Fat people causing climate change, says Sir Jonathan Porritt

[Hannah Bell]

Echoing the famous slogan "fat is a feminist issue", Sir Jonathan, Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, said "fat is a climate change issue".

He pointed out overweight people eat more protein-rich food such as beef or lamb, which is responsible for producing greenhouse gases because of the toxic methane livestock emits. He also said obese people are more likely to use cars rather than walk or cycle, therefore producing more carbon emissions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5436335/Fat-people-causing-climate-change-says-Sir-Jonathan-Porritt.html



I suggest rich titled people produce more greenhouse gases, including with their genocidal bloviating.

[DJ13]

1. First smokers, next up the overweight

Where do they stop?

[Occam Bandage]

15. Hopefully they'll take on men with mustaches next.

Then they'll have the trifecta of "people who unnerved me when I was a small child."

[Richard Steele]

70. I'm an overweight smoker with a mustache, and I have no intention of being taken peacefuly. nm

[MineralMan]

2. And, once again, Rush Limbaugh leads the way...

[d_b]

3. nom nom nom

[crikkett]

7. can't wait for the fur to fly on this one

:popcorn:

[Forkboy]

9. ...

[d_b]

35. rofl

[Tansy_Gold]

4. I don't think he's saying anything that isn't true, is he? n/t

[Hannah Bell]

5. other than fat people cause climate change, necessarily eat more meat or drive more?

[anigbrowl]

8. Claims which appear to be well-founded

Porritt appears to be citing this letter (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608607163/fulltext) combined with WHO data on the prevalence of obesity. He is not arguing that fat people are the sole cause of climate change, as your summary and the Torygraph's headline suggest.

[Hannah Bell]

12. "Transport policy is food policy" - he's citing this letter by saying:

"The World Health Organisation recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes an additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year.," he said. "With one billion people judged to be overweight around the world – of whom at least 300 million are obese – that's an additional one billion tonnes."


sure.

[Occam Bandage]

17. Is that not what the data shows?

I agree it's being overhyped badly, and doesn't really serve any particular purpose, but is it wrong?

[Hannah Bell]

31. do fat people make ag policy? transport policy?

[anigbrowl]

48. No, the implication is they cost more to transport in terms of energy

Arguably, the same is true of tall people, who weigh more due to having larger frames. But the point is that if you take two people of equal height and one is substantially overweight it's going to require more energy to tranport them in a car, train, plane or whatever. For an individual the difference is very small and may be swamped by other factors to do with their crbon use, but in the aggregate it adds up. On the other hand, in most cases people of quite different weights will pay the same fare.

It's not sensitive to point it out I suppose, but it comes down to a basic mass vs. energy calculation. The laws of physics don't take account people's dignity.

[Hannah Bell]

53. it takes more energy to transport john travolta & barack obama in their personal jets, too -

by orders of magnitude.

why isn't that the headline?

100 pounds overweight = a sack of cement.

why isn't the headline: "diy afficiandos cause global warming"?

[anigbrowl]

54. Yes, but there are far fewer people flying around in personal jets.

This one's really sent you off the deep end, eh?

[Hannah Bell]

61. 1 = 60,000. even if it's 1 out of 10,000, they still use more energy, even if they make 1 trip/yr,

only 300 miles, than someone who eats an extra 500 kcal/d, even if it takes 4 kcal of fuel to produce each of those 500 kcal.

[anigbrowl]

63. As so often, your logic is faulty

I have no expressed any disagreement with you about people's caloric intake, as my knowledge of nutrition is superficial. I was making a point about the extra fuel needed to move someone who weighs more. You don't seem to have any response to that, so you've gone back to talking about about their caloric intake.

[Hannah Bell]

69. Yes, it takes more fuel to move heavier things. Men are heavier than women;

I weigh 120, what do you weigh?

I'd be clinically obese at 150, & still weigh less than most men 5'10" or more.

Old people & children generally weigh less than middle aged people.

So fucking what?

Weight doesn't cause greenhouse gases, neither does eating, neither do fat people, men, middle-aged people, teenage boys, competition athletes, or anyone else who eats more than some reference "norm".

If you like faulty logic, read the bullshit study.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5805238&mesg_id=5808618

[anigbrowl]

72. Since you ask, I weigh 117.

I already addressed the fact that people come in different sizes and weights. The point is that to the extent obesity is preventable (and I do not argue that that is a simple matter of choice for everyone, since my weight is the result of an unusually fast metabolism), the extra weight, besides leading to health problems, costs energy whenever it is transported by mechanical means, and that the greater the degree of obesity, the more often that is necessary for the person to get around (as opposed to walking, biking, or whatever).

Your interpretations of the study language are, frankly, flawed and depend on selective quoting of the source material and a misunderstanding of statistics. In your link you suggest that authors claim "The obese are now "theorized" to possibly "be responsible for" *half* of global greenhouse gasses.". This is simply not so.

The paper observes that a population with a high number of obese people, correlated with obesity profile in developed countries which disproportionately produce CO2, maybe be responsible for up to half of global co2 emissions. That would include the thin people like you and me, because it is an observation about the population as a whole. The authors suggest that increased adiposity within that population might be responsible for approximately 0.5-1 gigaton of added emissions. Global emissions are on the order of ~28 gigatons, so this would be about 1.75% to 3.5% of CO2 emissions, not half. Specifically, this is the increase they suggest to be due to the excess weight over and above a normal BMI distribution.

