Blue Zones Can Fight Climate Change
Making simple changes to our communities can make a big difference in the fight against the climate crisis.
Your Carbon Footprint
Being the socially conscious and environmentally active citizen that you are, you are probably already familiar with the concept of a carbon footprint. You are also probably aware that since 2004, it is a tool, that has been heavily promoted by oil giant British Petroleum, as a means to deflect from their culpability in climate change, by blaming consumers for our behavior. While it is important to be aware of how much you are emitting as an individual and trying to reduce it, it is not nearly enough to make a meaningful impact.
When I was in college “think globally, act locally” was a popular mantra for how to change the world. In this day and age when change is needed more than ever, it is an idea that we need to return to. So, if you want to fight climate change, rather than focusing solely on your carbon footprint, start thinking about the footprint of your community.
The Blue Zones
In school, we’re taught math, science, and literature, but we aren’t taught how to be happy and healthy. However, the Blue Zones can teach us a lot about these two fundamental aspects of living. You may have heard of the Blue Zones, five places around the world where people live unusually long lives, many over 100 years old. Even though they are in different countries with different cultures, diets and customs they all have a few key commonalities that help them to live happier and healthier lives, many staying active well into their later years. The main lessons from the Blue Zones are to eat a whole foods plant-based diet; have a good social network; move naturally for exercise, and to have a purpose for your life.
However, this philosophy not only applies to human health and happiness, we can also apply these lessons to our cities to make them more sustainable. Dan Buettner, the author of the Blue Zones, has been doing exactly this, in more than a dozen cities across the United States with his Blue Zones Project.
A Plant-Based Diet
To start with they work with local restaurants, schools, grocery stores, convenience stores, and farmer markets to ensure that healthy whole plant-based foods are available. While people in the Blue Zones eat some meat, it is minimal compared to the average American, who consumes more than 220 pounds per year. The typical Blue Zones diet consumes about 12 to 15 pounds of meat per year and is 95% plant-based.
Since agriculture produces 34% of global greenhouse gases and 60% of this comes from livestock, getting your community to eat a more plant-based diet is one of the best things you can do to fight climate change.
Move Naturally
One of the most important aspects of the Blue Zones project is that it encourages people to move, by adding bike lanes, walking paths, trees, and parks, to communities to help make moving easier. Not only does being outside and connecting with nature make people happier, but it also provides health benefits, saves on transportation and parking costs, leads to cleaner air, less noise, and creates more of a community, which can foster trust between neighbors. Studies also show that there are economic benefits to having more bike and walking paths in a city, as people frequent the local stores and cafes more often. Property values also tend to increase.
According to the EPA 40% of California’s emissions comes from transportation so getting people to walk and bike can make a big difference.
Trees, Plants and Parks
Adding trees, plants and parks to a city not only beautifies it, but also offers the added benefits, of cleaner air and water, reduced noise, lower ambient temperatures, increased property values, lower healthcare costs, less flooding, reduced soil erosion, CO2 sequestration, improved biodiversity, and better physical and mental health for the people living near them.
New York estimates that the benefits it gets from its trees every year add up to $122 million.
Healthy Social Network
Walking and biking paths and parks, not only help to get people moving, but they also help to foster social engagement, which is at least as important as diet and exercise for health and longevity.
The study concluded that loneliness can take years off your life. Nevertheless, we live in our houses, get into cars, go into buildings, to sit in cubicles, without ever getting to know the people who live around us. People who have been neighbors for years often don’t know each other’s names and according to a Pew Survey Americans’ trust in one another is on the decline. Our cities lack community and it undermines our health and well-being, while also acting as a deterrent to sustainability.
To foster better connections, the Blue Zones Project works with community groups, churches, schools, and non-profits to create workshops, activities, and volunteer opportunities to help facilitate networks from which people can form lasting bonds.
The Results
So, what are the results of the Blue Zones Projects? Overall, the participating cities have seen double-digit drops in obesity, smoking, and BMI (body mass index); millions of dollars of savings in healthcare costs; drops in employee absenteeism; increased levels of exercise; cleaner air and better eating habits, and increased levels of civic pride.
Fort Worth Texas
Fort Worth started participating in the Blue Zones Project in 2014 and since then the overall population has seen a 31% drop in smoking, an 11% drop in high cholesterol, and a 7% drop in high blood pressure, while increasing its exercise rate by 40% and its well-being score moved up 3.7 points taking it from 185th place (out of 190) in 2014 to 58th, in the community well-being index. The local government estimates that it saved $268 million in healthcare costs, and reduced its lost economic productivity by $187 million per year, because of lower smoking rates alone.
Beach Cities in California
These include the cities of Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and Manhattan Beach. They began implementing the Blue Zones project in 2010 and as of 2017, they saw a 25% drop in overweight adults, a 36% drop in smoking, and a low in cases of diabetes at 5%. They also saw an 8% increase in exercise, a 6% increase in produce consumption, and a 68% reduction in childhood obesity from 2007 to 2019 in Redondo Beach.
Students also walked 423,000 miles over one school year on 37 Walking School Bus routes, which means that they weren’t riding in an actual school bus which helped to reduce their emissions.
To fund the project the cities received $8.1 million in grants for bike paths and infrastructure improvements
Improved Healthcare Outcomes
One of the most overlooked industries for CO2 emissions is our healthcare system. It isn’t often spoken about, but at 4% of global emissions, slightly above flying, it contributes a lot to climate change. Hospitals require electricity to power the building and equipment and then there is the manufacturing and disposal of medical waste.
Walking, biking, and spending time in nature can not only help reduce some of the most common chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but they can also reduce stress.
Stressed-out parents, lead to stressed-out children, which can have lifelong consequences. In 1998 Dr. Vince Felitti and Dr. Rob Anda created the study for adverse childhood events (ACES). determined that having a lot of ACES led to higher levels of physical and mental illness. Some of these include cancer, heart disease, asthma, depression, and alcohol and substance abuse,
So, reducing the stress of commuting and living in a city will have profound effects, not just on our health and happiness, but on our children as well. This will cause a lasting ripple effect that could improve every facet of your community.
So, improving health care outcomes for chronic conditions. not only saves lives but also reduces the carbon footprint of the hospital and the patient.
Blue Zoning Your community
Fixing our communities isn’t going to be easy. It’s taken us decades to build our existing system and it will likely take decades to unravel it. However, the Blue Zones Project shows us that we can start with small things, that don’t cost much, trees, walking paths, bike lanes, and better eating habits, and as we see results in health care savings, decreased employee absenteeism, and increased economic productivity we can scale up to bigger projects.
If you are interested in Blue Zoning your community, start by inquiring here. Since these projects are paid for by grants and community sponsors, it doesn’t cost individuals anything, but the benefits both locally and globally can be enormous.
