It happens often.  At age 48 I often take time to question myself.  It’s not that I’ve lost any of my confidence.  In fact at this wily age it’s just the opposite.  However, I do it because over time I’ve realized that not everything is always, as it seems.

What you say?  No, I’m not asking any of you to shed the vestiges of life in Canada, ship out to India and meditate on the beaches of Goa.  Hardly.  However, I don’t want to pour water on that choice either.  Who knows?  Maybe we could all use a little bit of South Asian breezes.

I say this because over the last week I’ve seen many media reports about being more environmentally conscious. In fact much of the media hype has been about the health effects in our environmentally unconscious world.  It would seem “what’s out there” isn’t so good.  The question I have is this really news?

In my younger days I’d scoff at any link between environmental degradation and its effect on our health.  Maybe its because I was younger then, full of testosterone and vinegar and felt like a million bucks.  Maybe it was just because we hadn’t polluted the world as much as we have now.  Maybe it was because I was ignorant of it all, too busy making a living to pass it the time of day.

However, that all changed a couple of years ago.  I made my annual trip to the doctor to get my checkup.  Everything was O.K.; in fact the doctor said I was in pretty good shape for my age.  Nonetheless he told me like everybody else who lives in southwestern Ontario you’ve got spots in your lungs.

Well I looked at him like he had two heads.  What?  What’d you mean like everybody else in southwestern Ontario?  He answered by telling me most people in southwestern Ontario have some type of spots in their lungs because of the environment we live in down here.  Whatever it is, the pollution in our air over time will do that.  Dah, you could have knocked me over with a spoon.  I didn’t want any spots in my lungs.  My biggest crime was being born and raised in southwestern Ontario.

I might have part of that story wrong, but the main part was very true.  Simply put the pollution we face in this part of the country hurts us and there is nothing that we can do about it.  Despite it all strive to be happy.  In this corner of the world along with eating right and watching your weight that’s about the best you can do.  Meanwhile the environment is slowly killing you.

Well, I didn’t run out and join Greenpeace over night.  However, it changed me forever.  As an economics writer I often get to write about the grimy, meandering river which money flows down.  As the river gets grimier, I never took a lot of time to reflect on the true cost of how many people that affects.  Sustaining an environment where people can strive in a healthy manner needs to get renewed emphasis in 2007.  The famous economics John Maynard Keynes used to say, “in the long run we’re all dead.”  However, not so fast.  Maybe we can be more environmentally conscious to extend that prediction a little farther out.

The problem is its not so simple.  And then again, what you can’t see, hear or taste might be even spookier.  Points being we can all see pollution, but we cannot necessarily explain the invisible effects of how our environmental degradation over time has affected us.  How about things like “tingle voltage” and “garbage voltage” straying from the Ontario grid?  How about the effects of continued herbicide and pesticide use on North American cropland over time?

That last one is close to home.  Ever since I was young I’ve sprayed chemicals on the farm.  In my younger days I was cavalier about it, even careless.  I used to be able to tell if I had the right rate applied by how it smelled wafting over the open face tractor.  Now, I cringe when I think about it.  Spraying pesticides to kill bugs, an increasing practice in today’s modern Ontario agriculture may be causing further problems.

So I don’t know.  I don’t know what I don’t know especially about how the environment we find ourselves within southwestern Ontario may be affecting us.  Wafting over us is so much pollution from far; far away it’s easy to just forget about it.  However keep in mind there are long-term health effects happening as we speak.  You think I’m crazy?  Hmmmm.  Remember, not everything is, as it seems.