Or put another way, if obesity were not as widespread as it is, we might reduce our CO2 output by something on the order of 2.5%, or 1/40th of the total.

[Hannah Bell]

73. Nothing to do with understanding statistics, no particularly difficult stats in the paper.

More with reading sentences like this too quickly:

"If half of global emissions were produced by our overweight population, the emissions due to increased adiposity would be 0.81 GT per year."

You're correct, they're talking about a total population responsible for 1/3 to 1/2 of GHG in which 40% are obese: "‘overweight’ population with mean BMI of 29.0 kg/m2 and 40% obese."


Per the paper:

"In 2000, the total global emission of GHGs was 42 Giga tonnes (GT) of carbon dioxide equivalents"

If the pop w/ 40% obese is responsible for 1/2 of GHG, that population's GHG = 21 GT.

Multiply x 20% (portion of GHG production r/t food production, per the paper) = 4.2 GT.

Excess GHG supposedly attributable to 19% excess kcal consumption (1 brownie/d) by the 40% obese = .3 GT, or .7% of GHG.

[anigbrowl]

74. So why did you say they were claiming obese people were responsible for half of greenhouse gasses?

That's what you wrote in #49:

The obese are now "theorized" to possibly "be responsible for" *half* of global greenhouse gasses. Not only "responsible," but to actually "produce" them - like cows farting - that was Reagan's theory, & it's about as logical.
<...>
Somehow, from this consumption difference (= less than 1 starbucks chocolate brownie), they conclude their paper speculating obese people might be "responsible" for half the world's greenhouse gasses.

You flat-out misrepresented their argument, now you're backing off again and trying to obscure it with your silly brownie comparison. You're a fake and a fraud.

[Hannah Bell]

75. Because that's how I read it not too carefully skimming the "discussion". I read the kcal stuff

carefully, that's my field, did the calculations & looked at the assumptions. 478 kcal/d (1 brownie) is the calorie difference between their reference obese person & their reference normal.

I questioned the contradictory assumptions (fat people walk as much as normals when we want to jack up their calories, but walk less when we want to jack up their gas use).

"Part 1: When they calculate caloric expenditure, they assume the obese & non-obese do the same activities:

"To estimate activity energy expenditure, we assumed that the normal and overweight populations have the same pattern of daily activities comprising 7 h sleeping, 7 h of office work, 4 h of light home activities, 4 h sitting, 1 h standing, 30 min of driving and 30 min of walking at 5 km/h."

Part 2: However, when they start discussing transportation costs, they change assumptions:

"To estimate the modal shift from walking to car travel for the overweight population, we have assumed a daily distance walked of 2.5 km and a daily walking energy budget of 123 kcal (515 kJ) per day.11 This distance is that covered by the daily walking of 30 min at 5 km/h, and the energy is the average amount required for a person with a BMI of 24.9 kg/m2 to walk this distance. Each individual with a BMI > 24.9 kg/m2 requires more energy to walk 2.5 km than is available in the walking energy budget, and so switches part of this journey to motorized travel. Since energy use increases with increasing body mass, a larger proportion of the 2.5 km is travelled by motorized transport as BMI increases."

So if their theoretical 5'2" obese woman rides more, she doesn't require 19% more kcal than her non-obese twin. And if she walks her theoretical 30", like her twin, she doesn't have higher transport costs.

But the authors want it both ways."


I questioned some of their other assumptions as well (e.g. on bmr, but that's technical & not worth getting into with people unfamiliar with the lit).


Then i skimmed the discussion & read "the population we describe" & "overweight population" as meaning "only obese people" without checking that assumption with a more careful reading.

My reading was that the authors were saying the global obese *could* be responsible for *as much as* 1/3-1/2 of GHG, not that this was the main conclusion; that it was speculation based on the speculative example in the paper.


I didn't run the numbers of global v obese GHG & i didn't read past this:

"The population we describe might therefore be considered to be responsible for a third, or possibly half of total global GHG emissions. If we assume that our normal population contributes a third of total annual emissions, the 19% increase in food consumption by the overweight would lead to an increase of 0.54 GT carbon dioxide equivalents per year. If half of global emissions were produced by our overweight population, the emissions due to increased adiposity would be 0.81 GT per year."


Cause I was off to the races.

Sue me, I read the "discussion" sloppily at 1 a.m.

Did i do the math right once you noted i'd mistaken the population under discussion? Then I understood what they were talking about, & i understood the "statistics".

The brownie isn't irrelevant, it's the calorie difference between the reference obese & non-obese person in this paper, & sorry, i seriously doubt 365 brownies = 1/6 of 1 year's average drive time.

I'm no fraud, I don't hide my mistakes, & the paper is a bunch of GHG, just not as stinky as i first imagined.

[anigbrowl]

85. Perhaps you could have avoided those mistakes if you'd read it before going on an angry tirade.

As mentioned, a dose of skepticism about the significant right-wing bias of the Telegraph would have helped too.

[Hannah Bell]

87. perhaps i could have. not the first time, won't be the last. big deal.

porritt indeed made the speech to the food manufacturers, & he indeed, promotes the idea that fat people use more resources & are responsible for more ghg.

"Obesity and Climate Change

What an intriguing contribution from Alan Johnson linking obesity and climate change, when he suggested that obesity could be at least as serious a problem by 2050 as we think climate change will be.

Perhaps the Secretary of State for Health is softening us all up for a new Obesity Bill, with ambitious (even statutory?) targets to reduce levels of fat by at least 60% by 2050, with compulsory lipo-suction for failing to meet key weight reduction milestones by 2015, and more intrusive surgical interventions thereafter.

