness: wild words (& why we should speak them)