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Exercise can combat both obesity and global warming, says CDC

Posted at 9:54 AM on 12 Nov 2007

Americans facing the triple threat of climate change, obesity, and what-can-I-do-ness can tackle all three by walking or biking instead of driving -- even if just for a half-hour per day -- and eating less red meat. So says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is considering public promotion of everyday exercise as a way to mitigate the challenges of our time.

source: Associated Press

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Comments: (4 comments)

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Is This New?

The fact that walking or biking is better for the climate than taking a car or bus seems like old news. It would be new for the CDC to come out against red meat.
--a

www.yesmagazine.org

by Audrey Watson at 10:37 AM on 12 Nov 2007

I concurr

Riding your bike to work and skipping animal products definitely keeps you on the lean and healthy side. Good for the CDC for putting together the connections between all these different issues: health, environment, animals welfare and though it's not mentioned, driving less and eating less meat is also more friendly to your wallet.

by amc89 at 11:12 AM on 13 Nov 2007

The Environmental Paradox of Biking

Walking and biking seem like win-win scenarios for you and the environment, but here is an article (in pdf format) that brings up some interesting counter-points.

http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/documents/ulrich-cy ...

Summarizing briefly, Karl Ulrich says, "The environmental benefits of human power are, however, strongly coupled to the environmental costs of increased population, due to increased longevity of those who engage in physical activity. Paradoxically, increased use of human power for transportation is unlikely to reduce substantially the use of energy because of this second-order effect. Humanpowered transportation is therefore less an environmental issue and more an issue of public health."

Also, here is a link to a response from critics of Ulrich's article, from the innovative TerraPass blogsite.

http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/2006/07/the-bicycling ...

You may think this is coming from an anti-conservationist, but really just the opposite.

Visit TerraPass.com to learn more about the philosophy behind offsetting your own personal CO2 emissions, its interesting.

Inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children's future. I do it all for the kids, baby

by rutherfordbhaze at 11:28 AM on 13 Nov 2007

of course, but so can vegetarianism!

Of course, exercise is good for fighting obesity and global warming, but so is vegetarianism.
Vegetarianism fights not only obesity, but also heart disedase, cancer, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney diseases, gout, Alzheimer's, impotence, and more.
Vegetarianism fights not only global warming (see http://www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html), but also air and water pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, ocean damage, species extinction, and more.
Vegetarianism also fights world hunger, cruelty, violence, inequality, inefficiency, and more.

And it's not one or the other: by all means exercise, but also eat vegetarian, don't smoke, recycle, drive less, consume more green products, buy organic, switch away from incandescent light bulbs, support green orgs, vote green, be kind, and so on.

Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters at www.brook.com/veg

by CyberBrook at 3:05 PM on 15 Nov 2007

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