If that’s a little bit too ambitious at the moment, then the Department for Health could immediately commission a serious study into the real (and extremely significant) links between obesity and climate change, based on the rather obvious perception that those factors which have seduced us over the years into our ludicrously CO2 – intensive lifestyles are the self-same factors that promote a dangerously “obesogenic” environment. In that respect, as many people have pointed out, it's no coincidence that the United States is both the most obese nation on earth and the most CO2 – obese, as in per capita omissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

So, at the risk of making myself deeply unpopular on “fattist grounds”, the reality is that fatter people (relatively speaking) not only do more damage to themselves than thinner people (relatively speaking), but they also do more damage to the physical environment and to the climate – both through the nature of their diets and through their more sedentary lifestyles. With a growing reluctance to walk or cycle, the more obese people will become.

What people constantly forget in all this, is that the food supply chain, in its entirety, contributes at least 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and probably more, depending on how you define it. Relatively speaking, obese people consume up to 40% more in terms of calories, as Ian Roberts (Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) pointed out in an excellent article in the New Scientist back in June this year:

“An obese population leaves a significantly heavier footprint than a thin one. Fats and refined sugars, which tend to dominate the diets of obese people, are particularly carbon intensive”.

http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2007/10/obesity_and_climate_change_1.html


In developed countries, the fattest people are the poorest. Scapegoating the fat for global warming is fascist bullshit.

Scapegoating individuals for how much they eat when they didn't design & have no control over the food system which feeds them, designed by capital for the benefit of capital, is fascist bullshit designed to get people to remain oblivious to powerholders while directing their anger to the powerless.

[Jane Austin]

6. I eat a lot less meat than most others I know.

I also recycle, drive a Prius, limit my driving trips, turn off lights and keep the thermostat adjusted properly.

I weigh too much, too, so bugger off, Lord Ignoramus. (Not you, Tansy. You didn't make the statement and probably just don't know.)

[paulsby]

11. i have 11% bodyfat

and i eat metric assloads of meat

the food nazis can kindly fuck off.

[Tansy_Gold]

20. I'm overweight, too.

I don't eat much beef -- some but not much -- but no lamb or mutton.

I drive as little as reasonably possible, but still more than many because I have no access to public transportation and live too far from facilities to bike or walk esp. in AZ in the summer. However, I make every affordable effort to be energy efficient. (The BF, who is not overweight, squanders much more electricity and gasoline than I.)

Porritt is not singling out each and every overweight/obese person as the sole cause of global warming. He is saying that as a group, they/we collectively contribute more than a similar group of non-overweight/obese people.

Again, is he saying anything that isn't true and accurate?


Tansy Gold, very much aware that sometimes the truth hurts

[Hannah Bell]

30. no, he's not saying anything true or accurate.

[SoCalDem]

33. protein-rich diets? ...hardly

overweight people often are POOR people who cannot afford "protein-rich" foods. They are stuck with High-Carb, High-Fat diets devoid of much nutrition, but loaded with calories. Couple that fact with unsafe neighborhoods for millions of them, and the lack of exercise comes into the mix as well. Add a dose of clinical depression , and you have it ..

Global warming may factor in when you consider the junk that the FACTORIES that are producing the glut of non-food foods, dump into the atmosphere/water supply/soil.

[soleft]

10. very skeptical about the meat claims

While I'm not sure I've ever met a chubby vegetarian, then again, I don't know many vegetarians.

[Hannah Bell]

13. i know severals. carbs = cake as well as spinach.

[Tansy_Gold]

26. You're missing the point

It's not that eating meat causes obesity -- though it may contribute -- but that the raising of the animals that produce the meat (cattle, sheep) increases methane, a greenhouse gas. Therefore, the more meat that's eaten, the more cattle & sheep that are raised, and THEY contribute to global warming.

Also, the processing of meat uses enormous amounts of energy, everything from transporting livestock to feed lots, slaughtering and butchering the carcasses, refrigeration (huge energy consumption there), shipment to warehouses and stores, packaging (lots and lots and lots and lots of plastic), cooking, etc.


Compare all that to the low-energy usage of locally grown fruits and vegetables.



TG

[Hannah Bell]

28. the military is the biggest user of energy in the us.

[Tansy_Gold]

38. You're still missing the point.

Porritt never says "Fat people are the sole cause of global warming." He's not dismissing Chinese industry or US automania. He's saying that people who are overweight/obese because/and/or they eat a lot of beef and/or lamb/mutton contribute to global warming in a variety of ways.

As far as I know, he does not advocate or even suggest that overweight people be rounded up, gassed, and melted down for cooking oil.

What he does appear to be saying is that a systematic program(me) targeting obesity (NOT the people, but the condition) by promoting more healthy nutrition and lifestyles could not only result in healthier people but a savings to the environment.


A little less paranoia might be a good thing.




Tansy Gold

[Hannah Bell]

45. let's do a little math, ok? 500 kcal/d over weight maintenance needs =

1 pound/wk gain = 52#/yr. = 182,500 kcal/yr = 766,500 joules of energy = .7665 megajoules,

& this is an uncommon weight gain, most obese people typically eat about 100-300 excess kcal to keep their weight stable (not lose). That's an extra piece of cake or two, i.e. it's not a substantial volume of food.

Teenage boys, high-level athletes, & pregnant women consume that or more over "normal" wt/kcal needs.

1 gallon of gas = 121 megajoules.

