(Posted by John Goetz)
Saturday, August 30, 2008 by: David Gutierrez
The weight and consumption habits of the overweight and obese are worsening the pace of global warming, said two researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in a letter to the medical journal Lancet.
It takes more fuel to transport people who are obese and therefore heavier, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote. In addition, heavier people do not just tend to eat more food: they actually require it. The researchers calculated that it takes an obese person 1,680 calories per day just to maintain their body functioning and another 1,280 to sustain their daily activities. This is 18 percent higher than the caloric intake required for a person with a normal body mass index (BMI).
BMI is a measure of weight relative to height that is used to calculate healthy body weight. A BMI of 18 to 25 is considered normal, while a BMI above 25 is considered overweight and one of 30 or more obese.
But according to Edwards and Roberts, 40 percent of the global population has a BMI in the neighborhood of 30 or more.
“We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” Edwards said. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”
The production and transportation of food is a major source of greenhouse gases, the researchers noted, with agriculture responsible for a whopping 20 percent of global emissions. They also faulted the overweight for contributing to global food shortages.
“Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,” the researchers wrote.
Tim Church of Louisiana State University questioned Edwards and Roberts’ focus on obesity, noting that 25 percent of the food produced in the United States is thrown away.
“We throw away far more food than the extra 460 calories per day [that Edwards and Roberts] point out,” Church said. “In other words, most of our food overproduction is due to waste, not overeating.”
Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com, telegraph.co.uk.
So Al Gore is responsible for global warming after all (the picture of Al Gore was not part of the original article).
BatGuano101:
Don’t misread what I wrote. Algore is the one who thinks cigarette smoking causes global warming. That’s a ludicrous statement on several levels, proving that Al is a buffoon. For example: where does the carbon in cigarette smoke come from? Perhaps from it is extracted from the air by tobacco plants, thus resulting in no net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide when the cigarette is burned? Duh.
The same might be said of animal flatulence. Alfalfa plant takes carbon out of air. Cow eats alfalfa plant. Cow creates methane using carbon from alfalfa plant. Cow releases methane into the atmosphere. The net increase in atmospheric carbon is zero, although CH4 may be a little better at IR absorption than CO2.
“So Al Gore is responsible for global warming after all (the picture of Al Gore was not part of the original article).”
LOL
Excellent joke!
[…] tip: Watts Up With That. I even used the same picture, but it was just too perfect to pass […]
Pops: I *love* it!
At least in N. America most dead folks are put into metal or wooden boxes and then under a concrete cap device (by law, to prevent subsidence). The bodies are embalmed so that they don’t decay for a very long time (centuries?) and are expected to stay recognizable as bodies for a very long time … soo…..
Where do I apply for my AGW Carbon Offset payment? Or does the funeral parlor get it for burying all those tons of carbon every year? Can I get more if I promise to gain at least a pound a year until my demise and sign a contract to be planted in a hermetically sealed metal coffin rather than cremated? Clearly I’m a carbon sequestration project in the making 🙂
Earth in the balance,
that make me smile.
On one side the planet
on the other side Al.
A modest proposal-
Here in Atlanta Georgia I see people who are so grossly over weight they are no longer able to walk, children who are so fat they cannot walk three blocks to school.
This is blimp and whale territory.
Why waste it- render the oil.
Oil for the nation- render the land whales. It is patriotic, energy efficient, and profitable.
Interesting article. Here in the UK there is research to suggest a link between obese people moving to the south east from the north of the country and the fact that the UK is ‘tipping up’ so to speak. The south of the country is sinking while the north is rising. Obviously a worrying trend and also, if this research is to be believed, a little problematic to remedy. I would not want to be the one to ask all fat people to move further up the country in order to redress the balance.
The solution to global warming lies in piracy, as long as said pirates aren’t obese.