In Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the most prestigious avenue in Paris, France, famous for its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops, cigarette butts sit at the streets. When the authorities here banned smoking inside cafes, little did they know they were creating another hazard: the wanton disposal of cigarette butts, propelled mainly by the absence of public ashtrays.
When smokers toss away cigarette butts onto street pavements or out into the open landscape, little do they know how much damage that can inflict onto the environment. Apart from harm to the environment, many minors tend to experiment with smoking on cigarette butts which makes it all the more important to dispose them away properly.
By Lester R. Brown
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch07_ss4.htm
Ensuring basic health care for people in low-income countries is critical to the Plan B goal of eradicating poverty and stabilizing population.
While heart disease and cancer (largely the diseases of aging), obesity, and smoking dominate health concerns in industrial countries, in developing countries infectious diseases are the overriding health concern. Besides AIDS, the principal diseases of concern are diarrhea, respiratory illnesses, tuberculosis, malaria, and measles. Child mortality is high.
Progress in reaching the United Nations (U.N.) Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality two thirds by 2015 is lagging badly. As of 2005 only 32 of 147 developing countries are on track to reach this goal. In 23 countries child mortality has either remained unchanged or risen. And only 2 of the World Bank’s 35 fragile states are on track to meet this goal by 2015.
By Cate Nelson •
January 9, 2009
As if you need one more reason to avoid those nasties…
Smoking during pregnancy leads to offspring with more physically violent behavior. I’m guessing it’s their way of saying later: “Mama! What the heck were you thinking?!”
University of Montreal psychiatry professor Dr. Jean Séguin said of the findings,
It affects the nervous system of the children in many ways, and this is one of them. It makes the kid harder to manage.
By Katy Farber •
January 7, 2009
It’s easy for me as a teacher to tell whose parents smoke. All it takes is one walk over to the coat area, where the fumes linger in the classroom. Or when I am working one on one with a student, crunching numbers in math. The smell always makes my stomach turn, then I feel overwhelmed with sadness for the child.
Smoke on clothing, carpets and furniture is much more than a nasty smell, however. According to the New York Times, the smoke is a toxic brew of “heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.”
Researchers have labeled it “third hand smoke.” What exactly is it? According to the Scientific American, “”Third-hand smoke is tobacco smoke contamination that remains after the cigarette has been extinguished,” says Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in Boston and author of a study on the new phenomenon published in the journal Pediatrics.”
By Gavin Hudson •
December 20, 2008
South Korea is becoming more health-conscious. Koreans are kicking the habit in growing numbers and telling smokers to butt out of public places.
In the late 90’s, cigarette makers experienced the kind of market boom in Asia that they hadn’t seen in the USA in years. Big tobacco enjoyed a tightening grip on Asian asian wallets and lungs; things were looking good. But in the last decade, an emerging health consciousness, popularly known as the wellbeing trend, has threatened to send the plans of cigarette makers up in smoke.
South Korea, for one, has seen a precipitous drop in smoking. In 2000, 70-80 percent of South Korean men were smokers. That number has tumbled to around 40% today. It’s no Bhutan, which banned all tobacco in 2004, but that’s still an impressive improvement. Why the sudden decrease in smoking?
By Derek Markham •
December 2, 2008
A new study by Yale University School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Center finds that exposure to media damages children’s long-term health.
80% of the studies reviewed link greater exposure to media with negative health effects for kids and adolescents.
Common Sense Media published the report, Media and Child and Adolescent Health: A Systematic Review, which reviewed 173 of the best studies from the last 30 years which examine the connection between media exposure and negative health effects on children.
The average modern child spends nearly 45 hours a week with television, movies, magazines, music, the Internet, cellphones and video games, the study reported. By comparison, children spend 17 hours a week with their parents on average and 30 hours a week in school, the study said.
By Rebecca Carter •
February 27, 2007
Smoking, it's bad for everyone's health. Besides the drawbacks of the smoke, cigarettes also create another issue - litter. Yesterday we talked about promotional flyers - one item that most people don't have an issue with tossing on the ground. Cigarette butts, however, certainly take the cake when it comes to a socially accepted practice of littering.
In Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the most prestigious avenue in Paris, France, famous for its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops, cigarette butts sit at the streets. When the authorities here banned smoking inside cafes, little did they know they were creating another hazard: the wanton disposal of cigarette butts, propelled mainly by the absence of public ashtrays.