1 plane trip of 300 miles burns 5 gallons/mile, 1500 gallons of fuel, about 35 barrels of oil or 181,500 megajoules.

OVERWEIGHT PEOPLE DON'T CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING AT ALL, anymore than teenage boys cause global warming. It's a crock of fascist shit, & i'm surprised to see you (whose posts i generally respect) buy into it.

Mr. Parrot is responsible for more global warming on one private plane hop than 236,000 "fat" people (or teenage boys) are in one year.

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. Here's their maths:

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/dyp172v1

[Hannah Bell]

66. And here's the kind of mutually contradictory assumptions such idiotic "studies" are built on:

Part 1: When they calculate caloric expenditure, they assume the obese & non-obese do the same activities:

"To estimate activity energy expenditure, we assumed that the normal and overweight populations have the same pattern of daily activities comprising 7 h sleeping, 7 h of office work, 4 h of light home activities, 4 h sitting, 1 h standing, 30 min of driving and 30 min of walking at 5 km/h."


Part 2: However, when they start discussing transportation costs, they change assumptions:

"To estimate the modal shift from walking to car travel for the overweight population, we have assumed a daily distance walked of 2.5 km and a daily walking energy budget of 123 kcal (515 kJ) per day.11 This distance is that covered by the daily walking of 30 min at 5 km/h, and the energy is the average amount required for a person with a BMI of 24.9 kg/m2 to walk this distance. Each individual with a BMI > 24.9 kg/m2 requires more energy to walk 2.5 km than is available in the walking energy budget, and so switches part of this journey to motorized travel. Since energy use increases with increasing body mass, a larger proportion of the 2.5 km is travelled by motorized transport as BMI increases."


So if their theoretical 5'2" obese woman rides more, she doesn't require 19% more kcal than her non-obese twin. And if she walks her theoretical 30", like her twin, she doesn't have higher transport costs.

But the authors want it both ways.

Finally, in the discussion, this piece of idiocy:

"The population we describe might therefore be considered to be responsible for a third, or possibly half of total global GHG emissions. If we assume that our normal population contributes a third of total annual emissions, the 19% increase in food consumption by the overweight would lead to an increase of 0.54 GT carbon dioxide equivalents per year. If half of global emissions were produced by our overweight population, the emissions due to increased adiposity would be 0.81 GT per year."


The obese are now "theorized" to possibly "be responsible for" *half* of global greenhouse gasses. Not only "responsible," but to actually "produce" them - like cows farting - that was Reagan's theory, & it's about as logical.

The difference between calorie consumption between their "reference normal" & "reference obese" = 478 kcal/d (12.3 MJ v. 10.3 MJ), slightly less than in my example of 500 kcal/d.

Somehow, from this consumption difference (= less than 1 starbucks chocolate brownie), they conclude their paper speculating obese people might be "responsible" for half the world's greenhouse gasses.

This paper is a steaming pile of shit, producing plenty of noxious GHG of its own.

[muriel_volestrangler]

77. No, they haven't actually shown their calculations for the switch to car travel

So it's not necessarily 'having it both ways'. They calculated the extra food energy needed for the overweight population - separating out the 30 mins walking at 3.5 METs, and going from, I think, their average weights used of 63/75kg female/male for the normal population, and 75/90kg for the overweight one, I think that's about 100 kJ per day due to walking. So even if we left that out, the increase would be (7.05 + 5.15) - (6.49 + 3.81) = 1.9 MJ, as opposed to 2MJ. So that's an increase of 18.4% in food energy, rather than 19.4% in food energy. This does not make a significant different to the overall argument.

The "0.024 GT of GHG emissions per year" they attribute to the higher car use by the overweight population is not detailed; they may well have done it substituting the energy used by car driving for that by overweight walking, rather than normal weight walking. But, given that the lower limit their calculations come out with is 0.4 GT, decreasing it to 0.39 or 0.38 is not significant.

The obese are now "theorized" to possibly "be responsible for" *half* of global greenhouse gasses.

No. They are studying a theoretical 1 billion people, and looking at the effects of their average BMI being either 24.5 or 29.5. In their earlier calculations, they just said "this is about one sixth of the world's population, so we will attribute, to this one billion, one sixth of the world's agricultural CO2 emissions". Similarly, they gave the one billion one sixth of the world's transport emissions. "The population" means the one billion people they are looking at.

What they then do is say "but if we're looking at a high income population, they are already responsible for more than one sixth of the world's CO2." "The population" is that one billion people, whether overweight or not. They are saying that the CO2 output of a normal weight, high-income population is more than they had calculated for an average income one (and that's reasonable - more meat in the diet, which is produced less efficiently, and more motorised transport, in high income countries); and so their calculations of "overweight people use 19% more food energy" and "12% more transport energy" should be based on higher starting points, when high income countries are considered.

They're not saying "obese people produce half of the world's CO2"; they're saying "the richest sixth of the world produce half of the CO2, and if they are also overweight, then they'll produce more still". Roughly, North America, the EU, Japan and Australia do produce about half the world's CO2, and have a population approaching 1 billion, so this is a reasonable situation to look at.

They suggest it's up to 1 tonne of CO2 per person per year more; very roughly, Americans produce roughly 20 tonnes per person per year, the EU and Japan more like 10; so 1 tonne more or less won't solve everything, or doom the world, but it is part of what we, as the leading CO2 producers, should consider.

[Tansy_Gold]

50. One reason I "buy into it"

Is that I've been reading Jonathan Porritt since 1985.

