Your Fat Butt Is Ruining The Environment
So says this new study.
"If a person reduces the weight in their car, either by removing excess baggage, carrying around less weight in their trunk, or yes, even losing weight, they will indeed see a drop in their fuel consumption."
First off, a big screaming Duh! to these guys. Second off, how much federal grant money did it take for them to cook up this nugget of common sense? Third off, how much do those dudes weigh?
Tell me this isn't yet another bit of propaganda in the anti-fat war. Just when I thought "they" couldn't come up with one more reason for me to hate myself, the skimforces cook up this little gem. Okay. We get it. Being fat isn't the best thing for a person. But honestly, do these long drawn out exercises in duh actually accomplish anything other than reemphasising an existing stigma? Not to mention the fact that the actual results of the study show that the increase in fuel consumption is negligible at best.
The lost mileage is pretty small for any single driver. Jacobson said the typical driver - someone who records less than 12,000 miles annually - would use roughly 18 fewer gallons of gas over the course of a year by losing 100 pounds.
This isn't worthy science. This is yet another excuse to scream "get 'em up against the wall" a la Pink Floyd. Who let all of this riff-raff into the world?
I guess we can forget the whole problem of cow farts destroying the ozone. I see a plan here. We all lose weight by eating less meat, so there is less need for farting cows to feed us. Wow! The entire planet has been saved. Of course those of us who are allergic to soy are up a creek I guess.
Then we run into the biodiesel conundrum. Wouldn't that be ironic? We solve the fossil fuel dilemma by discovering that used french fry grease is a viable alternative fuel source just in time to discover that the fat butts we earn through lifelong french fry consumption are complicit in rising fuel consumption.
Do we eat our way to cleaner energy or not? Life, you is a funny mistress.
posted by Kat Coble @ 7:22 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I don't know how to say what I want to say without sounding like an ass. I guess I mean that 'they' are referring to (or should be, in my opinion) the morbidly obese, which you most certainly are not. It seems to me that you take care of yourself, you eat well, you don't drink or smoke, you have health issues that are beyond your control, and if anybody wants to give you crap about it, you send them to me, because I'll smack em upside their empty heads. Personally, I come by my extra weight honestly: fries, burgers, and beer. :)
I want to see more news articles on the morbidly thin. Ostracize them for awhile and leave us healthy size 14-18s alone.
You flatter me, Ms. Jag, but the truth is that according to the BMI calculators floating around out there I am classified as "morbidly obese".
Yes, that's me. Soon they will have to find a piano crate to bury me in.
But I'm gladly sending several people to you for head-smackin' ;-p
Oh wow. Correction.
I am NO LONGER Morbidly Obese.
Just "Obese"
Woo hoo.
Oh for the day when I'm merely "overweight"
Hi, Kat...
I'm the other guy tagged by Nashville Is Talking for picking up on this story in a blog. I like the conundrum you created with the biodiesel - french fry grease irony. Gotta go add you to my sidebar for easy return. My post is at:
http://www.nobodyasked.com/2006/10/26/lose-weight-improve-gas-mileage/
I fully agree with your comment on my blog about the incompleteness of the original study and the holes in the story. That's why I did not take it too seriously and just had a bit of fun with it. Of course we don't really know what the original study said, and the AP reporter that wrote it for publication - it may have been their first job. Regardless, it was rather amateurish by the time it was came out in print in The Tennessean...
As a conservative, I've never been that close to the environmental movement. However, I think it is good to want to save the earth. What turns me off though is that we look at human beings as liabilities. I read this article about how we see fat people as liabilities, and then I read stuff about overpopulation, where we see the birth of children as a liability to the earth. I think its about time for me and the environmental movement to split ways. Pollution is bad, I get that. But when we use the environment to look down upon people and see them as a liability, I am not down with that.
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