EIGHT YEARS OF YOUR LIFE ARE GOING TO BE MISSING—AND SOCIETY DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN
Without question, there is a fatalistic aspect to the U.S. way of life which I absolutely do not understand.
Somehow the indignation factor seems to be missing. Truly terrible things are uncovered, and yet virtually nothing seems to be done.
A recent example concerns the 98108 ZIP code in Seattle. Just read the following taken from a Seattle Times article of March 28 2013—and feel free to be appalled. Better still, do something!
One might think this should be headline news, and yet the piece is positioned as just another feature. Where are society’s values if the loss of eight years of one’s life through preventable pollution are considered to be of scant consequence?
I confess I am completely stunned:
Some Duwamish Valley residents are sicker and die younger than their neighbors just a scant 10 miles away, a new EPA-funded study has found. Residents of ZIP code 98108, in Seattle’s South Park, Georgetown and parts of Beacon Hill in the Duwamish Valley, are most likely to get sick and be exposed to environmental stresses, from pollution to lack of green space, the study found.
In the neighborhoods of South Park and Georgetown in particular, the cumulative effect was a shorter life — eight years shorter than other residents on average in Seattle and King County and 13 years shorter than the well-off neighborhood of Laurelhurst, according to the study.
The assessment took into account a wide range of factors, from exposure to diesel particulates and benzene in the air to childhood-asthma hospitalization rates.
“This should have been done years ago. We have always believed there was an unfair burden on the communities of South Park and Georgetown,” said James Rasmussen, coordinator of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, one of two Seattle nonprofits that released the $50,000 study.
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