He is NOT SAYING THAT FAT PEOPLE CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING, but apparently you've decided that that's what he said and nothing is going to change your mind.

Be sure to figure into your calculations the amount of energy needed to produce one kilogram of beef, including the transportation energy, energy to produce the feed to feed the cattle, etc. etc. etc.

I understand that you've apparently got some axe to grind, and I don't, so I'm gettin' the hell outta this particular Dodge. I don't waste my time on people who just scream HE'S WRONG HE'S WRONG HE'S WRONG and have no clue that they aren't even addressing what he -- regardless who he is -- really said.


But one last time for the lurkers -- Porritt's gripe is much more with the non-sustainable meat industry than with "fat people." Some people can't seem to get past that word "fat," and I'm really sorry about that.

Tansy Gold

[Hannah Bell]

52. headline: Fat people causing climate change, says Sir Jonathan Porritt

If his problem is with the unsustainable practices of the meat industry, why isn't that the headline?

qui bono?

you've already told me fat people are *part* of the problem.

[anigbrowl]

55. Well, he didn't write the headline, the editors of the Torygraph did.

One wonders why you are basing your outrage on a headline in a newspaper well known for its paleoconservative viewpoint (and which thus has a tendency to cook up headlines with the intention of ridiculing ecologists and other people they disagree with).

[Tansy_Gold]

57. Because he is addressing ONE SINGLE TOPIC

not the entire issue of ALL THE CAUSES of global warming, ALL THE CAUSES of obesity, ALL THE EFFECTS of obesity. This is a single article, not a fucking text book. I'm quite sure that given unlimited time and print space, he could address all those issues and more, including the landed aristocracy's use of private airplanes, overconsumption of champagne and the cost in mega-Joules to import it, etc., etc., etc., but it's one fuckin' little article, ¿comprendes? and it addresses one little issue.

As the poster above mentioned, Porritt didn't write the headline. Indeed, he didn't write the article. A FEW OF HIS WORDS are used to make the point of the article, ALL CHOSEN BY THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE.

It probably should be pointed out, too, that obesity affects the middle class as well as the working class, and NO ONE, not even the nitwitted writer of this article -- who, again, is NOT Jonathan Porritt -- suggested that obese people, poor or otherwise, should be exterminated, forced to be thin, or sterilized before they breed. That kinda knocks the wind outta your genocide sails, don't it.



Tansy Gold, thinkin' there's a whole lotta stupid goin' around tonight

[anigbrowl]

58. But that wasn't exciting at all, Tansy. Where's my thrill? What are you, some kind of class enemy?!

How dare you deny me my OUTRAGE?!

[Hannah Bell]

62. obesity doesn't cause global warming. unless you think eating causes global warming.

but it doesn't.

[soleft]

88. I get the point, I'm doubting that obese people are biggest meat eaters

[Hannah Bell]

89. which is the point *you* keep missing. eating, even overeating, doesn't cause global warming.

the far-flung, oil & chemical-dependent, overpackaged food chain created by big capital does.

the food system is the difference between 1 kcal of food costing 1 kcal of energy (peasant ag for local consumption) & 1 kcal costing 4 to 40 kcal of energy.

so when multiple media reports come out linking fat people to global warming & recommending "education" (as if we hadn't been "educating" for decades with worse than negative results), one has to ask whose agenda is being served.

especially in the uk, where a huge expansion of air service is being planned by the gov't while its servants promote the idea that fat people emit greenhouse gases.

[muriel_volestrangler]

90. You've fallen for the Telegraph's spin on his lecture

If you hadn't realised yet, the Telegraph is the chief climate change denier in the UK media. So if they can spin a story anyway to say "hah - look, these people are putting the blame for it all on one group - how absurd!", they will. They desperately want anthropogenic climate change to be disproved.

Here's a report on what Porritt said in the lecture, not seen through the Telegraph's filter:

UK farming strategy attacked
...
Porritt said: "To make any kind of positive contribution in achieving those targets, the food sector is going to have to undertake a dramatic de-carbonisation of every aspect of its supply chain, from on-farm production all the way through to point of sale.

“Our entire farming enterprise is still geared to high carbon emissions and low energy prices - and that's going to have to be completely reversed."

The same sort of challenge arises from the government's own Obesity Strategy. Food-related ill health costs the NHS an estimated £7.7 billion, nine per cent of its total budget. An estimated 70,000 premature deaths in the UK could be prevented each year if UK diets matched official UK nutritional guidelines - and the UK already has the highest rate of childhood obesity in the EU.

"Despite their recognition of this massive problem, the measures taken so far by the department of health and by DEFRA to address the obesity crisis have been patchy and poorly implemented," said Porritt.

http://www.freshinfo.com/index.php?s=n&ss=nd&sid=48719&s_txt=&s_date=0&ms==0&ntype=nws

Note that he actually agrees with you about the problem of the energy needed to produce food with current methods. And that he said the problem with obesity is its effect on people's own health. But the Telegraph picked up on one small part of the lecture, that the food industry site didn't think worth reporting (the title of the lecture was "Sustainability Through Food Security"), in which he referred to the study about more greenhouse gases from a more overweight population, and they spun it to "Fat people causing climate change".

I think the deeply right wing Telegraph would find it quite funny to see you taking their report as evidence that Porritt is waging a class war on the poor. He's a suspect pinko liberal to them.

[Hannah Bell]

91. from his blog:

Obesity and Climate Change

What an intriguing contribution from Alan Johnson linking obesity and climate change, when he suggested that obesity could be at least as serious a problem by 2050 as we think climate change will be...

