Friday, June 5, 2009

Slim down to save the earth

Fat people contributing to climate change, says UK's green guru

Fat people are a threat to the planet as they are contributing to climate change, believes Sir Jonathan Porritt, the British Government's chief green adviser.

In a lecture to representatives of the food industry, Sir Jonathan, Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, said, "fat is a climate change issue", reports The Telegraph of London.

The ex-Green Party politician, who earlier caused controversy by suggesting that people should not have more than two kids to prevent over-population, pinpointed that overweight people eat more protein-rich food such as beef or lamb.

Such intake is responsible for giving rise to greenhouse gases because of the toxic methane livestock emits.

He also said obese people are more likely to use cars rather than walk or cycle, therefore producing more carbon emissions.

"The World Health Organisation recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes an additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year," he said.

"With one billion people judged to be overweight around the world of whom at least 300 million are obese - that's an additional one billion tonnes," he added.