CDC Considers Anti-Car Campaign

The CDC is considering a public ad campaign that would promote the “co-benefits” of fending off global warming, obesity, and related illnesses through regular exercise—which would require ditching the car for at least half hour a day.

Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, told the AP that “A simple intervention like walking to school is a climate change intervention, an obesity intervention, a diabetes intervention, a safety intervention.” The far-reaching benefits of such a small lifestyle change, he said, are “the sweet spot.”

Not so sweet is that both climate change and obesity are on the rise—and are taking more lives than ever. The World Health Organization estimates that in the year 2000, alone, 160,000 people died from malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and drownings from floods — diseases and disasters that experts conclude are exacerbated by global warming. Scientists and public health officials predict that these problems will only escalate as our greenhouse gas emissions and waistlines expand.

Meanwhile, over sixty percent of the American population is overweight, a number that’s been climbing steadily since the 1960’s. Over the last twenty years, childhood obesity in the United States has more than tripled.

Dr. Jonathan Patz, president of the International Association for Ecology and Health, called the CDC’s prospective promotion “the greatest public health opportunity that we’ve had in a century.”

The bottom line, say Patz and Frumkin, “is getting people out of the car.” Walking or biking instead of driving, they report, will reduce greenhouse gases and the rate of obesity, as well as diminish smog, deaths from car accidents, osteoporosis, and depression.