So, at the risk of making myself deeply unpopular on “fattist grounds”, the reality is that fatter people (relatively speaking) not only do more damage to themselves than thinner people (relatively speaking), but they also do more damage to the physical environment and to the climate – both through the nature of their diets and through their more sedentary lifestyles. With a growing reluctance to walk or cycle, the more obese people will become.

What people constantly forget in all this, is that the food supply chain, in its entirety, contributes at least 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and probably more, depending on how you define it. Relatively speaking, obese people consume up to 40% more in terms of calories, as Ian Roberts (Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) pointed out in an excellent article in the New Scientist back in June this year:

“An obese population leaves a significantly heavier footprint than a thin one. Fats and refined sugars, which tend to dominate the diets of obese people, are particularly carbon intensive”.

Does this provide Alan Johnson with enough of a steer as to the synergies between himself, Hilary Benn (Defra) and Ruth Kelly (the Department for Transport)? Despite my earlier blog-prompt that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might just get things sorted by a massive injection of funds to promote cycling and walking, I’m sorry to report that The Comprehensive Spending Review just didn’t take the hint.

With its mind on higher things, it is probably a bit demeaning for Treasury to stoop to the banality of exalting cycling and walking. But if it turned out to be the most cost-effective way of reducing both the pounds and reducing the CO2, that might just swing it.

Posted on October 16, 2007 12:25 PM | Permalink

http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2007/10/obesity_and_climate_change_1.html


The column accepts the premise that obesity is significant enough to discuss as a contributer to global warming. i don't.


I get a registration page when i go to your fresh info link. it you want to paste the speech, i'd like to read it, i don't find it elsewhere.

[Occam Bandage]

14. ...genocidal? nt

[Hannah Bell]

16. yes.

[Occam Bandage]

18. What ethnocultural group is he attempting to kill/sterilize all members of? nt

[Hannah Bell]

19. the global working class.

[Occam Bandage]

22. First, that wouldn't be genocide, because genocide is the destruction of a people,

and the working class transcends nation, ethnicity, and culture. Secondly, while I admit to being unfamiliar with Mr. Jonathan Porritt, I see no evidence that his goal is to sponsor a coordinated deliberate effort to murder every poor person on earth.

[Hannah Bell]

23. The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or ethnic group.

www.developmenteducation.ie/glossary/

[Occam Bandage]

25. I take it you agree with me, then,

since that post is entirely in agreement with my own. The global poor are not any of the above (and you still haven't explained the systematic and coordinated attempt to murder every poor person on Earth).

[Hannah Bell]

29. the working class is a political grouping. it may not be self-consciously so, but it is identifi-

ably so.

not all (indians, darfurians, german jews, etc.) were killed either, yet the policies of those who killed them are still routinely labeled "genocidal".


it's estimated the global financial crisis will produce millions of excess deaths, not for lack of food, clothing, housing or medical care, but for lack of $ to buy those things with.

in the wake of this, parrot & his class point their bloated fingers at "fat people" who are supposedly consuming "more than their share" of the world's resources: preparing for the retrenchment in general working class consumption to fatten the pockets of parrot's class.

i can't believe anyone is defending this steaming crock of shit.

[Tansy_Gold]

40. He's saying nothing of the kind.

But you're quite obviously not going to listen to reason so I'm not going to give any.


TG

[Hannah Bell]

46. then why doesn't he talk about the private planes of *his* class as a

"cause" of global warming?

Or the global supply chain *his* class has purposefully set up?

Or any one of a number of potential causes of climate problems magnitudes more significant than "fat people"?

He doesn't have to say "'You people' will have to consume less so we can make more money & here, let's let 'fat people' be a scapegoat for working class 'excessive consumption'".

IT'S OBVIOUS by virtue of the target he chose & the much better targets he makes NOT ONE WHISPER about. Nor will he ever. Because actually addressing the root causes isn't on the ruling class's agenda.


& btw, obesity isn't caused by lack of "education" on "healthy food choices," i'd say 50 years of dietetics (my field, MS, RD) has made that overwhelming clear.

[Tansy_Gold]

65. Actually he does

But I'm sure you'll twist that into some kind of attempted genocide of the lumpen proletariat, too.

[Hannah Bell]

71. Not in this article, & I'm not twisting anything.

"The World Health Organisation recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes an additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year.," he said. "With one billion people judged to be overweight around the world – of whom at least 300 million are obese – that's an additional one billion tonnes."

This is supposedly a direct quote from his lecture to "the food industry" - the food industry who develop the far-flung global supply chains, the wasteful packaging, advertising, feedlot & ag practices that actually produce the greenhouse gases (peasant ag = 1 kcal energy used per kcal food energy gained).

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/dyp172v1

This is the paper on which some of m. parrot's findings are based on. The difference in calorie consumption the authors posit = 478/d less than the 500 I gave in my example. This is less than 1 starbucks chocolate brownie/d.

Do you really believe that 365 Starbucks brownies = 1 tonne of CO2?

The authors posit this as ~20% in excess of "normal". Which means "normal" = 5 tons of CO2/person (usa) produced via diet.

Which contradicts, e.g., this:

http://www.ecasavesenergy.org/pdfs/Insert.pdf

Food for a family of four: 2.6 tons CO2
1 round-trip flight Philly to SF = 1 ton CO2.
Driving 1 car (I assume normal use) for one year = 6 tons CO2.
Heating/cooling 1 house = 15 tons CO2.


