Here in the United States, threats to our water supplies are exacerbated by urban and agricultural runoff, pesticide and toxic pollution, clearcutting of forests, and by overconsumption of aquifers, rivers and streams.
Recent federal proposals to relax Clean Water standards, including allowing increases of mercury pollution from power plants while reducing funding to domestic and international water conservation and pollution-prevention measures are only exacerbating the problem at home and abroad.
A recent survey found that clean fresh drinking water is more important to the majority of Americans than any other issue. While we invest billions of dollars in highways, airports and other infrastructure programs, the Bush administration has proposed cutting the EPA's Clean Water funding.
We must demand that our political leaders invest in clean water protection and take actions ourselves to reduce our water use. Fortunately, there are simple things everyone can do to conserve water and reduce pollution:
http://globalgreen.org/programs/water/tips.html
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Smoking & Health Issues
Quitting Smoking
To reduce the health effects of smoking, the best thing to do is to quit.
Public health authorities do not endorse either smoking fewer cigarettes or switching to lower tar and nicotine brands as a satisfactory way of reducing risk. In fact, one of the required cigarette warnings for packages and advertisements in the U.S. is, "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health."
It can be difficult to quit smoking, and many smokers who try to quit do not succeed. Millions of smokers in the United States and around the world have succeeded, however, using a variety of methods.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, "Quitting is hard. Usually people make two or three tries, or more, before finally being able to quit. Each time you try to quit, you can learn about what helps and what hurts."
A wealth of expert quitting information exists from public health authorities and others, including a national quitline number (1-800-QUITNOW) that puts smokers in touch with programs that can help them quit.
This toll-free number serves as a single access point to the http://www.smokefree.gov/pop_800.html
Quitlines. Callers automatically are routed to a state-run quitline, if one exists in their area. If there is no state-run quitline, callers are routed to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) quitline.
Click on the links at right to obtain further information on quitting smoking directly from U.S. Government, public health organizations and other quitting smoking resources, or read below to learn about accessing this information and more using QuitAssist™.
QuitAssist™
QuitAssist™ is a free information resource offered by Philip Morris USA. QuitAssist™ connects smokers who have decided to quit with expert quitting information from public health authorities and others.
Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D., a respected public health writer, wrote and edited the information for QuitAssist™ in conjunction with a review board with expertise in the area of smoking cessation.
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Here are some steps:
Read the book "Stop smoking" by: Allen Car. It's an amazing book and 'I Quote'
~A used-to-be-smoker~ "It really helps! I read it so quickly, and I got hypnosis, which was/wasn't helpful it was a little bit of both. Sometimes Hypnosis is alot of money and may not work for alot of people. This book, and the 'push' from my daughter. It helped ALOT when I heard her telling me about how she thought it'd be GOOD for me and my health, she's in 6th grade. So, in that, I quit smoking." Also, go onto www.philipmorris.com :)
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