Natalie Jeremijenko: Let's teach fish to text! and other outlandish ideas | Summary and Q&A

TL;DR

Natalie Jeremijenko introduces her work at the Environmental Health Clinic, which redefines health by addressing environmental concerns and prescribing actions to improve environmental health.

Key Insights

• 🌿 The Environmental Health Clinic at NYU redefines health by focusing on environmental health concerns and providing prescriptions for improving environmental health rather than pharmaceuticals. This challenges the traditional definition of health as internal and individualized.
• 🌎 A study in Manhattan and the New York area found that many pediatricians spend most of their time on environmental health concerns such as asthma, developmental delays, childhood cancers, obesity, and diabetes. This highlights the importance of environmental factors in health.
• 🏥 People who come to the Environmental Health Clinic are called "impatients" because they are too impatient to wait for legislative change to address local and environmental health issues. This demonstrates the urgent need for action and the desire for alternative solutions.
• 🌱 The Environmental Health Clinic sets up field offices in various locations that provide an immersion in environmental challenges. This allows for a deeper understanding of local environmental issues and facilitates collective action.
• 👥 The creation of tadpole bureaucrat protocols and social networking sites for humans and non-humans helps to engage the community in monitoring and improving environmental health. It encourages collective action and knowledge sharing.
• 💧 The Environmental Health Clinic prescribes the removal of asphalt around fire hydrants to create micro landscapes that improve water quality. This demonstrates the power of small actions to have a significant effect on local environmental health.
• 🌿 The crisis of agency in the face of the climate crisis can be addressed through innovative solutions such as intensive urban agriculture facilities that help mitigate CO2 emissions. This encourages collective action and shared responsibility.
• 🐦 The use of communication technology for birds and an interface for fish demonstrates the importance of re-imagining our relationship with natural systems. It allows for meaningful interactions and collective action in improving environmental health.

Transcript

I was informed by this kind of unoriginal and trite idea that new technologies were an opportunity for social transformation, which is what drove me then, and still, it's a delusion that drives me now. I wanted to update what I've been doing since then -- but it's still the same theme song -- and introduce you to my lab and current work, which is t... Read More

Questions & Answers

Q: How does the Environmental Health Clinic differ from a traditional health clinic?

The Environmental Health Clinic focuses on addressing environmental health concerns rather than medical issues. Instead of prescribing pharmaceuticals, the clinic prescribes actions to improve environmental health.

Q: What are some of the environmental concerns that the clinic addresses?

The clinic addresses issues like asthma, developmental delays, childhood cancers, childhood obesity, and diabetes-related issues, all of which are implicated by environmental factors.

Q: How does the clinic use tadpoles and mice in their monitoring protocols?

Tadpoles are used to detect endocrine disruptors or hormone emulators in water samples. The clinic also collects mouse samples to understand environmental stressors and their effects on human health.

Q: How does the clinic involve the community in improving environmental health?

The clinic encourages community involvement through prescriptions like the "No Park," which involves removing asphalt to create engineered micro landscapes for improved water quality. The clinic also uses technologies to communicate with and involve non-human animals in environmental initiatives.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Natalie Jeremijenko runs the Environmental Health Clinic, which redefines health by focusing on environmental concerns rather than medical issues.

• The clinic provides prescriptions for actions to improve environmental health, such as addressing asthma, developmental delays, childhood cancers, obesity, and diabetes-related issues.

• Jeremijenko's lab develops monitoring protocols using organisms like tadpoles and mice to detect and respond to environmental contaminants.