It's bullshit. And these kind of messages aren't accidents.


"Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours."

So if average heating/cooling = 15 tons CO2, al gore's house = 300 tons CO2.

Al Gore's house produces 285 excess tons of CO2. If 1 extra chocolate brownie/d = 1 ton GHG, then it would take 285 fat people to equal the excess GHG produced by al gore's house.

1 al gore = 285 obese people (1/286 = .3%).

If we assume the richest .3% consume energy at about the same rate that global warming nanny/carbon offset/finance shill gore does, then even if the entire population were obese, they still would produce no more GHG than the top .3% of the population.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=5072659

[Tansy_Gold]

78. When you decide to focus on The Point, you might be worth the time

to discuss this, but until then, I have many other things to spend/waste my time on.

1. Porritt -- your snide twist of his name is not missed -- did not write the article
2. No one is perfect -- except yourself, of course, and we dare not suggest that all your online time uses any electricity that could be put to better use rousing the proletariat to revolution.
3. You're the one who keeps bringing in outside information and widening the topic yet you seem not to allow others to do the same

Obviously, in your opinion, which cannot even sarcastically be considered humble, anyone who is less than perfect is not worthy of any respect. One slip, one tiny peccadillo, one slight deviation from the path of enlightenment and they must be condemned, totally ignored, never given a spot of respect or, horrors, listened to again on any other topic.

Do be happy in your self-righteousness. And please, start your revolution without




Tansy Gold

[Hannah Bell]

86. it's a discussion board. you know, to discuss politics. not an ad hom board.

i didn't think you were that type.

[MazeRat7]

21. Past the sensational headline, he is basically correct (not well put however)

Yes, the US has one of, if not the largest, percentage of overweight people per capita. Yes, the US does consume far more food resources than most any other nation. Yes it takes resources (carbon emissions) to produce that food.

That being said...

The US, and other nations, are also responsible for driving up the carbon emissions of countries like China due to our thirst for cheap imported goods that are manufactured elsewhere.

This is a complex problem and yes the US dietary habits are part of the problem, but by no means the root cause.

This kind of stuff just makes me shake my head and wonder.... :wtf:

Peace,
MZr7

[Hannah Bell]

27. 1. he wasn't talking about americans, but the uk. 2. fat people don't necessarily eat more

than thinner ones; it's energy balance, not total calories.

3. the military is the biggest us user of energy, not agriculture.

4. the global rich (the private jet set) consume more energy than any other class per capita, & make energy policy. they also set up the multiple social conditions that generate increased % of obesity in populations.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. When you say "it's energy balance, not total calories"

then you mean "obese people are more likely to use cars rather than walk or cycle". Oh, no, wait a minute, that was Porritt, so it must be wrong. So what are you saying about energy balance?

[Hannah Bell]

37. no, i don't mean that at all.

[TK421]

24. Aliens?.....aliens? Please, PLEASE get me off this stupid fucking planet!

:banghead:

[DinahMoeHum]

32. Hey, "Jonathan": Sod off, you twit.

n/t

[Juche]

36. You can make that claim with any group

If we got rid of all the black people or all the russians on earth we could cut climate change too. I know 100 years ago people used science to justify stopping women from going to college. Nice to see things haven't changed much.

[Generic Other]

39. coming from a doughboy who has more chins than a chinese phone book

Who probably uses more oil, takes up more space, wastes more, and exploits more of everything than ten of me!!

That giant footprint he left behind will just fit in his mouth.

[Tansy_Gold]

43. there are times when one has to take a stand, even if it means

running the risk of having a post pulled or other reprimanding from the mods.

I suggest you take a little walk over to Wikipedia, or check out jonathanporritt.com or forumforthefuture.org before you make such ignorant and nasty comments about someone you obviously know absolutely nothing about, ESPECIALLY since this is a thread that has been turned into a defense of obese people and you seem eager to label Mr. Porritt only as fat but with a slight racial slur ("more Chins than a Chinese phone book."), a feat generally reserved for those totally lacking in critical thinking skills.



TG

[Hannah Bell]

47. Do the math before you talk about people's critical thinking skills.

Even if it costs 4 kcal of energy to produce 1, Mr. Parrot's single 300-mile trip in a private plane costs more energy than 60,000 fat people eating 500 extra calories every day, gaining 52 pounds every year.

Even if half the population eats 500 extra calories/d: 150,000,000 x 500 = 75,000,000,000

Convert to joules = 75,000,000,000 x 4.2 = 315,000,000,000

Convert to megajoules = 31,500

Multiply by 4, assuming each energy unit of food requires 4 to produce from field to table:

126,000 megajoules energy = 1041 barrels of oil/d.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html.

The US imports 10,031,000 barrels/day, so putting half the country on a -500 kcal diet = a theoretical savings of .00099 of consumption.

WOW!

[Generic Other]

81. To say there are Chins in a Chinese phone book is racist?

I am afraid to ask what you would say about Smiths in a US phone book.

I don't think I made the "nasty" or "ignorant" comments. I was merely responding in kind to Porritt whose comments I find truly unpalatable.

I agree with Hannah Bell that fat people are pretty low on the food chain of those who must bear responsibility for global warming. When "experts" make such absurd accusations, they should expect to be weighed by the same standards.

[leeroysphitz]

41. LOL, Whut?

[mtnester]

42. OMG OMG OMG

I just realized I have been teleported to stupid world.

Halp!

