Civilization Threat: Pollution

Humans have lived so happily ever since 200,000 years of their existence on this planet, until this last 250 years of short period which saw the sea through change in their life style. This extreme change is taking us to the door of our own doom. Our bodies have become the store house of pollutants mixed in air, water and food and the results: we are living with life threatening diseases. 

Still we have time only if awaken to the threat on our door, knocking one last time, for grasping opportunity to save our own survival on this beautiful blue planet of ours !!

200,000 years of human existence of peace & happiness

Humans (Homo sapiens) are primates of the family Hominidae, and the only living species of the genus Homo. They originated in Africa, where they reached anatomical modernity about 200,000 years ago and began to exhibit full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

^{This was the period when human lived with his basic needs and  happiness.}

Earliest Civilizations

The four earliest civilizations - Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese - arose between c. 3100 B.C. and c. 1500 B.C., in each case in the valley of a great river system. 

If you have willed to watch India thousands years back, Lothal is perfect place for you. It is the first Indian port of Indus valley Civilization between 1800-2400 B.C. it shows the knowledge of the ancient India about town planning. Research says that Indian subcontinent made trades with Egypt, Persia and Mesopotamia from this place. Discovery and research also says that it may be usual to have two bodies in single grave as researchers found three such graves here. Apart from this, 4000 years old seals of Indus valley, terracotta items and other ancient stone jewellery had also been found at this place.

                                          

Last 250 years journey of bad and ugly

In documented history of humans, it's about 250 years of time in total, when they set their foot in a period called the Industrial Revolution, where changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural condition of the times. It began in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spread throughout Western Europe, North America, Japan, and eventually the rest of the world. 

                                                    

                                                  

The Era of Sustainability: The Next Revolution

Looking back at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, it is difficult to realize how and what took place then is having such complicated and vast effects today. This is the principle of environmental unity – a change in one system will cause changes in others. Certainly, the seeds of progress – and the ramifications of that progress – were planted then. And with the very same mechanisms and effects that brought about both the progress and the indelibly connected results of that progress to our ecology – the good, the bad and the ugly – over the last 250 years, we are entering a new era of sustainability. 

Human body tissue (adipose); the storage ground for toxins

# Fat, also known as adipose tissue, isn't just sitting there on your hips. (Or jiggling there on your hips. Whatever.) "Adipose tissue is a complex, essential, and highly active metabolic and endocrine organ."

# Because most of environmental chemicals, called estrogen disruptors or xenoestrogens, are toxic and estrogen/antiandrogen active, they can disregulate hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis potentially inducing reproductive disorders.

#... the obese tend to have increased organochlorine concentrations compared to lean individuals. During body weight loss, a decrease in fat mass results in lipid mobilization, and organochlorine concentrations increase both in plasma and remaining adipose tissue.

# Our foods contain various chemicals (e.g. pesticides) that are fat soluble.... losing fat (weight) too quickly will flush lots of toxic chemicals into our bloodstream -- too fast for our bodies to effectively eliminate.

colored scanning electron micrograph of fat tissue

An alarming Report
Once upon a time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a program called the National Human Adipose Tissue Survey (NHATS). In 1982 and again in 1987 it analyzed human fat samples from cadavers obtained throughout the country, looking for the types of toxins that accumulate in human fat. Four industrial solvents and one dioxin were found in 100 percent of the fat samples⁶. Nine more chemicals, including three more dioxins and one furan were found in more than 90 percent of the fat samples. In general, 83 percent of the fat samples contained PCBs. U.S. researchers have confirmed the presence of multiple toxins in human fat⁷ associated with obesity risk. The EPA has confirmed the presence of these chemicals as pollution in the farm soil across America .

Overview of main health effects on humans from some common types of pollution.

(pic courtesy share)

Points to ponder: 
1. The result of life style: We expect our bodies to accept all sort of life style so easily. We never think that's not possible without a resistance.  

In fact, the way or body opposes the artificial and modern lifestyle is  - heart, asthma and cancer like serious diseases.

2. Risk for heart: Heart disease is primarily due to our diet. Once we eat fried food, then this oxidized oil releases free radicals in to our blood vessels, which not only causes heart disease but may be our whole body is at risk.
3. Water pollution is a serious problem: Major source of water pollution is industrial waste and  city sewage which is carried directly into rivers, agricultural and industrial products adds to the problem. Polluted water causes many serious diseases like cholera, diarrhea, tuberculosis and enteric infections.
4. Free radicals are dangerous: Dangerous factors of pollutants present in the body are the free radicals.(A free radical is any molecule that has an odd number of electrons. Free radicals, which can occur in both organic (i.e., quinones) and inorganic molecules (i.e., O(2)), are highly reactive and, therefore, transient. Free radicals are generated in vivo as by products of normal metabolism. They are also produced when an organism is exposed to ionizing radiation, to drugs capable of redox cycling, or to xenobiotics that can form free radical metabolites in situ. Cellular targets at risk from free radical damage depend on the nature of the radical and its site of generation.)

 They increases with increasing pollutants in the body and can cause trouble. Free radicals are the cause of diseases like heart, cancer, gout, diabetes, cataract. These not only make us sick, but also accelerate the aging process.

5. Greater risk of air pollution: As compared to non-industrialized areas, the industrialized places are having much higher increasing trends of diseases like various types of cancer, skin ailments, birth defects and chromosomal inequality. Pulmonary, digestive, blood pressure and infectious diseases have increased manifold.


*Note: pics thankfully shared from various sources.