
To Fight Global Warming We Must Tax All Recreational Exercise - getp
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/to-fight-global-warming-we-must-tax-all-recreational-exercise/
======
mattmaroon
"There are about 300 million Americans who consume about 1,500 calories per
day."

Fail. When surveyed, the average American claims to eat around 2,000 calories
a day, and studies have shown that people greatly underestimate that. Also,
over 3,800 food calories per person disappear daily. Even if you consider that
much of it is waste, the average number of calories eaten per day is well
above 2,500.

Guess who just read "In Defense of Food"?

~~~
gojomo
We'd better tax leftovers, too.

~~~
eru
Not if they are left in the fridge. An air-tight fridge to be sure.

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ardit33
it is a very blog entry, from the creator of Freakonomics. There is no real
study, no real data, and wikipedia is quoted.

Not worth the read, insubstantial and borderline trollish. Disapointing
comming from somebody like him.

~~~
jcl
Of course, he's trolling in response to similar behavior from the authors of
the Lancet article.

The authors propose solving a health problem with economics, giving climate
change as a motivation. Levitt is pointing out climate change is a poor
motivation for what they are trying to accomplish, and, if you follow their
reasoning to its logical conclusion, it will actually encourage worse health
problems.

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xirium
I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm
damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street. -- Neil
Armstrong

~~~
edw519
Maybe he shoulda done the math.

Using his logic, if exercising increases you pulse rate from 70 to 140 beats
per minute for 30 minutes per day and decreases your pulse rate from 70 to 60
beats per minute the other 23 1/2 hours per day, how much longer would you
live after 50 years of this?

~~~
xirium
Neil Armstrong could be right. He may be referring to Kleiber's law (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law> ) and the Metabolic theory of
ecology ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology> ).
Apparently, "for most organisms, the average # of heartbeats in a lifetime is
equivalent. Elephant ~ 30 beats/min. Shrew ~ 1,000 beats/min" (
<http://members.cruzio.com/~zdino/psychology/ecology.htm> ). "The size of
these hearts differs enormously, but over the course of each species’
lifetime, they appear to beat the same number of times - approximately 1
billion" (
[http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/paste...](http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/pastexhibitionsandevents/heart/WTD027771.htm)
).

~~~
Agathos
I think edw519's point flew past you. Here it comes again:

A resting athlete's heart rate is lower than a resting couch potato's heart
rate. What does that mean in the context of what you just posted?

~~~
helveticaman
_I think edw519's point flew past you. Here it comes again:_

Kinda mean.

~~~
Agathos
Yeah, I've been grading exams the last two days. It's hard to be diplomatic
after a while.

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gojomo
Also, for the next Earth Hour [1], we should consider the first minute to be
'Earth Minute', and all hold our breaths in the dark against global warming.

[1] <http://www.earthhour.org/>

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Antiglobalism
Very good. How do we solve the overpopulation problem, which is the root cause
to global warming?

