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Mission Unstoppable
How the Environment Affects Our Health
00:00 - 04:29
Dr. Luz Caludio discusses the impact of the environmental surroundings on physical health and how its presence can cause not just damage to the ecosystems but to living things.
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Video Transcript
0:00
it seems like I'm constantly hearing about what foods are good for me and why
0:04
I should stop eating cake for breakfast and don't worry about me I totally don't
0:09
eat cake for breakfast that much but I've never thought about my neighborhood
0:15
and the health hazards that might be all around it turns out there are a lot of
0:20
things in your neighborhood that might affect your health
0:23
I'm in New York City to meet environmental scientist Dr. Luz Claudio
0:27
who works for Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine she studies how the
0:32
environment affects health and knows all the secrets that neighborhoods hold I
0:37
started as a neuroscientist a study of the brain and a student of mine told me
0:44
that he had observed that many children in his community were suffering from
0:50
asthma asthma is caused or it can be aggravated by environmental pollutants
0:56
and so I wanted to really be part of the solution to pollution today she's gonna
1:02
teach me how to investigate my own neighborhood
1:10
good to see you I am so excited to be here on this beautiful day to guide me
1:16
in my search Dr. Claudio made me a neighborhood scavenger hunt all I have
1:20
to do is find what's on the chart and she's gonna tell me what they mean to us
1:25
I love scavenger hunts we're gonna go around the neighborhood and I will show you how so many things
1:31
in the environment can affect your health
1:33
I'm so excited let's go vamanos first up trees hey we met in a park boom found
1:42
some trees I'm the best scavenger hunter ever in the city trees are extremely
1:48
important because not only do they release oxygen that we need to breathe
1:53
but when we breathe out carbon dioxide they take that in they also take in
1:58
different pollutants and toxins from the air and from the ground and keep it
2:05
inside themselves in the wood and the leaves
2:08
wait that's amazing they're basically acting as an air filter and purifier yes
2:12
they also give us a lot of shade and typically in the cities it's a lot
2:18
warmer they are creating shade not throwing it cool so it turns out trees
2:25
are heroes next step I gotta find some trash cans every neighborhood has trash
2:32
cans what could that have to do with anything I think I see some trash cans on
2:38
average we produce more than four pounds per person of trash every day
2:46
that's like the weight of like a Chihuahua maybe a small dog what
2:53
happens is a lot of that garbage is not recycled only about a third of it is
2:58
recycled the trash that goes out into the oceans
3:03
and into the world into the environment is plastics and plastics take forever
3:09
really to disintegrate and they go into the fish that we eat plastics they're
3:18
the worst next step I'm supposed to find a bus in
3:24
New York that should be easy I see a bus I see a bus right behind me
3:28
so what makes a bus so great so when you take the bus instead of a taxi or a car
3:36
because there's so many more people that fit in a bus and because they're hybrid
3:40
electric buses produce less air pollution you actually are reducing the
3:45
amount of air pollution that you produce and that is really good for the
3:49
environment and for the air an electric bus is great but even better is riding a
3:56
bike so I'm looking for bike racks bike racks mean more people using bikes and
4:01
less people riding in cars bike racks there it is there's a bike right there if we
4:09
can get more people on bicycles and less traffic on the street we'll have less
4:16
air pollution I support environmental health so I'm gonna
4:22
hop on that and ride home for a better community for all
