the obesity epidemic can be solved ...

  .. by putting them all on a (forced!) diet

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Nobody forces those horrible fatties to stuff themselves; they gorge themselves, apparently quite willingly, to the point where lots become overweight-sick. I'm not suggesting forcing these particular fatties onto any diet - that might be a violation of some sort'a 'human' rights, but at the same time, since any resulting illness is entirely self-caused, they should have to pay any associated medical bills entirely un-assisted.

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A few obese people might be one (disgusting) thing, but an entire obese country is quite another. The US, with about 5% of the world's population, consumes approximately 25% of the world's resources, and so is 'responsible' for at least the same proportion of pollution, including CO2. Note: that's consuming/polluting at a rate over 6 times the remainders' average! ((25 / 5) / (75 / 95) = 6.3') Why that? Why should they? Simply put, daaarlings, they have no right. Since excess CO2 is killing our once jewel-like planet's ecosphere, CO2 discharges *must* be returned to a long-term sustainable rate, and may actually have to dip below that rate for a while - and v.soon, in order to get CO2 down then stabilise it at some 'life-friendly' level.

As we can see with individuals, so countries; few go voluntarily onto effective diets (see the Rudd/Garnaut carbon trading travesty - boo! Hiss!) The US and Aus compete for the worst per capita CO2 pollution, China may be a competitor for the worst polluting country. Whatever; since none of them or any others are likely to effectively reduce CO2 pollution to sustainable rates on their own, they all should be put onto a (forced!) diet.

Australia is a 'strange' case, it is both a heavy CO2 polluter and an important exporter of coal, the most important CO2 source, after which comes oil. Q: What will happen, after all the coal/oil is exhausted - in both senses of the word? A: When it's gone, it's over; both the burning and the earning. It only makes sense to string both out as long as possible, and in any case, the digging-up (or pumping-out) *must* be reduced to at or below the sustainable CO2 carrying capacity of our atmosphere - which we *absolutely need to do* - or we'll all die, taking most the world's worthwhile life with us.

Fazit: that's the diet I'm talking about; stop diggin' it all up, or pumpin' it all out. One could call this "Phil's supply-side save-the-planet solution." Of course, big-oil and the miners won't like it - but stuff them - before they stuff the world.

Save the planet! (Or we'll lose our liveable environment - idiots.)

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PS Big-oil and the coal miners must go the way of the dinosaurs, whose remains they violate. But not just them, (mainly) US capitalism has morphed into a grotesque cancer on the planet. Sillinesses such as privatisation, deregulation and globalisation et al. have failed; here's an article that partly explains:

August 29, 2008
An Interview with Michael Hudson
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy
By MIKE WHITNEY

  «MW: Economist Henry Liu said in his article "Dollar hegemony enables the US to own indirectly but essentially the entire global economy by requiring its wealth to be denominated in fiat dollars that the US can print at will with little in the way of monetary penalties.....World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars of uncertain exchange value and zero intrinsic value, and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy at "market prices" quoted in dollars." Is Liu overstating the case or have the Federal Reserve and western banking elites really figured out how to maintain imperial control over the global economy simply by ensuring that most energy, commodities, and manufactured goods are denominated in dollars? If that's the case, then it would seem that the actual "face-value" of the dollar does not matter as much as long as it continues to be used in the purchase of commodities. Is this right?

Michael Hudson: Henry Liu and I have been discussing this for many years now. We are in full agreement. The paragraph you quote is quite right. His Asia Times articles provide a running analysis of dollar hegemony.»

My comment: The US prints $s, and the world chokes on the US deficit - just as our ecosphere is choking on excess CO2. There's more, but one needn't to take my word for it - the evidence of the US failure is all around and especially anywhere it 'dumps' its steel-jacketed, depleted-uranium encased HE. Bastards! Then: Why should we allow the world to be run by lying, cheating crooks - and murderers?