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Scientists suggest cutting calories and carbon dioxide could help
save lives and the planet
Source: AP - AP Wire Service
Nov 11 20:39
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) _ America's obesity epidemic and global warming might
not seem to have much in common. But public health experts suggest
people can attack them both by cutting calories and carbon dioxide at
the same time.
How? Get out of your car and walk or bike half an hour a day instead of
driving. And while you're at it, eat less red meat. That's how Americans
can simultaneously save the planet and their health, say doctors and
climate scientists.
The payoffs are huge, although unlikely to happen. One numbers-crunching
scientist calculates that if all Americans between 10 and 74 walked just
half an hour a day instead of driving, they would cut the annual U.S.
emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, by 64 million
tons.
About 6.5 billion gallons of gasoline would be saved. And Americans
would also shed more than 3 billion pounds overall, according to these
calculations.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering public
promotion of the ``co-benefits'' of fighting global warming and
obesity-related illnesses through everyday exercise, like walking to
school or work, said Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the CDC's National
Center for Environmental Health.
``A simple intervention like walking to school is a climate change
intervention, an obesity intervention, a diabetes intervention, a safety
intervention,'' Frumkin told The Associated Press. ``That's the sweet
spot.''
Climate change is a deadly and worsening public health issue, said
Frumkin and other experts. The World Health Organization estimated that
160,000 people died in 2000 from malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and
drownings from floods _ problems that public health and climate
scientists contend were worsened by global warming. Officials predict
that in the future those numbers will be higher.
The American Public Health Association, which will highlight the health
problems of global warming in April, is seeking to connect obesity and
climate change solutions, said executive director Dr. Georges Benjamin.
``This may present the greatest public health opportunity that we've had
in a century,'' said University of Wisconsin health sciences professor
Dr. Jonathan Patz, president of the International Association for
Ecology and Health.
The key is getting people out of the car, Patz and Frumkin told the
public health association at its annual convention. Reducing car travel
in favor of biking or walking would not only cut obesity and greenhouse
gases, they said, it would also mean less smog, fewer deaths from car
crashes, less osteoporosis, and even less depression since exercise
helps beat the blues.
In a little-noticed scientific paper in 2005, Paul Higgins, a scientist
and policy fellow with the American Meteorological Society, calculated
specific savings from adopting federal government recommendations for
half an hour a day of exercise instead of driving.
The average person walking half an hour a day would lose about 13 pounds
a year. And if everyone did that instead of driving the same distance,
the nation would burn a total of 10.5 trillion calories, according to
the scientist, formerly with the University of California at Berkeley.
He said it would also cut carbon dioxide emissions by about the same
amount produced by the state of New Mexico, which has around 2 million
people.
``The real bang for the buck in reducing greenhouse gas emissions was
from the avoided health expenses of a sedentary lifestyle,'' said
Higgins.
But it is not just getting out of the car that is needed, said Dr.
Robert Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. A diet
shift away from heavy meat consumption would also go far, he said,
because it takes much more energy and land to produce meat than fruits,
vegetables and grains.
Recent studies support that argument. Last year the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization reported that the meat sector of the global
economy is responsible for 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas
emissions. Much of that is indirect, including the fertilizer needed to
grow massive amounts of feed for livestock, energy use in the whole
growing process, methane released from fertilizer and animal manure, and
transportation of the cattle and meat products.
Similar calculations were made in a study in September in the medical
journal Lancet.
The average American man eats 1.6 times as much meat as the government
recommends, Lawrence said. Some studies have shown eating a lot of red
meat is linked to a higher risk for colon cancer.
As for fighting obesity and global warming by walking and cycling,
officials do not expect people to do it easily, said Kristie Ebi. She is
a Virginia public health consultant and one of the lead authors of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Citing the decades-long effort to curb smoking, she said, ``It turns out
changing people's habits is very hard.''
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