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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Fat Ass America The American Dream and Earth's Ecosystems Fade as Land of Plenty

Dr. Glen Barry/Earth Meanders

In a world of extreme depredation and looming ecological collapse,
it is obscene that nearly two thirds of Americans are obese. The land of plenty has become the land of excess, as shown by America's

fat asses, at great cost to the health of individuals and the Earth. If humanity has become a disease upon the Earth, then Americans are the most virulent strain. What an ignorant, fundamentalist, greedy and selfish bunch we have become.

The unprecedented obesity epidemic sweeping America says much about the country and its values. Obesity is part genetic and part personal behavior – but it is also societal. This essay examines what the obesity epidemic says about America's culture and values. Widespread obesity shows the vacuous, damaging effects of consumption as a way of life.

From the very beginning let me say that along with the vast majority of Americans I am overweight. I certainly carry the obesity gene, and have seen those around me fight with weight for all their lives. There are a variety of reasons why people are obese, and the only solution is to eat less and be more active. But this essay is less concerned with individual weight loss and just what it means when a whole society undergoes an obesity pandemic.

America's obesity weighs heavily upon the Earth
– and illustrates the vast global inequities in wealth. Agriculture has transformed for the worst terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, and despite 40% of the world's land already being under agricultural management, the strain continues to grow.

The global population is poised to soar from 6 billion to 9 billion in less than a lifetime. Around 800 million humans are starving, and about 2 billion are malnourished, while 3 billion survive on two dollars a day. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, even as agriculture continues to destroy forests, other natural habitats and the climatic system.

It is criminal that this obscene suffering and misery occurs against the backdrop of America's conspicuous consumption and widespread eating to death. We are all passengers on spaceship Earth. Why should a relative few be living it up in first class while many of the rest live in abject squalor? What does it say about the first class passengers when they just keep on getting fatter? Recently at a dinner club, nearly all of the over one hundred adults in attendance were extremely overweight. They and all of their little fat kids are killing the Earth.

Americans routinely choose weight loss diets that involve stuffing themselves with beef – amongst the most ecologically damaging food on the Planet. Water aquifers – to raise beef and other water and energy intensive foods – are running dry. And the search is on for the easy weight loss fix – a diet pill that allows you to eat gluttonously but lose weight. Americans are as unwilling to give up their stuffed feeling to lose weight as they are to trim their energy and resource use to achieve a more sustainable, equitable and just world.

Americans do not know the meaning of enough, using 25% of the world's energy with about 4% of its population. Not only do most Americans get their identity from material items, while trying to keep up with their neighbors; but now Americans have become ornery and sullen, caring primarily about defending their extreme affluence from the have nots, while achieving ever more material wealth. America's faithful piously pray for peace as long as it does not mean they have to share with the rest of the world.

America is at the peak of its wealth with the most affluent citizenry ever in human history. Yet if any progress is going to be made in addressing the World's looming ecological crises which threaten global ecological collapse, America's super-sized lifestyles and bellies are going to have to be cut. I believe that the obesity pandemic is an allegory for an American society and economy whose power has in fact peaked and is in rapid decline – a society that is weak and flatulent and rotten to its core.

America used to stand for something besides super-sized consumption. It is true America was founded upon injustice and inequity such as slavery and militarism,
and has never to this day quite lived up to its rhetoric. But clearly liberal democracy with all its contradictions and shortcomings is overwhelmingly better than dictatorships of the left or right. And there was always a sense that freedom and liberty were expanding rather than constricting. But now that is all changing.

American civil liberties are eroding, our leaders advocate torture, they unilaterally invade countries under false pretexts, and all our insatiable appetites are eroding the global environment, limiting development options for future generations. And as the American dream is embraced worldwide, humanity is entering a global nightmare. Over-consumption fuels the gathering climate, water, land and ocean catastrophes.

What shall America do with its still substantial power and wealth? Strike about doing whatever is necessary for maintenance of its wasteful lifestyle? At the point of a gun, Americans take what they want. We feel we have a birthright to gluttonously consume Arabian oil. Or will we use our substantial assets to invest in maintaining the Earth – while fully realizing excellence in art, music, science, sport and other human truths and sources of knowledge?

Americans must engage with the world's problems, for example no longer shirking our responsibility to lower carbon emissions because a poor villager in Bangladesh is not doing so.

Many Americans think their drives from their manicured homes and lawns, to their air conditioned offices, to their coifed shopping malls is reality. Most Americans do not have a fucking idea from where their food, water and air comes; what is required for their maintenance, nor the expense to the Earth of meeting their
energy and consumption habits. Maybe Americans that are comfortable to the point of stupor can give up a bit of their gristle so the world's people can meet their basic needs.

This is NOT communism, it is post-capitalism, where markets are expected to serve all and consumption does not kill. Does America want to be remembered as the country whose values destroyed the climate and the Earth, heralding in an era of wanton suffering and pain from which there is no respite? What are the solutions for obesity and an unsustainable society? Losing weight and moving towards a more sustainable lifestyle is going to take more than fad diets and techno green fixes.

The cure to affluenza is voluntary simplicity. By living more simply you can stop needlessly killing yourself and the Earth. Being fat does not mean you are not nice or do not have value as a person. But there is more to life than comfort, and you have succumbed to the hyber-abundance around you. Get your fat ass out of your car, emerging from your air conditioned room sized SUV to reenter the world of nature.

Eat organic rather than processed food, walk and find meaning in your life from more than eating and other consumption. Step outside yourself. Look at the World of which you are part. Believe in something bigger and more important than yourself, such as the Earth. Consume less and live more, realizing that having more things does not make a meaningful life, and in fact is destroying humanity's habitat.

If you are outraged over being called a fat ass American, you miss the point. I am overweight because I do not like to cook and drink too much beer.

So I feel bad writing this, knowing personally that weight loss is a life long battle. In fact, I am dieting right now with some success. But the truth is Americans must fight the battle of the bulge because our heft is not only killing ourselves, it is also slaying the Earth. America is going to be damned for all of history if it does not embrace ecological sustainability. It is time for us to get off our fat asses, overthrow the wholly business owned government, and embrace the journey to make America just, equitable and sustainable.

You can start by putting down that hamburger before it kills you and going outside for a walk.