A Green society would be much healthier - our current lifestyle is damaging both people and the environment. But obesity is not like climate change!!

Government Ministers do say some weird things at times. Labour's Health Secretary Alan Johnson has for instance said recently that obesity is a "potential crisis on the scale of climate change". Now, certainly obesity is a big and (literally) growing problem as recent reports show and its not just in the UK. I'm not underestimating the issue. However, I really dont get the comparison with climate change and have heard commentators on the radio today who share my sentiments. The two issues are so different as to make the comparison pretty meaningless. In both quantitative and qualitative term obesity and climate change are not in fact alike!!

There are links between the obesity and climate issues though. We drive too much, overeat and eat unbalanced, low fruit/veg, high meat diets. Its a feature of affluence it seems. Our current environmentally damaging approach to food and transport is also damaging people. A Green society would be healthier because the quality of food, air, water and the general environment would be much, much better. The opportunities for exercise would be better as open spaces would be protected properly. Walking and cycling would be much safer and far more extensively facilitated. So who says that going Green to tackle climate change involves only sacrifices??