Anthropogenic global waist-size change
An modest proposal from today’s BBC News:
Obesity needs to be tackled in the same way as climate change, a top nutritional scientist has said.
The chairman of the International Obesity Taskforce wants world leaders to agree a global pact to ensure that everyone is fed healthy food.
Professor Philip James said the challenge of obesity was so great that action was needed now, even without clear evidence of the best options.
Every sentence is a gem. The challenge of obesity is so great that action is needed now, even without clear evidence of the best options. Of course one option is clearly absurd: leave people the hell alone to decide what to put into their own mouths.
The choice of wording is superlative, and revealing: world leaders to agree a global pact to ensure that everyone is fed healthy food. I love the use of the passive voice. People do not eat or dine or prepare meals. They are fed, much like cattle or sheep are fed. Who decides what the livestock are fed? World leaders, of course.
The comparison to climate change is apt. In one as in the other, there is no scientific consensus. Here is a quote from another article published in the very same BBC News, a scant eleven days ago:
Becoming overweight as a child is more likely to be the result of your genes than your lifestyle, claims a study. University College London researchers examined more than 5,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins. Their American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found that differences in body mass index and waist size were 77% governed by genes.
I hope our obesity change masters will be careful to coordinate their actions with those of our climate change masters. The bodies of the genetically obese no doubt trap a lot CO2. We need to be careful that they are disposed of properly.
Posted on February 18th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: nanny state
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This isn’t creeping socialism, its steamroller socialism.
pwyll,
Again you return to the theme that there is a lack of consensus among qualified, rigorous climate scientists regarding anthropogenic global climate change. Just what exactly is your view of the scientific evidence underlying the heated debate these days on climate change and CO2 emissions?
Take a look at records of the earth’s temperature insofar as it can be reconstructed over geologic timescales. The earth’s climate has always fluctuated. The one thing that has never been observed is climate stasis. And life (even cute fuzzy polar bears) survived these natural cycles quite nicely.
But a few computer models of a vastly complicated dynamical system are overfitted to short term, questionable temperature data, and we are all supposed to swoon and give control of our lives, economies, and freedom to the new consensus science kings. Yeah, right. And as an added bonus, if we act now, our new masters will also agree to decide what to feed us. Forgive me if I am not overcome with gratitude.
I remember when we were warned about the coming ice age. And the coming global famine before that. It was a load of crap, and I believe the current alarmism is another politically motivated load of crap.
It is as if someone took light readings from 6:00 pm to 6:01 pm and concluded that eternal night was about to envelop the world.
And, by the way, I am pretty much unimpressed by climate science. It is a relatively new field of study, entirely too caught up with computer models, and has no proven record of accurate long range prediction. Computer models I know about, they are buggy and vastly susceptible to manipulation. I’ll go with the geologists, physicists, astronomers, and my own judgement on this one. Your mileage may vary.
Clear enough?
Clear indeed, thank you. One follow up:
Setting aside intractable global matters such as C02 emissions in China and India, do you think that the United States’ love affair with the automobile can continue unabated, without consideration of the impact cars running on gas and diesel have on our environment?
I think there are plenty of good reasons to work towards cleaner, more fuel-efficient automobiles. One reason that looms large in my mind is that I would love to stem the flow of dollars into the middle east especially into Saudi Arabia. But the current hysteria is not justified or useful.
I am confident that in the aggregate, human energy use will monotonically increase. There is no going back. Ain’t gonna happen. We need to move to extensive use of nuclear power to supplement existing energy sources. We need to make good use of oil, coal, solar, and every other earthside energy source. Maybe we will eventually tap geothermal energy, ocean currents, and tidal forces. But these are stopgaps. All the energy on earth came from the stars. We need to move our species into space, where essentially unlimited energy is available. Where pollution simply is not an issue.
Focusing on conservation and sustainability is short sighted in the extreme. It will trap us on a single planet, squabbling over resources and waiting for extinction. We may only have one shot at getting off world. I think our generation, our children, and our grandchildren have to get it done, or it may not happen at all. For all we know, life has arisen only on earth. We cannot let it die here, as it certainly will if we do not expand into space. Planets do not live forever.
Fascinating.
Two comments:
You write, “Maybe we will eventually tap geothermal energy ….” I am a regular viewer of “The NewsHour with Jim Lerher” on PBS. At the beginning and end of each program, the NewsHour’s corporate sponsors run short promos, one of which is Chevron claiming to have developed the use of geothermal energy for practical use. I wonder?
Second, as to your admonition that “We need to move our species into space ….”, I’ll be wishing your grandchildren Godspeed and fair thee well. For me, there are two many wonders of this beautiful planet I want to see, or see again. There are too many tastes, sounds, sights right here I want to experience. Even if I’m around just to say “you’ve got to see the Great Barrier Reef, Venice, Florence, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, the Grand Tetons, and Allison Krauss sing”, that’s cool.
And who knows, maybe my next love affair is just around the corner.