A Ten-Year Plan to Reduce Global Alcohol Consumption Is Showing Results
There’s a global move to get people to drink less alcohol. The World Health Organization is behind it. In 2010, a consensus of WHO members adopted WHA63, a global strategy to reduce alcohol consumption. The strategy homes in on, “…ten key policy options and interventions at the national level and four priority areas for global action.” One of the areas WHO has promoted is lowering blood alcohol limits on drivers to .04%, half of what the standard .08% had become throughout the world. The idea has taken root in Europe and America, elsewhere too; for now, the lowering is limited to .05%, but that slope is certainly slippery. (Forbes)
We Drink Basically the Same Wine As The Romans, Study Shows. Why That’s Not So Great
Research at the University of York, in England, we reported yesterday, shows the wine grape varieties we enjoy today have “been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, but everything around [them] has continued to change,” says Zoë Migicovsky, a postdoctoral researcher at Dalhousie University in Canada.
But, she says, the research also reveals a deep vulnerability in wine cultivation — our own obsession with pedigree and timelessness.
As the environment changes around these wine varietals, they remain the same — genetically frozen in the past. This renders them susceptible to ever-evolving pests, pathogens and extreme weather. “If these varietals are genetically identical all over the world … it means they’re all susceptible to the same pests and diseases as well,” Migicovsky says. “We [will] need to use more chemicals and sprays in growing [them]” as threats advance. (NPR)