The State of Our Environment (How Much Are We Doing?)

Here we are about ready to leave beautiful Northern Alabama, a place we’ve called home for the last 4 years and head west to Arizona.  Meanwhile, unforgiving wildfires are spreading all over the Southwest.  Just this morning, news reports stated that the worst of the fires “Frye Fire” is only 70 miles Northeast of Tucson which is where my family lives.  To say I’m moderately worried would be an understatement.

Temperatures have reached the highest in years with numbers hitting close to 120.  5 states are under a state of emergency and firefighters are working hard to contain them.  We’ve experienced our own volatile weather patterns in the Southeast over the years with the most intense of storms, severe flooding, tornado warnings and most recently, hurricane weather in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Southern Alabama.  It terrifies me to think about how our earth has changed so dramatically and yet the idea of global warming is still being questioned by many parties in the political arena.  With all the recent discussions regarding the state of our earth and severe climate change, I’ve not put the needed focus around it as it deserves.

As a family, we’ve made some strides to help the environment and purchase environmentally safe products for our home.  We watch documentaries and engage Maya in conversations about harmful chemicals in clothing, make-up and perfumes.  2 recent films we watched which were really compelling were “Stink” which is a case study about chemicals found in clothing manufactured for many of the stores our young children shop at.  Its unimaginable how so many hidden toxic chemicals exist in the several products our children use…and this is all quickly discovered in “Stink” when a concerned father sends articles of clothing to a chemical lab for testing.  You must watch the outcome.  A second documentary about the environment is called “Before the Flood” which is produced by Leonardo DiCaprio who is a major advocate for environmental awareness.  He also produced the documentaries titled “Water Planet” and “Global Warming”.  Before the Flood discusses the our behaviors in the US with respect to the environment and its negative impact on other parts of the world.

However, we have much progress to make as a family.  We still use certain materials in our home that are harmful.  I’ll admit it is difficult to completely eliminate certain products from our daily lives.  But when I observe what’s happening to our earth in terms of climate change, our declining health and the quality of air we breath every day, the deterioration is evident and becomes a direct impact to our children and future generations, whether we want to believe it or not.

So as we begin our journey to Arizona, we hope that the destructive wildfires subside and pray that the families and all the brave firefighters affected will overcome these terrible events.  Thank you, as always, for reading our blog.