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Scientists Say Exercise Fights Global Warming

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By SETH BORENSTEIN, The Associated Press

Published: November 12, 2007

WASHINGTON - America's obesity epidemic and global warming might not seem to have much in common, but public health experts suggest people can attack them both by cutting calories and carbon dioxide at the same time.

How? Get out of your car and walk or bike half an hour a day instead of driving. And while you're at it, eat less red meat. That's how Americans can simultaneously save the planet and their health, say doctors and climate scientists.

The payoffs are huge, although unlikely to happen. 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. Americans also would shed more than 3 billion pounds overall, according to these calculations.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering public promotion of the "co-benefits" of fighting global warming and obesity-related illnesses through everyday exercise, such as walking to school or work, said Howard Frumkin, director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health.

"A simple intervention like walking to school is a climate change intervention, an obesity intervention, a diabetes intervention, a safety intervention," Frumkin told The Associated Press. "That's the sweet spot."

The American Public Health Association, which will highlight the health problems of global warming in April, is seeking to connect obesity and climate change solutions, said Executive Director Georges Benjamin.

It's not just getting out of the car that's needed, said Robert Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. A diet shift away from heavy meat consumption also would go far, he said, because it takes much more energy and land to produce meat than fruits, vegetables and grains.

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