[earth mom]

44. Yeah all those jets the super rich own don't do a damn thing to pollute.

:sarcasm:

Nor do any of the factories they own over in China, nor all those ships to get it here or trucks to get it to stores.

What a fucking crock o'shit this guy is selling here. :puke:

[mwooldri]

51. On those grounds, professional athletes are causing climate change.

Have you seen the amount of food Michael Phelps eats whilst he's in training and competing? He was at one point on a 12,000 calorie diet. Oh and those carbon emissions from jetting around the world to compete? Tour de France cyclists aren't much better, they're on a paltry 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day AND they have those cars following them on their bikes at slow speeds.

Though there are some valid points: we could certainly eat less meat in our diet, obese or otherwise. We could also travel by car less too.

[BoneDaddy]

56. It is not fat people, it is the american diet

that just happens to be rich in animal products. I enjoy meat but make it part of some of my meals. From a health standpoint, eating meat at every meal is not good for you. It is true if we consumed less meat, we would be healthier, but when I am hankering for a steak, I eat one.

[Rex]

59. I blame stupid idiots like Sir Jonathan Porritt.

[tabbycat31]

60. I'm overweight (but working on it)

and I eat meat. Granted I rarely eat red meat (I will on occasion but not on a regular basis). I usually eat chicken once a day.

This protein-rich diet is elusive to me since I don't like most protein sources

[anonymous171]

64. I'll second that! nt

[flvegan]

67. I doubt there is data that proves "overweight people eat more protein-rich food"

While I agree that eating meat in any form adds to the issues of climate change, suggesting that "fat people" are more in offense than another demographic is just stupid.

[KillCapitalism]

68. Overweight people are the scapegoat for just about everything nowadays.

In the Jim Crow days of the south, blacks were blamed for every ill in society.

In Nazi Germany, Jews were to blame for anything negative going on in the world.

25 years ago, gays were to blame for the moral decay of society, and AIDS.

Now it's overweight people. It's very un-PC to discriminate against African Americans, Jews, or gays for the most part, but it's open season on the obese. People think obese people sit around & eat like Michael Phelps all day. They need to realize that about 80% of obesity comes from biological/hormonal imbalances such as thyroid conditions, PCOS, etc.

[Hannah Bell]

76. Sir Jon Porritt, son of Lord Porrit, Eton grad, worried about fat people, not so worried about jet

travel, prefers Jaguar automobiles:

"The peer had just emerged from his chauffeur-driven Jaguar after arriving at a low-carbon summit in Central London, when Leila Deen approached with plastic cup in hand. After exchanging a few words with Lord Mandelson she emptied its contents – cornflower paste and green food dye - directly over him."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5858928.ece

"But he has got a point about another aspect of the debate: today’s new strain of deeply unattractive eco-Puritanism about flying, where even so much as thinking about getting on a plane is castigated as a heinous crime against human kind, against all future generations, and against amphibians the world over heading towards extinction.

I hate to admit it, but I think it may just be that we are beginning to get this a little out of proportion. If the received line from now on is a 100% “no-flying” as the proper way to behave in a carbon-constrained world, missing out completely on “less flying” or avoiding flying wherever possible, then won’t we be just pissing off an awful lot of people who are just beginning to get to grips with this new insight into their own carbon footprints?"

http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2007/05/flights_of_fancy.html

no, much better to publicize how fat people each contribute over 1 ton of greenhouse gases with that extra brownie/d in calories than to publicize this:

"Government figures show that in 2005 aviation accounted for 13% of total UK climate change damage , greater than that of cars (9.3%), home heating (11.1%), or manufacturing and construction (11.3%).
That is an understatement because it is based on departing flights only: if the calculation is based on return flights by UK citizens, the figure would be nearer 20%."

But Jon's friends fly a lot. OTOH, he doesn't know any fat people.


Upper class hypocrite twit:

[Cobalt-60]

79. He's got me

I confess.
I knew I'd need more warmth as I grew older.
So I elected to chow through every kilo of meat I could reach,
knowing that I would manipulate the foolish corporations into
polluting the environment.
And here we are...muhuhuhaaaaaa!

[Generic Other]

80. it seems we piggies are the new fatcats

Apparently, we are eating corporate profits that belong to those who can never be too thin (us) or too rich (them).

What tripe. Swill. Lard. Baloney. Red Herrings. Blow Fish. Processed Cheese. A factory-farmed load of steaming chicken farts.

If overeating contributes to global warming, what does overpopulation do? Shouldn't those with children be factored in when assigning BLAME to others?

Why isn't this "expert" castigating the anti-choice people protesting outside the clinics for their crimes against the environment?

And what about the Diggers, Octomom and the Phelps' clans? They way outweigh the fat people for wasteful consumption. And the Queen of fucking England. What about her? Fat, dumpy, and a totally useless allocation of resources! She and her class need to stand on the scales they are so readily willing to weigh all the rest of us on!

[muriel_volestrangler]

83. Porritt has indeed spoken out against overpopulation

You can speak your mind on that in this thread, if you want: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5808957&mesg_id=5808957

[blindpig]

82. Blame the people.

Couldn't be the producers of the worthless fodder which they then pour millions into advertising. Oh no, it's the peoples fault, it is YOUR fault.

It's this sort of elitist horseshit that gives a black eye to the environmental movement and confines the Green Party to upscale living rooms.

[madmom]

84. I am quite a bit overweight, my SO is not. His meat intake is far higher

than mine,(out put as well) I eat way healthier than he does. I also walk way more than he does. So how does that figure into his equation?