What are the advantages of staying slim? Lower risk of heart disease? Diabetes? How about reducing global warming?
A new research paper lays out the arguments for why staying slim will reduce global warming. They point out the following;
Eating less means less food production is required. This means less fertilizer, less farm equipment, less transportation. The reduction in transportation could be significant in areas where the local land could feed the local population, meaning less transportation of food from far away. All of this would decrease green house gas emissions.
If everybody weighed less, this would mean less energy for transportation of humans too. The drop would be due to both less weight to transport (particularly significant for air transportation) and also lighter fitter people tend to drive less.
The researchers estimate that a lean population of 1 billion people would emit 1.0 GT (1,000 million tonnes) less carbon dioxide equivalents per year compared with a fat one.
Unfortunately the trend is the other way. We are all gaining weight. In the majority of countries in the world the average body mass index (BMI) is increasing.
So to save the planet, recycle, reuse and eat less.
photo credit: Earth from Apollo 17
[tags]staying slim, global warming, transportation, green house gas emissions [/tags]
