Obesity Contributes to Global Warming

Obesity contributes to global warming: study
Thu May 15, 2008 7:03pm EDT 

By Michael Kahn

GENEVA (Reuters) – Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school’s researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

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“We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” Edwards said in a telephone interview. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”

At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

In their model, the researchers pegged 40 percent of the global population as obese with a body mass index of near 30. Many nations are fast approaching or have surpassed this level, Edwards said.

BMI is a calculation of height to weight, and the normal range is usually considered to be 18 to 25, with more than 25 considered overweight and above 30 obese.

The researchers found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 calories to maintain daily activities, 18 percent more than someone with a stable BMI.

Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.

This is also important because 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he added.

The next step is quantifying how much a heavier population is contributing to climate change, higher fuel prices and food shortages, he added.

“Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,” Edwards and Roberts wrote.

(Editing by Stephen Weeks)

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Heavy Weather in Texas

Some interesting observations here…i have been giving alot of thought
over the years to the impacts of global warming on the characteristics of
severe thunderstorms & severe thunderstorm outbreaks, & thus far have
drawn only 1 fairly certain conclusion:

GET USED TO IT!

The nature of building construction is going to have to change ASAP…for
EVERYONE-not just those privileged enough to “afford” it. Along w/ energy
efficiency, storm-proofing will be as critical in places like the eastern
2/3 of the country (hell-EVERYWHERE) as earthquake-proofing building
standards are on the West Coast. It is rapidly becoming an issue of
disaster preparedness & public health-w/ all its racist & classist
implications…

A. Storm Tracker

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FALSE SOLUTION: The Carbon Capture/Sequestration Myth Exposed

Rachel’s Democracy & Health News #959
Thursday, May 15, 2008

<http://rachel.org>www.rachel.org–To make a secure donation, click:
<http://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=155>here.

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THE CARBON CAPTURE JUGGERNAUT ROLLS ON

The coal, oil, automobile, railroad and electric power industries are
planning to “solve” the global warming problem by capturing carbon
dioxide (CO2) and burying it a mile underground, hoping it will stay
there forever. The plan is called CCS, short for “carbon capture and storage” (or sometimes “carbon capture and sequestration”).

Emitting CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) is thought to be the main human contribution to global warming.

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Prince Charles-Again: “Preserve the Rainforests!”

Page last updated at 15:31 GMT, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:31 UK

Charles urges forest logging halt

Prince Charles said there needed to be rewards for preserving the rainforest

The halting of logging in the world’s rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said.

He called for a mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling their rainforests.

The prince told the BBC that the forests provided the earth’s “air conditioning system”.

He said it was “crazy” the rainforests were worth more “dead than alive” to some of the world’s poorest people.

The world’s forests store carbon in their wood and in their soils.

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