Fat chance for Cancún
Authors: Ian Roberts
Journal: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2011)

In November, the world's weariest bureaucrats wound their way to Cancun, Mexico where they attempted and failed to draft a treaty aimed at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that will prevent generational genocide.1 What a pity the meeting had not been held in Pakistan. Then the ire of those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the biblical floods that have washed away the prosperity hopes of an impoverished nation would surely have focused the delegates' minds. Or else the meeting might have been held in Western Russia, where record high temperatures, wildfires, droughts and crop failures precipitated a state of emergency. Or even in Mozambique, where rapidly rising wheat prices caused rioting and death in the streets. All of these climatic events and their predictable human aftermath occurred this year. All are made more probable by climate change, the main cause of which is the hydrocarbon bonfire that keeps the wealthy world driving, eating and shopping.

But perhaps Cancun was not such a bad choice. After all, Mexico is second only to the USA as regards the prevalence of obesity.2 One-third of the Mexican population is obese. If the delegates at the climate conference thought that fatness and climate change are unrelated, they would be wrong. The planet is getting hotter and its people are getting fatter and fossil fuel energy use is the cause of both.3 A pulse of concentrated sunlight, better known as petroleum, released from the ground only as recently as the last century has propelled the entire human body weight distribution upwards, like an under-sea earthquake sends a tsunami towards the shore.3 When burned in the engine of a motor vehicle, this chemical energy becomes the lethal kinetic energy that bullies people from the streets and into their cars, unleashing the vicious circle of increasing motorization and declining physical activity. And as human movement is swept away, this wave of fossil fuel energy leaves behind a flotsam of nutrition free calories that is ever more easily accessible by car.3

In Mexican towns and cities this torrent of energy has decimated physical activity. Road death and injury is the second leading cause of healthy life years lost in Mexico. Unchecked car use has conspired with rapid urbanization and topology to make Mexico City one of the most polluted in the world.4 One-fifth of commuters spend more than two hours per day in gridlock on the journey to and from work.4 And with physical activity at an all-time low, the food and drinks industry has pounced on Mexicans like a pack of profit hungry dogs. Turning empty calories into corporate profit must have been child's play in a country that elected a former head of Coca Cola Mexico to lead them as President. As fossil fuel energy morphed into body fat, average blood sugar has increased and Mexicans are now paying for their sedentary food fest with a super-sized increase in diabetes mortality. Population fattening and diabetes has also caused an epidemic of chronic kidney disease, in a country where only one in four can expect to receive treatment.

But if we put to one side the health and wellbeing of Mexicans and the future of the planet, we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that Mexico is playing its proper role in the world economic order by providing cheap energy and cheap labour for its northern neighbor. Oil and cars are the leading US import items from Mexico, although the extent to which the cars can be considered to be imported is open to question. In search of lower wages, US auto firms have simply moved their manufacturing plants to Mexico. Assembling vehicles in the USA where workers have fought for decent pay and healthcare provision is not nearly as profitable. The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement was accompanied by a huge increase in cross-border truck travel. The profits are repatriated, the social and environmental costs of transport are externalized and the captains of industry trumpet the benefits of global trade while world leaders wring their hands about the terrible sacrifices that we have to make to tackle climate change.3

But who will suffer as a result of de-carbonization? Car makers and oil companies will surely take a hit. Of the 10 most powerful corporations in the world, eight are oil companies or car makers. These companies have everything to lose from taking fossil fuel energy out of the streets and they have responded predictably by denying that man-made climate change is real. Their tactics are crude but effective. Money and misinformation are used to sow doubt. They sprinkle cash on the public relations industry which funds fake citizen's groups to disseminate climate change denial propaganda that at first sight appears independent of the oil industry. Lazy hacks then lap it up and then feed the public with lies.

It is time to question the idea that mitigation means austerity. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions need not entail coldness and darkness and hunger and toil. Yes, burning oil has delivered some freedoms but it has robbed us of many. It is as though we are seated on the lap of the oil industry sucking from its black nipple being told how much weaning will hurt. There is increasing scientific evidence that the de-carbonization of transport could bring a world with less hunger, less war, and towns and cities that respect human dignity. We would be healthier, fitter and leaner, engaged in socially useful work that does not poison the planet.5–9 Our future depends on who wins in this battle of ideas but right now fossil fuel industry propaganda has the upper hand. After all, were it not for the confusion provided by their relentless drizzle of lies, the oil and car companies could never have created such a colourful rainbow of delusion from a brutal machine and barrel of oil.