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And ditch disposables for your period.
Dear Reader,
I woke in the night to the sky teeming rain, which made for a soggy hike in the woods this morning. But more noticeable than the squish beneath my feet was the smell.
“It’s not often that we humans outcompete our fellow animals when it comes to scent detection,” Leslie Garrett wrote for Bluedot’s “In A Word” column. “A bear can smell a greasy grill from more than 20 miles away, a shark can sniff out blood a quarter of a mile off, and even your housecat can detect the scent of you when you’re about a mile away, though that doesn’t mean it’s the least bit interested in seeking you out. But there’s one scent in particular that humans excel at detecting. It’s called “geosmin,” and it’s the smell of rain and soil, something we can detect at as low as 100 parts per trillion.”
The Smithsonian reports, however, that the Earth’s smells are disappearing. “A triple threat of pollution, biodiversity loss, and warming temperatures is changing the way the planet smells. Like endangered species, some scents might soon become extinct, and scientists are only beginning to understand the stakes for humans.”
The world has a “scentscape,” the article explains, though most of us don’t value our ability to smell. Odd, given how powerful smell is to our memory, even to our sense of well-being.
Some of the scents we risk losing are among our favorites, the article notes: “When plants disappear, their scents become more difficult to produce,” the story tells us. “Sandalwood, vanilla, bergamot, lavender, and hundreds of thousands of other plants are threatened by changing environments.” Even frankincense is disappearing from the wild, threatening to take 2,000 years of history with it.
Take a nosedive into this fascinating story of smell, another thing climate change threatens to steal from us.
Scentsitively,
Dot
Use reusable menstrual products instead of disposable pads and tampons.
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