I would not have believed the claim if I hadn’t read it here:
So the idea is that everybody should lose ten kilos the result of which would be a drop in greenhouse emissions that would be the equivalent of 0.2% of the CO(2) emitted globally in 2007 (49.560Mt).
Good luck pulling that off. I have a proposal that may also have an impact.
Any researcher who takes public money to study global warming and produce results that dictate how the rest of us should live should give up their car and walk or bicycle everywhere.
That should have an effect.
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I think Eco Geek is off his Lithium compounds.
I assume the “lose weight and save the planet” calculation is based on reduced consumption and fuel efficency increases for transporting lighter people. The consumption arguement might be moot due to higher metabolic rates used to reduce weight in the first place but the other factors which include transportation, smaller clothes, furniture that lasts longer, less need for medical services, etc probably offset that.
Can I get carbon credits for losing weight? I already have a certificate for one billion carbon offsets from freecarbonoffsets.com so I probably don’t need any more.
Eco-geek,
Sorry you had such a hard time posting. I’ve had the same problems from time to time. Often my comment appears after fifteen minutes or so, despite not getting a “Your comment is awaiting moderation” message.
That being said, and despite having suffered as you have suffered, I got a chuckle out of your anguish. It made a very funny thread funnier.
Another thing that is messing up our diet is high fructose corn syrup. The body does not recognize it as sugar, although it tastes sweet. As I recall, the liver turns it to fat swiftly.
It pays to eat as our great-grandparents ate, as much as possible. The problem is, it takes longer to prepare food the old fashioned way, and we’re all in a hurry.
aaron says:
August 16, 2011 at 4:39 am
Did they account for the carbon they’re requesting?
Someone should make “I’m not fat, I’m carbon sequestering,” t-shirts.
Uh, I could see that on the back of some folks pants/shorts/skirts, too!
🙂
That surely must be Johnny Walker University, not Robert Gordon’s.
Ten kilos, about 22 pounds, at 3,000 Kilo calories per pound would produce how much CO2 to burn off? TImes how many millions of people… This is supposed to reduce CO2?
The obesity issue is an important, rather serious health issue. Linking it to “global warming” is, of course absurd, and just makes a mockery of it. People who are obese and/or even slightly overweight most likely already feel enough anguish and guilt about their condition (self-inflicted or not), and certainly don’t need more piled on.
As far as trans-fats, I don’t believe they are healthy, and we try to avoid them, but I think it has to do more with the fact that they cause inflamation which wreaks havoc with the circulatory system and other nasty things, being of the Omega 6 variety. The rule of thumb seems to be to limit saturated fats, eschew trans fats, and go to town with polyunsaturated and monosaturated fats.
Of course, it goes without saying that people should exercise more, which not only burns calories, but raises your basal metabolism rate, thus burning more even when inactive.
I believe the jury is still out about HFC syrup – I have seen both sides argued, and am not convinced either way.
I maybe over weight, but at least I’m not a fathead like these researches.
Bruce Cobb says:
August 16, 2011 at 8:10 am
> I believe the jury is still out about HFC syrup – I have seen both sides argued, and am not convinced either way.
Ditto – the first step in sucrose metabolism is to split sucrose into glucose and fructose, and those two join a common metabolism chain quickly. It occurred to me that maybe fructose metabolism is faster than the sucrose cleaving, so eating sucrose would lead to low concentrations of fructose, eating HFC would create a fructose spike, and I’ve read som bad things about fructose and heart disease. I don’t have time to read this now, but I just found http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/carbohydrate_metabolism.htm which has far more knowledge than I have, I’ll spend more time with it later.
This really is something that you could not make up. How is it that people who do not understand what a cycle is can be designated “researchers”?
After spending a few days camping in south carolina, I can tell you that if the world would heat up, everybody would lose 10 kilos. Nobody felt like eating when it was that hot.
It’s also supposed to be starving people. Go figure. It’s just one of the many items for “the list” John Brignell has maintained for years of things allegedly caused by AGW.
Literally THOUSANDS of different, often mutually contradictory things.
This priceless, i used to say that fat people contributed to global warming as a joke back in 2000 LOL. Trust me, I’m the biggest idiot anyone will ever meet but someone decided to take me seriously I guess LOL. i don’t know whether to sue for copyright infringement, because this is technically my bit, or be incredibly humbled hahaha.
10 kg is exactly what I lost during the last 18 months – through the only sensible way: exercise. But I’m pretty sure I emit more co2 now – all that exercise makes me consume more calories, not less!
