22 April 2007
Here is a little information about Earth Day that may interest you. The celebration of Earth Day on April 22nd began in the United States in 1970 and was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had long thought about finding a way to “put the environment into the political ‘limelight’ once and for all” (his words). Earth Day is a good time to make a commitment to learning more about the environment and how you can help to protect it. Don’t restrict yourself to just one day a year, make it part of your life.
In July 1989, President Bush #1, made the historic announcement that the Peace Corps, for the first time, was going to a non third world country. The Russians had just left Eastern Europe and Hungary asked for the US help to teach English as a second language. In June of 1990 ninety Peace Corps Volunteers headed to Hungary for a 27 month tour of duty as teachers of English. I was among those volunteers. In our information packet about Hungary was a little blip that, at that time I did not pay too much attention to. Hungary had severe environmental problems. Respiratory illnesses were frequent among the Hungarians, lakes and rivers were very polluted and waste-water treatment was inadequate. At that time, as an English teacher, I wasn’t thinking too much about pollution. I wound up in Esztergom, the second most polluted town in Hungary. It is located on the Danube River. About a mile across the river on the Czechoslovakian side of the river was a huge paper mill spewing pollution into the air and the river. A few miles to the south of us in the town of Dorog was a large chemical plant whose pollution blew our way. In Esztergom, brown coal was the source of all energy and at that time unleaded gas in cars added to the mix of pollution. I discovered that most of my students had respiratory problems all winter, when the pollution was at it’s worst. Three months after we teachers arrived, a contingent of Peace Corps environmentalists arrived. I soon learned that the pollution in Eszergom was 83 % higher than allowable for good health. Great!!!
In the spring when Earth Day was approaching, I decided that my 7th and 8th grade students needed to learn about the environment, a concept new to them and most Hungarians I think. On Earth Day, I proceeded to take them to a local park, which was littered with trash. Armed with large plastic bags we started to clean it up. The locals watched open mouthed. It turned out to be a media event and we were on TV. I hoped that it was a start for the Hungarian people to be more aware of the environment and what was happening in their country. A brief aside, during the year that we lived in Esztergom, my husband, who trained Hungarian teachers of English at the University in Esztergom, developed pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, proven to be a direct result of the pollution. By the time we returned home in 1993, he was terminally ill and passed away three years after our return home. He never had a moments resentment about his lot in life and was very upbeat until his last breath. I think that the environmental group of Peace Corps volunteers made many positive changes while in Hungary.
I never experienced such severe pollution as I found in Esztergom until 2002 when I spent two weeks in Xian, China, a city also powered by brown coal, as a volunteer English teacher for Global Volunteers. For the health of it’s people China needs to clean up it’s environmental problems. We Americans need to be constantly vigilant about protecting our environmentand our health…Joan Lough
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