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7.18: Additional Resources

  • Page ID
    116378
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    The resources on this page are intended as optional tools for you to review key points of this chapter and/or deepen your knowledge in specific areas.

    Overview of the Environment Affects Health

    This episode from Crash Coaurse (remember them from Chapter One?) provides a good summary of the environment affects human health, recapping many of the key points in this chapter, including air pollutants, water pollutants, climate change, and environmental justice.

    More about ozone

    Every semester, I've noticed some students get confused about ozone! Ozone is a three-atom modecule of oxygen (O3). We can't use it to breathe (we breathe ithe two-atom version, O2). Ozone is produced through a variety of industrial processes and also naturally. Having some ozone around isn't a threat (remember, "the dose makes the poison.") Having high concentrations of surface-level ozone -- meaning, ozone in the air we walk around in at the surface of the earth -- is problematic, though. It increases the risk of many lung diseases and can actually injure our lungs. That's why ozone is a criteria pollutant that the EPA closely monitors -- one of six criteria pollutants that are common and especially important to human health.

    But what about the ozone layer? Ozone in the upper atmosphere is very important to protecting humans from harmful radiation from the sun. Ozone in the upper atmosphere is like sunscreen for the planet -- it protects us all from cancer. The upper atmosphere is far from where we walk around breathing, so ozone up there is no threat to human health -- in fact, quite the opposite.

    What's the hole in the ozone layer, and what's happening with it? Due to the use of certain chemicals (CFCs) in lots of manufactured products (from hair spray to refrigerators), CFC pollution has caused a breakdown of ozone in the upper atmosphere, especially over Antartica, where a hole in the ozone layer was discovered in the 1980's. In a rare example of international cooperation on environmental dangers, every country in the world signed the Montreal Protocol, agreeing to stop using CFCs. The hole in the ozone layer is recovering and is expected to close sometime in the middle of the 2100's. Success is in progress!

    You can see more about this through this 2-minute NASA video, or this 8-minute Vox explainer video. Both are OPTIONAL.

    Is the hole in the ozone layer connected to climate change? Not much! They are two different problems, with different causes. There are a few connections between the two, though, which you can read about at this NASA blog post if you are curious.

    History of Environmental Health:

    This 2011 video offers a historical view of environmental health. Some of the early successes of this branch of public health are ones we take for granted now, yet had a huge impact in their day. This video lacks closed captions -- it is an optional, supplementary resource.

    American Public Health Association: Environment • Health • You from Lila Films on Vimeo.


    This page titled 7.18: Additional Resources is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Janey Skinner.