FRESNO: As the Heat and Obesity rates rise, air quality plummets impacting children’s health. What can be done?

 

Today, September 8^th, the air quality index for Fresno is a whopping 156!

 

Fresno County is California's asthma capital: Nearly one in three -- or about 75,000 children -- have it, according to a 2005 statewide health survey. The estimate was 50,000 just four years earlier, and we’re now in 2011, the numbers just keep on growing.

 

While the local temperature is a nice balmy 98 degrees today in September, Fresno’s summer temperatures can occasionally soar to highs of 113 °F (45.0 °C) or more. Statistics say our average July temperature is 96 degrees. Our cooling centers and high school pools open for public use when the temperatures reach 110 degrees.

 

From 2007-2008, the child obesity rate was 35.1% for Fresno County, compared to 31% statewide (California Department of Education).

 

With such high temperatures and unhealthy air quality, is it any wonder that obesity rates are rising? Mothers used to be able to send their kids outside to play, even in the heat, but not now when the air is unhealthy for all populations, not just the sensitive ones. Cooling centers need to be opened at 100 degrees, not at 110! We need either cleaner air, or more inside sports and athletic centers.

 

We need to find a way to cool Fresno down! The prevalence of streets and frontage roads drive up heat island effects, inhibit pedestrian access and drive up air quality indexes. Grandparents and parents need to be able to walk or bike with their grandkids and children to the store. With all the sunshine Fresno has, we need to start utilizing our roofs for solar energy and green roofs, planting edible landscapes, backyard and community gardens, and keeping chickens!

 

Chickens help make gardens more productive, eating bugs, weeds and week seeds, supplying nitrogen rich fertilizer and loosening up top soil. They dispose of fleas and ticks and keep lawn growth down when allowed to forage, eliminating the need for pesticides and herbicides, helping to clean up both our air and water! Imagine what a green roof of vegetables could do on a chicken run… and on top of it all, chickens supply a healthy and nutritious source of protein and vitamins, along with out door exercise.

 

The fresh local eggs are better for the environment and also taste better than the store-bought industrial farm eggs. You may notice that the yolks are more orange than the typical pale yellow of store-bought eggs, but this is mainly because your birds are healthier than industrial farm chickens. New chicken owners are often surprised at how smart and full of personality their chickens are. Kids love chickens, as much or more than dinosaurs.

 

Chickens are the closest living relative to the miniature velociraptor T-rex. Now who doesn’t think having a pet dinosaur isn’t cool? The thing with chickens, if they do decide to murder you, unlike large dogs and any cat, they can’t actually carry out a mauling efficiently. You’d have to sit very still for a very long time; most healthy adults can outrun a chicken, even in Fresno’s bad air!

 

“They’re too noisy!” “They’re too stinky!” “That’s just weird.” Roosters are noisy, hens rarely make any noise and the sounds they do make are melodical, very soft and don’t carry. Chickens themselves have no discernable body odor. Chickens poop, as do all living animals. A chicken wheel burrow, a portable pen that can be moved easily, helps manage any smell by being moved every one or two days.  (Wait any longer and chickens will eat every speck of grass under the pen). The small amount of waste scattered widely over your yard will fertilize the grass and keep down the smell. If you’re going to keep the birds in a permanent pen, make sure to keep straw or rice hulls on the floor and clean this out regularly. Properly cleaned up after, people have been successful raising a couple of chickens on the balcony of their high-rise apartment buildings in San Francisco, New York and other major cities, so it’s very doable if you have a back yard. There are many major metropolises all across the United Sates that now allow citizens to keep four or five hens at their residence, so if keeping chickens is weird, “weird” is now highly fashionable.