Health

Health and Connection to Nature

The People and Parks foundation has published many studies on the relationship between human health and connection to the natural world. They run programs in mental health, for children, mothers and more.

E.O Wilson coined the term 'Biophilia' in 1984. It means 'love of life' and the hypothesis goes that we evolved in nature, want to be near nature and gain many benefits from doing so.

A 2008 study of a building in India shows that using lots of three types of plants indoors, productivity went up 20%, the energy bill went down 15%.  So how does this increase productivity? Compared to other buildings in Delhi, the incidence of eye irritation reduced by 52%, lower respiratory symptoms by 34%, headaches by 24%, upper respiratory symptoms by 20%, lung impairment by 10-12% and Asthma by 9%. In fact, there is a 42% probability of increasing blood oxygen by 1% if one is inside the building for 10 hours.

Health and Climate Change

The World Health organisation already attributes 150,000 deaths annually to climate change. Extreme weather events such as bush fires, heatwaves and cold snaps are increasing worldwide and disease is spreading as temperatures change. We recently had Dengue Fever as far south as Brisbane. Natural systems keep diseases in check. Imagine tropical diseases in Melbourne, where the local ecology has never experienced and controlled them before. Rising sea levels are also causing havoc with water supplies in low lying countries such as Tuvalu.

A global sea level rise of one metre (now highly likely) would displace 2 billion people, creating health issues the like of which the world has never seen.

Health and fitness

Walking and cycling are good for our health and for the health of our local communities and spaces. In Bendigo we can also do "Green Gym" though Peppergreen Farm.