According to Phil Edwards, a researcher from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, “We need to do a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness. It is a key factor in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change.”

Edwards’ research found that ‘the average overweight person is responsible for an extra ton of carbon dioxide emissions a year, compared with a person of healthier weight.’ Cumulatively, that amounts to an extra one billion tons per year, to use World Health Organization estimates. Fact is ‘food production accounts for about one fifth of greenhouse gases.’

A big chunk of this extra one billion tons per year ‘comes from the fossil fuels required to produce the food needed to sustain a larger person.’ Bigger demand, all the way. Meat, a logical staple in an obese person’s diet, is said to be ‘highly fossil fuel intensive.’ In 2007, the United Nations asserted that ‘animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all forms of transportation combined.’

Obesity is all about overconsumption. Overconsumption is also a mark of richer countries. For the emerging economies such as China and India, the trend has been on increased demand for meat. ‘Researchers are increasingly warning that the obesity epidemic is contributing to global warming, with potentially devastating consequences for people and habitats around the world.

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Via Natural News