I'm Killing Our Planet!

Hub came into the kitchen at lunch time and took a sandwich out of my hand. "Serious diet time," he says, "You (me) have to get down to 150 and I have to get to 180."

"Where are you taking me?" Now isn't that a logical question? Who'd have thought it was in response to the latest studies showing fat people are making global warming worse. Okay, I thought, we move more slowly and sweat more. Maybe that does add to the heat wave. Dumb me.

We've now joined livestock as the villains in our own earthly scenario! Actually it has not so much to do with the fact that the populations of all but the poorest of countries are getting fatter with each generation as much as what it takes to get us that way. Food. It's because we eat more food. Food production produces major CO2 emissions and the more we eat the more is produced.

Okay folks, here comes another Dogwalk solution. We need a cap and trade policy for eating. Those of us who over indulge on prime beef and fine wine buy credits from the poor starving people in the many third world countries we never seem able to elevate. They'd get money to plant crops and buy their own livestock and gain weight and improve their standard of living. When they're equal with the rest of the world, we'll be out of funds from buying credits, the roles will reverse and the cycle will start all over again. They've made global warming simple. I've made solving it simple.

Never mind matters of health ranging from stressed joints to heart disease. Never mind what it will do the retail market for women's sizes! What about the medical professionals who treat us - family practice physicians and all the specialists, physical therapy after the hip and knee replacements, chiropractic to straighten out those old bent bones. The pharmaceuticals who produce all those pills we pop for blood pressure, cholesterol and pain! The pharmacists who dispense them - if they're so inclined. You get the idea.

Dr. Phil Edwards of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told the The Sun (UK), "Moving about in a heavy body is like driving a gas guzzler. We need to do a lot to reverse the global trend towards fatness. It is a key factor in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change."

I rather like my solution for global warming. Fat credits. As far as the economic issues I've outlined, I'm sure there's a solution for that too. I think it's called TARP. Troubled Asset Relief Program. Of course if our collective "asset" less maybe we wouldn't be fat in the first place!

Global Warming

There was a great column in this morning's Spokesman Review telling of happenings attributed to Global Warming. Everything from Bulgarian brothel owners losing staff to ski areas where patrons need other activities due to the lack of snow to an increase in anxiety in people already affected and outbreaks of the bubonic plague.

Who the heck does these studies? Lots of folks it would seem. The article sent me to this website at which I was able to further educate myself. I am a Doubting Thomas when it comes to this subject because of the number of opposing views, the cyclical nature of earth's climate and pronunciations of "fact" by the Al Gore's of the world versus what actual scientists who study climate have to say.

That being said, the following topics are to be found on this site. A change in body temperature may cause an increase of severe acne.

Melting Siberian peat bogs could release millions of tone of methane into the atmosphere. And we've been worried about cows!

Our brains may shrink. Most people will die, those remaining will become cannibals.

The cat population will explode due to an extended breeding season.

Hibernation ends too soon. Hibernation ends too late.

Ice sheet growth. Ice sheet shrinkage.

Sheep will shrink. Short nosed dogs will be endangered.

Killer cornflakes will cause mass hallucinations, manic depression, gangrene, abortions, reduced fertility and painful convulsive death. Actually this one sounds like the warning label on some of my medications. I haven't looked for a warning label on a cereal box yet.

For those of us who might survive there will be vampire moths that will feast on human blood.

Whew! Who knew? For each and every topic I have mentioned there is a link to an article so stating the applicable study.

Someone is missing something here. I'm not sure if it's me for having taken the time to look at this, or the people who compiled these and many, many more links or the people who did the "studies" and made the assumptions talked about!

It's hot today. Really hot. But I don't think my brain has shrunk. In fact I think it has so enlarged it's likely to explode!

Never Again

I watched the final episode of Foyle's War last night. It was a superb series on PBS about police work during World War II in a small coastal town in Great Britain. How military maneuvering often got in the way of civilian justice.

Last night the War came to an end and the men were beginning to return home. Many having been away for four years or more, returning to family and loved ones who they no longer knew nor were they known.

One scene in particular struck me. A young lady volunteer was explaining to one such soldier how her volunteer organization had access to programs for retraining, even a married veterans club. He just stared then commented, in essence, "A married veterans club? Is that to help us pick up lives lost? Is that to help us forget what we've done and what we've seen?"

It was a strong episode, encompassing suicide, and those who badgered men into it. It covered the angst of the families not knowing how to deal with these men who had returned home haunted, damaged, forever changed.

Fast forward six plus decades and we still have war. Small towns and large cities are still burying the flag draped remains of those no longer haunted. A headline this morning reads 22,000 veterans called suicide line. Little has changed.

War goes on. Ethnic cleansing goes on. Jews around the world say of the Holocaust, never again and demand the world stand with them. Yet it continues. Bosnia and the Serbs not so long ago. Shiite versus Sunni now. Darfur. Who will be next? Men still go to war and they still return, but so many who bear no physical scars endure wounds so deep many will never recover.

As the Presidential campaign becomes more more and more contentious regarding patriotism and naivete and "real" understanding of what's at stake, I find myself becoming more and more impatient.

The next time the term "never again" is bandied about, I'd like it to be from a President who is not interested in prolonging a war for an undefined win, but rather one who promises us - and the world - "never again" will the United States initiate an unprovoked war. Never. Ever.

A Taxing Situation?

I knew it! Now that we're past the point of extreme vanity and getting used to the fact we're never going to fit into the clothes in our closets labeled "skinny", we've a new burden to bear.

Those of use who are a bit thick through the middle, maybe just a wee bit overweight, are being told we're contributing to global warming! Yep. There was actually a study done by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, reported in Lancet via Rueters . First of all, I find it hard to believe there is actually a school bearing such a name but apparently there is and they are quite serious!

So here's the deal. No more chocolate chip cookies from Super One, no beer with my ribs, less wine with my dinner and fewer steak dinners. Forget the foie gras and the molten chocolate cake! Next thing you know we'll be taxed for every pound of excesss weight we carry! No matter that as I get older there is less and less I am able to do with my once incredible vigor fast disappearing, eating well and enjoying it was something I always could.

Just as I'm beginning to enjoy it without dreading an additional bulge here and there I find I'm part of this humongous world problem! You see, the reasoning goes, we require more fuel to transport us, we eat more leading to shortages. To make matters worse the additional agricultural pursuits required to keep us fat and happy increases greenhouse gas emissions!

Whew! That's quite a bit to bear. Worldwide, they tell us, 400 million adults are obese. By 2015, according to the World Health Organization, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and 700 million will be obese.

Now. This isn't all bad. You see, in a speech right out of OZ, John McCain told us he could see the Iraq war being won by the end of his first term - 2013. It seemed like pie in the sky at the time. Maybe there is a certain logic to his madness - everyone will be too fat to fight!