The parallels between accepting obesity and ignoring global warming

I have recently been thinking about the parallels between climate change and the obesity epidemic facing the United States and other industrialized countries. Both are the result of our society's desire to consume, and there are similarities in how we might respond.

There are basically three ways to respond to obesity, and each has an analog for climate change. First, you can try to reduce caloric intake. Bob Park calls this the thermodynamic diet: take in fewer calories than you expend and you'll lose weight. For the climate change problem, the parallel is reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.

The problem with this approach, of course, is that it is hard. No one likes to diet, and many find it impossible to lose and keep off weight this way. Similarly, our society is not going to find it easy to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. That does not mean, of course, that it can't be done, or that we won't be happy with the results. I've never met someone who's lost a lot of weight that isn't ecstatically happy with the results, and I think there are many benefits for our society that come along with reducing CO2 emissions.

Second, you can simply say, "I'm overweight and I'm going to stay overweight. If I have any health problems, I'll let the doctors solve them for me." So if your weight causes hip problems, just have the hip replaced. If your cardiovascular system goes on the fritz, utilize the latest in cardiovascular care to get the problematic arteries unblocked or a pacemaker installed. If the risk of stroke rises, take the appropriate medication to bring the risk down.

A recent news report said that obesity is now a lifestyle choice for Americans. In other words, many overweight people have simply given up trying to lose weight by taking in fewer calories, mainly because they just can't do it. They are now relying on the health care system to deal with the impacts of their obesity:

New studies show salmon farms destroy wild stocks

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Sebelius Dem response desultory liveblogging

[UPDATE: Full text of Sebelius’ remarks here.] Obama-esque post-partisan soothing words. A “new American majority.” We’re all one big happy...

Spots vs. strips

This is the fourth post in five-part series on the details required to get carbon policy right. See also parts one, two, and three.

We now get into an issue that will seem a bit arcane, because no one's talking about it, at least not explicitly. But it's a real choice, and in many conversations about carbon policy we are implicitly getting it wrong.

Should we price carbon in spots, or strips? Or, to take it out of financial jargon, should we:

1. set up markets such that people who are selling or buying emissions credits have to go to the market with each incremental ton to determine what the price will be (a "spot" market), or
2. set up markets such that buyers and sellers can enter into long-term contracts for the emissions they will produce/reduce (a "strip" market)?

New study from mainstream ag economists at Iowa State

Cellulosic ethanol represents a beacon on the horizon — the justification cited by wiseguys like Vinod Khosla for dropping billions...

Bar codes for salmon and shark-free moisturizer

Scientists found that up to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen washes off swimmers annually, and that the sunscreen contains chemicals that lead to bleaching corals. They estimated that up to 10 percent of corals were threatened by sunscreen-related bleaching ...

... the Central Valley, Calif., chinook salmon run, which had historically been one of the West Coast's strongest, fell to record lows this year, prompting concerns about collapse ...

... researchers in North Carolina studied how to raise fish for consumption in tanks ...

... a seafood consumer center in Oregon prepped for a program that would attach bar codes to salmon, allowing consumers to learn who caught the fish, where it was caught, and how it traveled to market ...

Organic food reduces organophosphate exposure in children

By now, I think most people understand that organic food is supposed to be healthier for you. But I think there are still some people who feel that the health benefits are a just a bunch of marketing hype.

Well, this new study suggests that it ain't just hype -- organic produce really does reduce kids' exposure to some potentially risky pesticides. From the Seattle P-I:

The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.

When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.

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Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees, thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide

I meant to blog on this earlier, but lost track of it after failing to find the original study (for reasons that will become clear). The bottom line is:

Global warming could cut the rate at which trees in tropical rainforests grow by as much as half, a new study based on more two decades of data from forests in Panama and Malaysia shows.

The effects, so far largely overlooked by climate modelers, Nature magazine said, could severely erode or even remove the ability of tropical rainforests to remove carbon dioxide from the air as they grow.

More evidence that the carbon sinks in the ocean and on the land may saturate sooner than scientists expected, which will inevitably lead to an acceleration of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (see below).