Excercise: Why winter exercise can be especially hard on the lungs - by Laura Glowacki

Canadian Olympic hopeful Katherine Stewart-Jones can't remember when she first started experiencing a cough she and other cross-country skiers call "race hack," but she said it was probably when she started competing in her early teen years.

"Sometimes, it goes like all the way into your back ... it's just this burning sensation," she said. "I'll lean over and just don't want to get up for a while because it hurts.

Read more at: Why winter exercise can be especially hard on the lungs | CBC News

The Netherlands - Smoking Statistics: Netherlands has few smokers compared to other countries

Internationally, the Netherlands has a relatively low percentage of smokers, according to figures from the OECD publication Health at a glance 2019, that Statistics Netherlands released on Thursday.

The percentage of daily smokers in the Netherlands fell from 23 percent in 2007 to 17 percent in 2017, just under the 18 percent average in OECD countries.

Read more at:
https://nltimes.nl/2019/11/07/netherlands-smokers-compared-countries

EU Parliament - Chemical Industry - Monsanto: Glyphosate -- Crushed it!! and Avaaz made it happen

Europe just took an extraordinary vote, refusing to grant Monsanto a license for its main product and cornerstone of its empire - the cancer-linked weed killer glyphosate.

Monsanto thought renewal of glyphosate was a done deal. But now, after over 2 million of us joined the biggest global petition against glyphosate ever and massive targeted public pressure, the future of the Monsanto model is more in question than ever before.

Together we forced this from a formality for a new 15-year license into a heated political debate that ended up as a vote on an 18-month emergency extension. This week, European nations rejected even that.

Leading EU parliamentarian Pavel Poc just said: “Avaaz is indisputably the driving force of the fight for glyphosate discontinuance." Here’s what we have done together to make what seemed impossible, possible:

When it came down to the final vote, all our work paid off - leaders representing half the EU population refused to authorise glyphosate, even for the trimmed down 18-month proposal we had helped reduce the license to!

All of this effort was funded by over 86,000 Avaazers worldwide who donated generously to make this campaign mega.

Throughout this fight, Avaaz was joined by great allies and partners who played invaluable roles. Our view is only partial, but here’s our top list to express gratitude to:

• The Socialists and Democrats, and Green parties in the EU Parliament were crucial in this fight. Particularly Bart Staes and Pavel Poc who were instrumental.
• French Environment Minister Ségolène Royal, who was a central leader in this fight.
• Pesticide Action Network, a great coalition of national action networks that has long campaigned on glyphosate and provided great advice and insight to Avaaz.
• Greenpeace, always a wonderful force on these issues, which did a lot of lobbying and media work on glyphosate.
• Campact ran a brilliant campaign in Germany, and matched massive open letters, polling and bird-dogging to play a key role in flipping the German government on glyphosate.
• And many others! Like HEAL, WeMove.eu, Global 2000, and a great coalition of Italian NGOs on this.

Note EU-DigestL Once again the above result shows that people, once they can get out of their comfort zone and join together in a common cause, can still make a difference and overcome just about any hurdle that is politically, economically ,industrially, environmentally dangerous to their health or lifestyle. 

EU-Digest supports Avaaz  and recommends AVAAZ  - a global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere
 
Read more: Avaaz - Glyphosate -- Crushed it!!

Happiness: British study shows people aged 65 to 79 'happiest of all', study suggests

Sixty-five to 79 is the happiest age group for adults, according to Office for National Statistics research.

The survey of more than 300,000 adults across the UK found life satisfaction, happiness and feeling life was worthwhile all peaked in that age bracket, but declined in the over-80s.

Those aged 45 to 59 reported the lowest levels of life satisfaction, with men on average less satisfied than women.

That age group also reported the highest levels of anxiety.

Researchers said one possible reason for the lower happiness and well-being scores among this age group might be the burden of having to care for children and elderly parents at the same time.

The struggle to balance work and family commitments might also be a factor, they said.

Happiness and well-being dropped off again in those over 80, however, with researchers suggesting this could be down to personal circumstancessuch as poor health, living alone and feelings of loneliness.

Read More: People aged 65 to 79 'happiest of all', study suggests - BBC News

The Netherlands, US, Switzerland: The Down-to-Earth Solution to Climate Change - by Ken Roseborro

Research conducted by the Rodale Institute in the U.S., the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland and the Louis Bolk Institute in the Netherlands has found that organic farming methods are
effective at removing carbon dioxide (CO2)—the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change—from the atmosphere.

The Carbon Underground is coordinating global research to demonstrate the potential of sustainable agriculture and land management to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change.

Read more: The Down-to-Earth Solution to Climate Change

EU-US Trade negotiations: Germany emerges rightfully as most vocal opponent of potentially "bad" EU-US trade deal

"say no to the potentially bad EU-US Trade deal"

Could EU-US Trade Agreement become the biggest corporate scam in history?

At one point in the past Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wished "for nothing more than a free-trade agreement between the USA and the EU". But she did not wish for it to become a lop-sided agreement favoring mainly US multi-national corporations.

To the dismay of many in Brussels and Washington, Germans are now taking a very different view. That is putting Europe's biggest exporter in the unusual situation of becoming one of the most vocal opponents of what is advertised by the US as potentially the world's biggest trade deal.

Today European concerns about the threat to food and the environment have found their strongest voice in Germany, amplified by the country's influential Green party and anger at reports of US spying.

The difficulty of selling the benefits of a deal, which could generate ( the US says - but nobody knows from which hat they pulled that)  $100 billion a year in economic growth for both the EU and the United States, is a sign of the challenge for governments seeking to contain a growing hostility to the talks and the corporate influence in this potential deal.

"We do not want this sort of agreement," said Ska Keller, a 32-year-old Parliamentarian who gained prominence at home during European elections in May by putting the trade deal at the centre of her campaign. "I don't expect anything positive to come out of the negotiations," she told Reuters.

The trade deal is bad for Europe. It is advertised as creating more jobs and economic wealth, but nothing is said about where the wealth is going to and the uncontrolled power it is giving to tax evading multi-national corporations ( mainly American) and damage to the health of European citizens by allowing the consumption of genetically modified foods and the use of GM in agriculture and life-stock into this deal.  Only five EU countries presently  grow GM crops at all — Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia.

Speaking ahead of a protest in Dublin against GM foods on Saturday,  an Irish official said that food standards are much higher in the EU than the US.

“You want trade between these countries but our standards are much higher than for the US. In the US the whole thing is run by multinational companies who are really only interested in the bottom line and money.

“The standard of food in Europe is much higher than it is there. My biggest concern would be is that you would have GM products all over the place and no body is going to know about it.
 
Political parties, focus groups, special interest groups throughout Europe should use every method at their disposal to stop this agreement from being adopted without major modifications, which includes removing corporate influence as part of the political process and decision making in administration this deal, establishing a permanent ban on the use of GM processes and products in the EU, and being far more specific in showing where and how new jobs will be produced and to whom and where the income generated will be going to.

In the case of the NAFTA agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico, similar optimistic predictions were made about economics and job creation,  as are being made today in relation to this new potential EU-US trade deal, but the actual results of the NAFTA agreement have been dismal, except for multi-national corporations which are making out like bandits as a result of the corporate loopholes in that treaty. 

EU-Digest