A quote from the article:
‘The team were inspired to investigate the link between obesity and global warming after reading a paper written by academics Ian Roberts and Robin Stott in November 2010 which put out a call for collective action from health professionals against the causes of climate change.
‘Dr Rolland continues: “The current climate change has been most likely caused by the increased greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the direct producers of these gases is human beings. As such, Professor Broom felt that we were in an ideal position to present our data in a way that responded to this call by Roberts and Stott.‘
Two points. First, I don’t know how others interpret the above passage, but I interpret it as follows: “You can get money to investigate anything provided you connect your research to the evil effects of man-made global warming.”
Second, I’ve broken the code. I now know the real goal of global warming alarmism: “Worry causes hand wringing which uses energy which induces weight loss which contributes to saving the Earth.” Now if I can figure out why the GW alarmists didn’t tell me this when they started the scare.
Perhaps Mrs. Obama will pick up on this for her anti-obesity campaign and link it to President Obama’s avowed war against CO2 emissions.
Never mind that skinny people who exercise a lot emit much more CO2 than obese people who exercise very little, and that there has been no global warming in the last 12 years despite a continuing increase in atmospheric CO2.
Hold on! Losing weight means burning mass means releasing CO2. How is this going to lower emissions, not that lowering emissions is desirable in the first place as CO2 is PLANT FOOD?
And Espen is right. When people are in better shape, they can burn through more calories by being fit and more active than being sedentary.
Here is a poster or paper by a warmist Ivory Tower dweller who argues that whales are “the forest of the sea” because their fat bodies bind so much carbon.
http://www.seascapemodeling.org/seascape_projects/PershingSMMbiennial.jpg
AGW is bi-winning again! Fat bodies good for climate, fat bodies bad for climate! Doublethink!
@Kelvin Potter Vaughan says:
August 16, 2011 at 3:42 am
H.R. says:
August 16, 2011 at 2:19 am
Where does cannibalism fit in to all this?
Do we eat all the fat people?
You havn’t really thought this out have you H.R..
We would end up the fat people then!
======================================
Uh-oh. Sounds like a “last man standing” proposition.
Fatter = Slower = Dinner. Rinse and repeat.
On a more cheerful note, at least the vegans won’t tan your hide for the leather.
eco-geek, give it up on the one word silliness. I think your original post was posted, intact, at 1:58 am.
Only 1/2 joking, and prepared without the cost of a publicly-funded grant:
More energy is used by transportation systems moving larger (i.e. heavier) people.
A greater area of clothing, needing more energy to produce, is needed to cover a larger body.
one day somebody will compute that life itself is a big source of CO2. Then in order to save the planet they’ll detonate that Alpha-Omega bomb.
Bruce Cobb,
You say:
The rule of thumb seems to be to limit saturated fats, eschew trans fats, and go to town with polyunsaturated and monosaturated fats.
You have bought into the lie. Trans fats are by definition unsaturated fats. In the UK trans fats are labelled as unsaturated fats. Indeed its getting so cynical that omega Xs are more usually trans fats these days. Saturated fats are harmless. But going to town on polunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats is a recipe for obesity, diabetes,CV disease, Alzheimers, breast cancer, impotence, cellulite and much much more. Mostly unsaturates=trans-fats is the rule,
Caleb,
It was completely weird. Every time I tried to post the main comment or a subsection of it nothing happened – and I did it lots of times and checked lots of times – but every time I posted the odd word or interposting comment it turned up! Looked like an intelligent automatic censorship system! I of course looked like a paranoid android. Guess I am….
Ric,
Ah! I get it. The lack of a “your comment is awaiting moderation” notice led to:
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam,
spam and spam?
Choir (intervening):
Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam.
Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!
Spam spam spam spam!
Apologies to Monty Spamthon
Did you know that SPAM was withdrawn from the supermarket shelves here in the UK a couple of decades ago due to a falling market? Then with the growth of the internet and spamming the market re-emerged and SPAM is back on our shelves! I must get a tin and sit it on my monitor…
Don MacLean wrote: “As a Scot I am greatly embarrasssed that a Scottish seat of learning is so far out of touch with reality that it believes 3% of CO2 makes it ‘the MAJOR greenhouse gas’!”
Don, don’t feel too bad. At least two government-provided or -supported websites here in New Brunswick totally omit water from their listing of “greenhouse gases”.
IanM