You don't know, what you don't know, right? Read on...

I am just a Mom with four children living in suburbia. My passion stems from the need to leave this earth a better place for my children and their children and YOUR children/grandchildren. The mission of my blog is to educate and inform our community about how to attract and support pollinators and wildlife in your own yard. I would be remiss if I didn't educate about what practices should NOT be done to our yards. Let's talk about PESTICIDES, INSECTICIDES, HERBICIDES...

Treating your lawn, trees, and shrubs with insecticide/pesticides and/or herbicides not only kills the essential life in your yard it puts your children/grandchildren, yourself, pets, and any living thing that has contact with your yard at risk for cancer and amongst other side effects. There is no judgment going on here, only the passion to inform, because like the title of the blog post states "You don't know, what you don't know" BUT once you DO KNOW what will you do with the information?

Do you remember the days of catching and admiring fireflies? Recall the beauty and magic of watching a butterfly fluttering about. We are meant to revel and be at one with nature. If nature doesn't inspire change, know that insects pollinate three-fourths of the world's food supply and without them, we will have a dire future. The health and future of the human race is built on the backs of insects. By eradicating them we are essentially committing a slow suicide and bleak future.

I want to share a few statistics with you...

1. A study published in September 2015 found that children exposed to indoor bug sprays and other insecticides are more likely to develop leukemia or lymphoma, and possibly brain cancer. (resource: http://www.center4research.org/pesticides-roundup-cancer-children-connected/)

2. Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. More than 3,500 species of native bees help increase crop yields. Some scientists estimate that one out of every three bites of food we eat exists because of animal pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths, birds and bats, and beetles and other insects. (resource: USDA)

3. Five great extinction events have reshaped earth in the past 439 million years, each wiping out between half and 95% of planetary life. The most recent was the killing off of dinosaurs. Today, we're living through a sixth great cataclysm. Seven in ten biologists believe that mass extinction poses an even greater threat to humanity than global warming which contributes to it. A growing body of evidence points towards pesticide exposure – even at so-called “safe levels” – as a key contributor to these and other problems for wildlife. (resource: http://www.panna.org/resources/environmental-impacts)

4. There is evidence from experimental and epidemiological studies to indicate that pesticide exposure may affect the immune system through disturbances of the cytokine balance. Equally, it is now well-established that the immune system plays an important role in the development of several chronic diseases. (resource: US National Library of Medicine)

5. Exposure to pesticides could increase your chances of having a miscarriage, a baby with birth defects, or other problems. Some pesticides also may be able to pass into breast milk. (resource: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/repro/pesticides.html)

What can you do to create positive change?

1. Stop the use of all chemicals in your yard weed & feeds, pesticides (insecticides) and herbicides (i.e. hiring companies to spray the lawn/shrubs/trees)

2. Manually pull weeds and unwanted plants

3. Switch to organic lawn fertilizer, I recommend this Espoma Organic Weed Preventer

4. Shrink your lawn! Create large pollinator-friendly planting beds.

I encourage you to read and do your own research, once your eyes are open to the harmful side effects that these chemicals cause you can't ignore the facts. Chemicals are HARMFUL to the ones we love (human or fur babies) they also are successfully exterminating the essential pollinators, insects, and wildlife because when you kill the insects you are killing the birds and bird babies (birds rely heavily on insects for food and to feed their young).

Suggested Documentary to watch:

Based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., Living Downstream is an eloquent and cinematic documentary film.

This poetic film follows Sandra during one pivotal year as she travels across North America, working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links. After a routine cancer screening, Sandra receives some worrying results and is thrust into a period of medical uncertainty. Thus, we begin two journeys with Sandra: her private struggles with cancer and her public quest to bring attention to the urgent human rights issue of cancer prevention.

But Sandra is not the only one who is on a journey—the chemicals against which she is fighting are also on the move. We follow these invisible toxins as they migrate to some of the most beautiful places in North America. We see how these chemicals enter our bodies and how, once inside, scientists believe they may be working to cause cancer.

Several experts in the fields of toxicology and cancer research make important cameo appearances in the film, highlighting their own findings on two pervasive chemicals: atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the world, and the industrial compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Their work further illuminates the significant connection between a healthy environment and human health.

At once Sandra’s personal journey and her scientific exploration, Living Downstream is a powerful reminder of the intimate connection between the health of our bodies and the health of our air, land, and water

www.livingdownstream.com

Informational Resources:

• US Right to Know: www.usrtk.org U.S. Right to Know is a 501(c)(3) non-profit investigative research group focused on the food industry. We produce groundbreaking investigations and journalism to expose how powerful food and chemical industry interests impact the food we eat and feed our children. We work to uncover timely and critically important revelations about corrupt and corrosive food industry practices that are contributing to illness and environmental harm

• Pesticide Action Network (North America): http://www.panna.orgs