Protecting Environmental Quality

1
Protecting Environmental Quality

• This is a subtitle for the title slide

2
What do we mean by environmental quality?

• Environmental quality is a measure of the health
  of the environment itself (including the plants
  and animals it supports), and of the effects it
  has on the health, comfort, and psychological
  state of the people that inhabit it.

3
Why protect environmental quality?

• To preserve the health of the community and its
  members.
• To preserve community resources.
• To create a more pleasant and better quality of
  life.
• To enhance the aesthetic character of the
  community.
• To attract new, environmentally-friendly business
  and sustain economic health.

4
Why protect environmental quality?

• To attract visitors and new residents.
• To preserve community history.
• To protect the community from environmental
  disaster.
• To prevent people from taking actions theyll
  later regret.
• To protect endangered species.
• To maintain ecosystems.
• To be good stewards of the planet.

5
When should you act to protect environmental
quality?

• When its specifically threatened.
• When theres a community development initiative.
• When theres a new commercial, industrial, or
  housing development beginning.
• When theres an environmental crisis.
• When theres a publication or media event that
  calls attention to the environment.
• When money is available.

6
Who should be involved in protecting
environmental quality?

• Local, state, and federal officials.
• Local and national and international
  environmental organizations.
• Community activists.
• Those directly affected by environmental quality.
  
• Businesses and corporations.
• Anyone who is conscious of the effects of
  environmental quality or the lack of it on
  their lives.

7
How do you protect environmental quality?

• Make yourself aware of what elements of the
  environment you should be paying attention to
• Air
• Water
• Land
• Plants
• Animals
• Natural resources
• The built environment
• Recreation
• Aesthetics

8
How do you protect environmental quality?

• Decide on the issues you can most effectively
  tackle.
• Learn what you need to know about the scientific,
  social, economic, legal, and political realities
  of the situation.
• Recruit allies.

9
How do you protect environmental quality?

• Create, with as broad a range of allies as
  possible, a strategic plan, and prioritize both
  the actions you want to take and those you feel
  you must take.
• Implement your plan.
• Evaluate your efforts.
• Maintain your gains, and do it again.