That is the gist of an article on cnn.com today. The article highlights two things that could help with America’s obesity problem and global warming. The first suggestion is to get of the car and walk or bike for half an hour each day (perfect time of the year to give this a try in Arizona), and the second is to eat less red meat.
Interesting facts from the article:
One numbers-crunching scientist calculates that if all Americans between 10 and 74 walked just half an hour a day instead of driving, they would cut the annual U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, by 64 million tons.
About 6.5 billion gallons of gasoline would be saved. And Americans would also shed more than 3 billion pounds overall.
Reducing car travel in favor of biking or walking would not only cut obesity and greenhouse gases, they said, it would also mean less smog, fewer deaths from car crashes, less osteoporosis, and even less depression since exercise helps beat the blues.
I was saddened by the last bit of the article:
As for fighting obesity and global warming by walking and cycling, don’t expect people to do it easily, said Kristie Ebi. She’s a Virginia public health consultant and one of the lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Citing the decades-long effort to curb smoking, she said, “It turns out changing people’s habits is very hard.”
Are you willing to change your habits for either yourself or the environment?