Shed a pound for the planet

Obesity is bad for you, and for the planet. The more mass you have, the more you need to eat to keep it going, and the more you tend to rely on transport. The connection is quite obvious but if you need proof, a recent study has concluded the same. Conducted in the UK, it found that more obese people meant more greenhouse gas emissions a year, almost 60 mega tones!

Greenhouse gas emissions from food production and car travel in the fatter population would be between 0.4 to 1 giga-tonnes higher per 1bn people, they estimated.

As noted, this is a global issue, not restricted to the UK. The fat population is growing everywhere. As the study notes, it would be good for all stakeholders, earth included, if we shifted to our 1970s eating habits. More veggies, less meat.

On Earth Day, some more alarming news: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases released through human activities, rose in 2008.

Collected from 60 monitoring stations from around the world, it shows that the concentration of carbon dioxide has reached 386 parts per million in the air. The pre-industrial peak in concentrations was 280 parts per million and the ideal level to avert disaster is 350 ppm. But given the trend, chances are it will exceed 450 parts per million this century.

Methane levels rose in 2008 for the second consecutive year after a 10-year plateau. Methane persists only a few years in the air, but is about 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

What can we do? Not to keep pressing the panic button, but just to start some action. Is there one activity you can choose to adopt from today that will ease the carbon load on the planet? It could be as simple as losing weight! Write in to us, share your thoughts, so others may be inspired and follow.