RIGHT TO BREATHE: 50 STATES UNITED

Cindy Parker

I Support You.
Read All.
Support your ambassador with a message of encouragement!

You can't have healthy people if we're breathing unhealthy air.

Profession: Physician
Group Affiliation: Physicians for Social Responsibility

Clean Air Ambassador:

Cindy Parker, MD

Baltimore, MD

I'm a public health doctor. I'm concerned about air pollution not so much for any individual, but because the public's health is my responsibility. You can't have healthy people if we're breathing unhealthy air.

Inner-city Baltimore has some of the highest asthma rates in the country, especially for children. Baltimore is 70 percent African-American, with about 40 percent of the city's population below, at, or just above the poverty rate. In many inner-city neighborhoods, the poverty rate is closer to 70 percent. Those also tend to be the neighborhoods closest to major roads, power plants and other industrial sites. The people exposed to some of the worst air pollution in the city are those of color, children, the elderly and people without health insurance.

Decision makers in Washington, D.C. must mandate full enforcement of all existing Clean Air Act regulations, continue to strengthen these protections, accept recommendations of staff scientists and ensure that greenhouse gas reductions occur. Climate change makes air pollution worse, which makes climate change worse, which makes… and on and on.
 

2013 Clean Air Ambassador 2013 Clean Air Ambassador: Cindy Parker.
Dr. Parker was also a Clean Air Ambassador during the second
50 States United for Healthy Air event, held in May 2013.
Dr. Parker's 2013 Ambassador Page »

All Messages: Supporting Our Clean Air Ambassadors.

I support clean air 100%! Do whatever it takes to make sure that we can continue to breath the air in this country without getting sick; corporate polluters and the government need to understand that the health of the country's population should always be a higher priority than corporate profits.

I want my 3-year-old daughter to live in a world in which she and all the other citizens of the planet have plenty of clean, healthy air to breathe and enjoy.

My father worked for years in the coal mines, only to transfer to a company where he breathed benzene for years. Later on his job required him to work in the publications department of a large utility company (breathing paper dust). It's no wonder that he finally died of cancer, after being exposed to all of that. -- Fast forward to the current situation; my husband was exposed to asbestos fibers, and may have carried them home to our family. -- We may not have much choice about our occupations, but clean air at home, at work, and in between should be a right, not a privilege.

I have chronic fatigue and I my health improves very noticeably when I am able to spend a month breathing the much cleaner air of the Adirondacks instead of in the polluted air of the Washington DC area where I live. I am outraged that we allow industries to make obscene profits at the expense of our health. The price of pollution is far higher than is acknowledged--thanks to high-priced lobbyists burying and obscuring the truth.

Full Support for CLEAN AIR!

How can anyone put profits before health? I support clean air.

As a teacher I have taught students who could not bring their full attention to the classroom because their first concern was ultimately just to continue to breathe unimpeded by pollutants in our environment. I have taught with teachers who had to leave diring the school term when repairs included use of air-born pollutants that endangered their health.

Increasingly I see individuals carrying inhalers (including my husband) and oxygen tanks and wearing masks when entering public buildings because those have become "alien environments" with untrustworthy air quality. Without the protection of the Clean Air Act regulations, as pollutants become more pervasive, all of us become victims. Our levels of energy and our ability to think clearly are at risk in a time when we need both most.

I fully support our Clean Air Ambassadors!

I give my full support!

Thank you for representing us before Congress and the administration in an attempt to change their views on exactly who they should represent in devising laws, regulations, and enforcement in providing all US citizens a healthful environment in which to live.

I support our clean air Ambassadors!

Those who aren't in some way touched by this pollution are part of an extremely small minority, and yet these same people are the ones who decide for everyone else and who don't yet consider themselves significant stakeholders in the well-being of others. The situation is disgraceful and unsustainable. Those who are suffering must be empowered. They cannot go unheard, and their suffering denied and belittled. The GDP is not a humanistic measure of sustainable economic progress. The Genuine Progress Indicator is a truthful measure, and it doesn't discriminate against people who are marginalized and need to be saved!

I vote for clean air.

Breathing, it is so important. Put clean air in our lungs! It is the only thing about our individual health that we can't first handedly control other than avoiding cigarette smoke.

Here in Baltimore we are having Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a biologist/ecologist come speak on May 18th about her new book Raising Elijah, Protecting Our Childnre in an Age of Environmetnal Crisis. (At the Enoch Pratt Central Library 7 pm May 18th) Her main point is that parents CAN NO LONGER protect their children through individual action. We can only do it by insisting on government action that removes toxins from the soil, air and water. Our children are extremely vulnerable.

I don't understand why corporations are being allowed to profit at the expense of people. It's absolutely foolish to not protect something so vital to our, and everything else on this planet's, existence. Thank you for speaking up on our right to clean, breathable air.

And, here in Frederick, Md, we must keep fighting against the costly, polluting Waste-To-Energy INCINERATOR (or perhaps inSINerator.... truly to be SiN against our environment / our breath / our lives / our stewardship of the world, etc.)

Clean Air is important. I lived outside of LA 30 years ago and was told that working in LA was like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. This isn't true of LA only. I am also a nurse and have seen people struggling to breathe and ending up on a ventilator because they could not breathe. Clean air is important.

I appreciate your work especially on behalf of inner city children. The health care provider can be a strong advocate.
Best of luck.

Thank you Dr. Cindy for making your voice heard, and for all who support EarthJustice for creating a forum for voices of healing and sanity to be heard. I believe there are more of us who want clean air for all than those who don't care. We need to hold our policymakers to doing the right things.

We need voices like yours to counter the big money interests in the fight for the right to clean air.

We stand with Dr. Parker in urging our legislators and federal officials to adopt strong, science-based standards for clean air. The industries never reduce pollution until standards are set. At that point, they deploy their technological know-how to meet the new requirements.

Thank you for standing up to clean air. We ALL need clean air to be able to breathe without becoming unhealthy. The big polluters are putting more and more pressure on Congress so that there would be even more dirty air to breathe. Please do all you can to stop these polluters from getting their way.

Big polluters are using their inordinate financial advantage to buy votes on Capitol Hill in order to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from protecting our health and the environment. We must do everything that we can to ensure that the polluters don't win. Our health and lives depend on it.

Four out of five members of our family have asthma (and the youngest is only six months) so for us, clean air is extremely important. Thank you for supporting such an important issue.

We do need the air that we breathe to be clean air!

Protect our health and our right to healthy, clean air!

Get those damn Hummers off the road!!!!

Health always trumps wealth. Do all you can to clean up our air

Please don't give into the fossil fuel bandits that only think of their immediate gains and not on the future of our planet.

Clean air, why is it ever anything else but clean? Clean air helps us to maintain our health. It just doesn't make any sense to think otherwise.

Thank You for defending such an important cause as clean air. I support you.

Thank You for defending such vital cause as clean air. I support you.

This is what our Maryland ambassador says: "Decision makers in Washington, D.C. must mandate full enforcement of all existing Clean Air Act regulations, continue to strengthen these protections, accept recommendations of staff scientists and ensure that greenhouse gas reductions occur. "

Just listen to her! There isn't time for any more equivocating. Future generations depend on us to stop the destruction and poisoning of habitat.

Thanks for all you do Cindy. We would truely be lost without people like you!

Yoo=hoo, Cindy. Another moment of glory for you who so richly deserve it. We are proud of you @!

Charlie

We need more clean air not more pollution. I support your efforts to resist those who want to pollute.

Dr. Parker, thanks for speaking up for clean air!

Post new comment

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <p> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <blockquote>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options